By Braden Hamelin
For the first time, the Kaiserman JCC in Wynnewood is welcoming Israeli shlichim — Niv, Einav and Shira — to the community.
Einav and Shira are recent high school grads and Niv is a young professional. The trio arrived in Philadelphia almost a month ago.
The program is part of an effort by the JCC to be a center for all things Israel and will work to give the community access to Israeli culture.
“Our plan is to become a hub for Israel program, culture, education and everything that is related to Israel, mainly to expand to strengthen the connection between Israel and the US Jewry,” said Rabbi Moriah SimonHazani, the chief programming officer at the JCC.
SimonHazani said that the shlichim were connected to the community through the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Einav and Shira are participating in this program for their gap year between school and military service; Niv will serve as senior shaliach for two years and came through an organization called RootOne that works on bringing Jewish teens to Israel.
“They are working in four different places. This is a community project with Perelman Jewish Day School, Adath Israel Synagogue, Har Zion Temple and RootOne and hopefully will impact all these communities just by being present and being able to relate to kids and teens and families who are part of these institutions and bring what we call bring some Israel flavor with them,” SimonHazani said.
SimonHazani said that the program is intended to give people a more personal connection to Israel through face-to-face meetings with Israelis and provide a better representation of the country and its inhabitants than what you can find in the media.
She added that she hopes the shlichim bring a bit of American culture back with them as well.
“In the last Federation survey from 2019, only 28% of people under the age of 40 responded that they have been to Israel. So the impact of connecting with Israel is very limited, and I hope by this, we can enhance it,” SimonHazani said.
She added that it’s important for community members to meet an interesting and complex person who is passionate about Israel as part of their identity, especially given the complexity of relationships with Israel in today’s climate.
SimonHazani said that Einav and Shira live with host families, making them totally embedded within the community, and that the shlichim program is highly competitive, meaning the Philadelphia community received the “best of the best.”
SimonHazani said that the JCC had heard of the success the shlichim program had across the world, with some communities hosting up to eight emissaries.
“It is very successful in other places. We were very excited to have this opportunity, together with JAFI and the other organziations to start this program here for the first time. We basically jumped on this opportunity. We said yes, we would love to start something like this, and we collaborated with other organizations to make it affordable and also to enlarge the impact around the community,” SimonHazani said.
She hopes that the ripple effect from this program is large and that the shlichim will be able to participate in a wide range of community events run by these organizations they work for to get connected to as many families as possible.
Niv said that he’s excited for the opportunity to be a resource for the community and build bridges that bring people closer to Israel.
“For those teens and parents who are not always super connected to Israel, I am keen to engage with them and to be an outlet for the questions, if they want to explore more and ask more questions. And that’s one of the main reasons I decided to do this transition in my life,” he said.
And having the Israelis here is even more important in the aftermath of Oct. 7, as they can give the community a more tangible connection to what happened and has been happening in the months since.
SimonHazani said that the shlichim are looking to be very involved around Oct. 7 commemoration events.
Despite the program starting just a few weeks ago, it’s something the JCC is looking to continue in the future, as SimonHazani said the impact of such a program doesn’t set in within a year.
“We want the next generation of American Jews not just to think about politics, but also to think about the people and the connection that we have with Israelis as brothers and sisters,” SimonHazani said.