Home Away From Home

RNS Photo/Reuters

Since Israel declared its independence in 1948, members of the Philadelphia Jewish community have done more than travel there; they have experienced the country on missions sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and other Israel-centered organizations.

"I felt like I had come home," says Ande Adelman, Federation executive vice president, of her first mission, a Federation Family Mission she took with husband Jim and their two sons, 26 years ago.

Later, on a Campaign Chairs Mission, she visited a residential complex for the elderly, made possible by seed money provided by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which Federation helps support through its annual campaign.

Welcomed into an independent-living unit, Adelman said she felt like she was in her grandmother's home. "A photo of a bride, who looked like my grandmother, hung above the bed," she said."I felt her telling me: 'This is a good place. You have to work hard so there are places to take care of the old.'

"That moment became part of many of my fundraising presentations," she added.

When Paul Silberberg led a Federation mission of only 25 members in 1988 during the first intifada, Zonik Shaham, a retired military hero, a scholar-in-residence for United Jewish Communities missions and a close friend, said to him: "American Jews must not run away from what is happening in Israel. I want you to bring 1,000 people from Philadelphia next year."

So, with the help of co-chairs Edward Glickman and Carol Summers, bus captains and recruiters, Silberberg answered the challenge.

"My business partner, Mark Solomon, said I was 'nuts,' but he was behind me," said Silberberg. "Our private investment company, CMS, took on the mission's infrastructure, including phones, faxes and marketing."

Two jumbo El Al planes flew directly from Philadelphia to Israel with more than 900 people. Waiting on the tarmac were a band, a chorus of children and 20 buses that took them directly to Jerusalem, where they marched through the streets to the cheers of Israelis.

"People were hanging out the windows as we went by and stopping us in the streets to thank us," said Beth Reisboard, a bus captain in 1989, who co-chaired the 1994 Mission 1000 with Glickman, Matthew Kamens and Stuart Silver. That trip had 650 participants.

"Mission 1000 became a generic term for saying 'visiting is extremely important,' " explained Glickman. "It also became a prototype that other cities followed."

Each mission is tailored to the needs, interests and mission experience of participants, according to Beth Razin, manager of Federation's Center for Israel and Overseas' Philadelphia Israel Experience. In addition, PIE serves as a resource to anyone planning a personal or group trip, though it does not act as a travel agency.

Missions are key to raising funds for Israel, according to Cindy Smukler Dorani, co-chair of the center with Michael Coslov. "People can see how funds raised by Federation work," she said. "In November, I visited the Or Shalom House, a home to 13 abused children in Jerusalem purchased by Federation. I spoke with the kids and later said to a friend: 'This is what Federation does. This is what I care about.' "

Smukler Dorani's first Federation mission was with her family when she was 12. "It was life-altering and, right then, I said I was going to make a difference in Israel."

Philadelphians mill about before boarding planes to Israel as part of Mission 1000, which began as a support effort during the first intifada and had record attendance.

Leonard Barrack, chairman of Federation's board of trustees, went on his first journey to Israel on its Zachor Mission for young leadership in 1973. "I really wasn't involved before then," he says. Since then, he has been on 25 missions, chairing many of them.

"The value of young leadership missions is incalculable," said Barrack. "I would say that most of our leaders started that way."

He also pointed to studies, such as the "Jewish Population Study," that connects going on missions with Jewish identity and support for Israel.

Barrack's son, Jeff, is in Israel now, co-chairing Federation's Men's Cabinet Mission with David Reibstein and Daniel Eistenstadt. "We are renewing Philadelphia's great tradition of bringing the Cabinet on a regular basis," said Jeff Barrack. "We're going to bring the spirit back and invigorate young leadership."

Joseph Smukler, a former Federation board chair, has been to Israel 40 times.

"It is different for people who were born and raised without an Israel," he said. "For thousands of years, my ancestors prayed to return to Jerusalem. It didn't happen. I was the first in my family to be there."

For his wife, Connie Smukler, a leader in the Soviet Jewry Movement with her husband, and Philadelphians Lana and Bernie Dishler, meeting Jews from the former Soviet Union when they arrived in Israel was "an incredibly exciting part" of some of the missions.

For the past decade, an extra dimension has been added to missions through Partnership 2000, a joining of the Philadelphia Jewish community with Netivot/ Sedot Negev, two communities in the northern Negev.

"We are partners," said Bernie Dishler, acting Federation missions chair. "We communicate one-on-one and in groups. There is home hospitality. Different groups visit -- teens, social workers and teachers. It is about having a personal connection to Israelis."

When Renaissance Group member Michael Feist visited Netivot/Sedot Negev in 2005, he played with the kids at the Saligman Early Learning Center, a school for youngsters with learning disabilities, and helped out at an after-school program. "Doing this made all the dots connect," he said in a July 7, 2005 Jewish Exponent article. "I realized that this is what we're paying for."

On missions with Federation's Women's Philanthropy, members "form bonds with others who have similar priorities," said Susan Schwartz, co-chair of a mission to Turkey and Israel with Phyllis Finkelstein in April 2007.

"Experiences like Shabbat at the Western Wall, visiting a workshop for the elderly and shopping on Ben-Yehuda Street in Jerusalem drew us together," she said.

On a Family Mission this past December, sponsored by Federation's Kehillah of Lower Merion, Jeffrey Brotman, his wife Michele and their three children went to "extend their daughter religious learning into an Israel experience before her Bat Mitzvah," said her father.

That experience was the focus of their daughter Rachel's d'var Torah when she became a Bat Mitzvah on April 5 at Temple Beth Hillel/Beth El in Wynnewood. Referring to the weekly Torah Portion, Tazaria, Rachel told the congregation of "specific steps about how to treat those who were isolated," and spoke of her visit to the Kaiserman Family Ethiopian Culture Center in Netivot.

"As in Tazaria, a lot of the problems that people have in accepting the Ethiopians is because they are different," she said. "By helping them to learn the language and culture of Israel, we bring the Ethiopians in, rather than cast them out."

As such, Rachel donated a portion of her Bat Mitzvah gifts to the Kaiserman Center.

'Talk About Israel on Your Return'

Federation reaches out to the community at large to sponsor an interfaith mission through its Jewish Community Relations Council.

"We invite what we call 'opinion molders,' " said Burt Siegel, director of JCRC. "We ask two things of the group, before we leave: Go with your eyes and ears open, and talk about Israel on your return."

Senior Rabbi Robert S. Leib of Old York Road Temple-Beth Am in Abington leads a trip to Israel about every two years.

"The effects are profound," he says. "While some of the congregants may have been only minimally connected before the trip, they come back as different Jews. They see, they touch, and they feel Israel, and become involved in a different way. The journey radically transforms their sense of Jewish identity."

The Jewish National Fund and Israel Bonds count on missions to connect their members to the Jewish homeland, and the projects and programs they support.

JNF missions have taken Louise Dabrow to newly built villages in the Negev, to reservoirs and forests funded by the organization. "Israel is the only country," she says, "that has more trees than it did a century before."

On a mission with Israel Bonds, Andy Rubin, a national executive committee member, visited the Orot Rabin power plant in Hadera financed by the organization.

"Its size and scope make a tremendous impact," he says. "It supplies 40 percent of Israel's power."

As for future generations and their opportunities to travel to Israel, the Center for Israel and Overseas offers a savings plan called Passport to Israel. It's a partnership of Jewish families, Jewish schools and Federation to save money for a future stay in Israel. Parents can contribute to the program while students are in grades three though eight.

Main Line resident Leslie Molder has "passports" for her children, Avi, 13, and Lila, 8.

"We have to send the kids," she says. "If we don't do this for the next generation, who will?"