Originally Posted on ejewishphilanthropy.com
By Jay Deitcher

Awardees include leaders at Young Judaea, Lehrhaus, ConnectEd, Hebrew Free Loan Society and Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

WASHINGTON — Solidifying a new tradition at this year’s Jewish Federations of North America annual General Assembly, Winnie Sandler Grinspoon, the president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation presented the Grinspoon Amber Awards to honor leaders in the Jewish community strengthening Jewish life.

The presentation took place during Tuesday’s plenary and the awardees include Adina Frydman, the CEO of Young Judaea Global; Avi Posen, vice president of ConnectEd and OpenDor Media; Rabbi David Rosenn, president and CEO of the Hebrew Free Loan Society; Rabbi Charlie Schwartz, founding director of Lehrhaus; and Nico Slobinsky, vice president of the Pacific Region at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

The awards were launched in November 2024, with the first class honored at last year’s GA. Each award recipient receives a $10,000 prize and chooses two other Jewish leaders who receive peer recognition grants of $2,500. The goal is to create a ripple effect, Sandler Grinspoon told eJewishPhilanthropy.

“More people’s work gets recognized,” Sandler Grinspoon said. “Not only the people, but their work gets recognized, which we think is a wonderful benefit here. And there are so many Jewish organizations and so much great work happening. Having more people lift up more people means that we get to touch and experience more of the Jewish community through one award.”

The goal Sandler Grinspoon said, is to be able to introduce attendees to important work and leaders. “The purpose of the award is to find people who are doing interesting things… [work] that this independent committee of voters looks at and says, ‘Wow, they are they are sharing Jewish values, leading with integrity,’” she said. “These are people who are seeing around the corner, building for tomorrow, doing something that is impacting the lives of lots of people. And these are people who can be working in any field and have chosen to devote their talents to the Jewish community.”

The award is “an amazing, amazing acknowledgement” of the work of the whole Lehrhaus team, Schwartz, who co-founded the kosher restaurant, bar and beit midrash alongside author Joshua Foer in 2023, told eJP. It recognizes “the hard work that our team does every night in service and teaching and reaching folks across the Jewish spectrum, whether they’re kosher keepers or people who are barely engaged in Jewish life and just coming in for an amazing drink and Jewish experience.”

During the awards ceremony, Sandler Grinspoon announced to the crowd that Lehrhaus would be opening a second location in Washington just north of Logan Circle.

Receiving the award is an honor, Rosenn, who also founded Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps and served as executive vice president of the the New Israel Fund before joining the Hebrew Free Loan Society in 2015, told eJP. “I feel like it’s an incredible privilege to serve the Jewish community and the world through the work that I’m doing, it is it’s its own reward, and at the same time, it’s very nice to be recognized for the work that you’re doing,” Rosenn said.

Under his leadership, the New York-based nonprofit increased its interest-free lending from $8.5 million to nearly $40 million. The past few years has seen the U.S. government slash social services leading to increased need, but the organization continues to have a 99% repayment rate.

The Hebrew Free Loan Society provides interest free loans to non-Jews as well, but also has a large audience of Russian immigrant Jews, Haredi Jews, Bukharian Jews, Syrian Jews and Upper-West side Jews who “worship at Zabar’s,” Rosenn quipped.

Interst-free loans are mentioned numerous times in the Torah, Rosenn said, referring to gemilut chasadim, which is also often translated to “bestowing of loving-kindness.”

“I went to rabbinical school because I wanted to work in organizations that would help the Jewish community translate our ideals and our values into action,” Rosenn said. “I never intended to be a congregational rabbi or a teacher in a school. I really wanted to do what I’m doing now, which is work in nonprofit organizations that help people do mitzvot.”

Slobinsky has dedicated over a decade to the Centre for Israel and Jewish
Affairs and supporting British Columbia’s Jews. He advocated to get the province to endorse the IHRA definition of antisemitism, provide mandatory Holocaust education and alocate $50 million for a new Jewish Community Centre.

“Jewish communal professionals do some of the most important work in our communities,” Slobinsky told eJP. “We work hand in hand with dedicated community volunteers to translate vision and plans into action, reality and outcomes that make the lives of people in the Jewish community better. We build institutions, support people and families, respond when our communities are under pressure and build relationships that make our communities stronger. In Canada, that also means building bridges beyond our own community and working with partners across faith, cultural and civic life. Recognizing Jewish professionals matters because it reminds us that this work matters and that the people who dedicate their careers to strengthening Jewish life deserve to be seen, valued and supported.”

Frydman, who led Young Judaea through the Covid-19 pandemic, told eJP that she loves having the opportunity to pay it forward to other leaders. “The two people that I nominated are people that are not in the limelight,” she said. “Their jobs are not super visible, but they have been working in this field for decades, and they’ve impacted hundreds of people.” Possibly thousands, she said.

A lot of the time it’s only the CEO’s who get the spotlight, Frydman said, acknowledging that the Amber Awards recipients are all heads of agencies. “The top people [are] the most visible, but there are many, many other people who have been in middle management or who have just been doing this work for a really long time. They’ve devoted their careers.”

Posen, who moved to Memphis two years ago, is paying it forward to two heads of local day schools. “I’m investing in my current local community,” he told eJP. “Jewish education has always been my thing and always will be my thing.” Open Door Media, formerly Jerusalem U, has expanded into podcasts, YouTube educational videos and social media contest as well as offering curriculum to over 600 schools and institutions outside the Jewish space.

“My father-in-law Harold Grinspoon has long believed that a strong and vibrant Jewish future depends on talented and inspired professionals,” Sandler Grinspoon said during the award ceremony. “He created the Grinspoon Amber Awards to celebrate people with the imagination to see what’s possible and the dedication to make it happen.”

On October 15th, 2026, approximately nearly 100 Young Judaea alumni gathered in Tel Aviv for an evening of friendship, meaningful conversation, and shared YJ traditions. Hosted at Nefesh B’Nefesh, the event brought together generations of Judaeans living in Israel to reconnect with old friends, make new connections, and celebrate their shared community.

The evening featured remarks from former National Mazkira and current Year Courser, Natalie Pittman, a panel discussion moderated by journalist and YJ alumna Miriam Herschlag, and a lively Young Judaea trivia game led by alumni Debbie and Julie. The event also featured a nostalgic sing along by the Old Judaean Band!

“Being at the Young Judaea Alumni event reminded me just how special the YJ community is,” shared Pittman. “There were Year Course alumni from up to 70 years ago singing and dancing to the same songs that my friends and I love, and I feel so lucky to be a part of YJ for life.”

For one of the event organizers Aaron Leitner, one of the most meaningful parts of the evening was watching alumni from different generations recognize former mentors, reconnect with friends, and discover unexpected connections through their shared YJ experiences.

“The whole room was a community that had a lot of common values and shared experiences,” reflected Leitner.

Even the opening schmooze session had a distinctly YJ feel, with a playlist of familiar Young Judaea songs playing in the background as alumni caught up over food and conversation.

The successful gathering also sparked renewed interest in the Young Judaea Alumni Network in Israel, with several attendees expressing interest in joining its steering committee. Looking ahead, the group is exploring future programs, including a film screening and discussion, holiday gatherings, and a possible celebration of Year Course’s 70th anniversary.

We look forward to bringing even more Young Judaea alumni in Israel together at future gatherings!

Interested in getting involved? Contact alumni@youngjudaea.org to connect and sign up to receive emails here

We’re thrilled to welcome Mai, Young Judaea’s new Central Shlicha! Mai recently arrived from Israel and has already hit the ground running, connecting with Judaeans and bringing her energy and passion to communities across the movement. We’re so excited to have her here and can’t wait for you to get to know her!

Hi everyone! I’m Mai Ozarko, and I’m so excited to be joining Young Judaea as the new Central Shlicha! I spent many years working in informal education through the Israeli Scouts, including two years as a community shlicha in Las Vegas, where I coordinated Shevet Pisga and managed the IAC Eitanim program. I’m also currently finishing my degree at Reichman University, where I had the opportunity to captain the university’s women’s soccer team and spend a year mentoring international students on campus.

A few fun things about me: I love my family, playing soccer, traveling, doing stand-up comedy, freediving, and practicing handstands (with varying levels of success). I’m especially excited to get to know Young Judaea from the inside—to meet the incredible people who make up the movement, learn its culture and spirit, and bring my own personality, perspective, and Israeli color to it. Most of all, I can’t wait to connect with the teens, learn from them, and create meaningful memories together!

At 17, I left home for Young Judaea Shalem with an extremely sophisticated plan for my future: go to Israel for a year, have an adventure, and figure out the rest later.

Over a decade later, I published a novel about a 22-year-old who gets on a one-way flight to South America with approximately the same strategy.

I spent 2013–2014 on Young Judaea Shalem, the Modern Orthodox track of Year Course. Israel was already a significant part of my life. My dad is American, my mom is Israeli, I grew up speaking Hebrew, and I had spent several years of my childhood living in Ra’anana. Returning at 17 was different. For the first time, I was beginning to build a life of my own.

During Shalem, I spent months living and volunteering on Kibbutz Yavne and in Jerusalem, traveling around the country, and participating in Marva, an IDF immersion program.

Shalem was my first real taste of the particular freedom that comes with being young, away from home, and surrounded by other people who are also figuring out who they are. When you live and travel together, friendships develop at warp speed. Someone you’ve known for three weeks can feel like an old friend, and ordinary experiences become stories you’ll tell for years.

I didn’t know it then, but that feeling would eventually become central to my debut novel, The Road to Us.

From Shalem to the tiyul gadol

After Shalem, I returned to New York for college. But Israel wasn’t finished with me just yet.

I moved back and served in the IDF’s International Relations Unit. When my service ended, I participated in an unofficial Israeli institution: the tiyul gadol.

Like countless Israelis before me, I packed a backpack and headed to South America.

There, I encountered an entire ecosystem thousands of miles from Israel that felt unmistakably Israeli.

Years later, I realized that for such a recognizable part of contemporary Israeli culture, I rarely saw the tiyul gadol represented in English-language fiction.

I decided to write the book I wanted to read.

Turning a familiar world into fiction

The Road to Us follows Sophia Jacobs, a Jewish New Yorker who joins her Israeli friend Camille on a backpacking trip through South America. When they link up with a few Israeli backpackers for a road trip through Patagonia, their journey takes an unexpected turn.

While the novel is fictional, I drew on my own travels to build the world surrounding the characters.

I knew the feeling of arriving somewhere with a backpack and no real idea what the next few weeks would look like. I knew the intensity of friendships formed while traveling and the Israeli backpacking culture I wanted to capture: the humor, Chabad dinners, hostel life, overnight buses, and sense that normal life had temporarily been put on hold.

At its heart, The Road to Us is about what happens when you leave the version of yourself everyone knows at home and discover who you might be somewhere else. Young Judaea Year Course was one of my first opportunities to experience that myself.

My own background also shaped the perspective from which I wrote the story. I’ve spent much of my life moving between American and Israeli culture: growing up in both countries, spending a gap year in Israel, serving in the IDF, and eventually backpacking with Israelis abroad. Sophia enters the novel largely from the American side of that equation, and the Israeli travelers she meets introduce her to another way of thinking about Jewish identity, adulthood, and home.

Over a decade later

When I think about my 17-year-old self arriving on Year Course in 2013, I certainly don’t think she expected the experience to become part of the creative DNA of a novel she’d publish more than a decade later.

We don’t always know which experiences are going to stay with us. It could be living on a kibbutz at 17, a deep friendship formed far from home, a conversation with someone you never see again, or a journey you don’t realize changed you until years later.

I hope The Road to Us captures some of that feeling.

There’s romance, backpacking mishaps, hostel nights, so much Hebrew, and the gorgeous landscapes of Patagonia. I wanted readers to feel, for a few hundred pages, as though they’d thrown on a backpack and joined the trip themselves.

Underneath the adventure, it’s a story about being young, stepping outside the life you know, and discovering how much the people you meet along the way can change you.

Young Judaea Shalem was one of the first times I discovered how much leaving home can change the way you see the world, and yourself.

Read The Road to Us

The Road to Us by Abby Adler is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Paperback: Read the Road to Us in Paperback
Kindle: Read The Road to Us on Kindle

For more book updates, behind-the-scenes writing content, travel, and book recommendations, follow @abbyadlerwrites on Instagram and Substack.

Three years. Who would have believed it?

I arrived in New York in September 2023, and from the very beginning, Young Judaea welcomed me with open arms. One month later, the world changed in ways none of us could have imagined, and so did the reality of my shlichut. Through three constantly changing years, we grew, brought countless programs and conventions to life, and created meaningful moments for hundreds of chanichim across the country. Along the way, Young Judaea became a home for me, too.

I had the privilege of being Young Judaea’s first shaliach in many years and helping plant the seeds of a new chapter for the movement. Now, it’s time to pass the responsibility into new, fresh hands. I’m so happy to welcome Mai, YJ’s new Central Shlicha, and wish her the very best as she builds on what we’ve achieved and plants plenty of seeds of her own! A huge thank you to our National Mazkirut and all of the incredible YJ teams, staff, and advisors I’ve had the privilege of working alongside. I’m incredibly proud of what we accomplished, but I know this is only the beginning.

Now, I’m packing up my home in New York and preparing to return to Israel. I’m incredibly happy to be going home, but I already miss it, including the little things, like Saturday night Havdallah and Rikkud. What can beat that?! Most of all, thank you to every person I met, worked with, learned from, and shared this journey with. The YJ journey is never really over, and I can now say for sure that I’m a Judaean for life. Until we meet again, in the U.S., Israel, or anywhere else around the globe.

Forever yours,

Amit

For Sharon Schoenfeld, Young Judaea has been more than a chapter in her life. It has been a thread running through nearly every stage of her personal and professional journey. Sharon joined Young Judaea at age 12 and went on to become involved in regional YJ, attending Tel Yehudah, serving on the National Mazkirut, going on Year Course, and working at Camp Sprout Lake. In the early 1990s, she became Young Judaea’s Education Director, an experience that helped shape her decision to make Aliyah in 1996.

Sharon lived in Israel for 11 years, working for Young Judaea for eight of them in roles ranging from summer programming to Merkaz Hamagshimim for young Judaea’s combination absorption and community center for young English speaking Olim.  Becoming fluent in Hebrew was an important goal and played a significant role in her professional and personal success. After returning to the United States, she continued her work with YJ, eventually serving as Director of U.S. Programs.

Today, Sharon has brought together many of the passions that first took root in Young Judaea: Hebrew, Israel, experiential education, and camp. Through her work with Kayitz Kef, Sharon helps Jewish camps create deeper, more intentional opportunities for campers to experience Hebrew as a living language.

Kayitz Kef was conceived of and supported by the Areivim Philanthropic Group under the leadership of Rabbi David Gedzelman, a Young Judaea parent. When Sharon joined the organization, the program was working with 12 camps. Today, Kayitz Kef supports Hebrew immersion programs and engagement programs at over 50 day and overnight camps across North America.  Including strong partnerships with CYJ Texas, Camp Judaea, CYJ Midwest, CYJ Sprout Lake, and Tel Yehudah. Sprout Brooklyn Day Camp has developed one of the strongest Hebrew immersion programs in the entire Kayitz Kef network.

“We really change the use of Hebrew at the camps from ‘word of the day’ to something a lot deeper,” Sharon said.

That can look different at every camp because Kayitz Kef begins with what is already there: the people, the places, and the times when Hebrew can naturally become part of camp life. Who are the Hebrew speakers? Where can Hebrew fit into activities and routines? When are the moments in the day when it can be used with real meaning and intention? From there, camps build Hebrew into sports, gardening, cooking, signage, songs, and everyday interactions. The goal is always bigger than vocabulary. It is about using Hebrew to deepen relationships and strengthen campers’ connection to Israel and Israelis.

Sharon’s journey is closely connected to her longtime mentor, Dr. Vardit Ringvald, a leading expert in Hebrew pedagogy and teacher training. Vardit first came to Tel Yehudah in 1972 as a 16-year-old tzofah and was asked to engage campers in Hebrew, an experience that helped shape her life’s work in Hebrew education. Ten summers later, Sharon was a camper there, beginning her own journey toward Israel and Hebrew. Vardit has guided her throughout her development as a Hebrew educator.

For Sharon, this work is deeply connected to Young Judaea’s Zionist mission. “If Young Judaea is a Zionist movement, and they are still bringing shlichim to camp and teaching kids about Israel, then Hebrew is a great way to create a bridge,” she said. “There’s no disconnecting Israel from the Hebrew language.”

Research has backed up what Sharon has seen firsthand. A 2022 study found that campers in Hebrew immersion programs ended the summer with stronger Hebrew skills, closer relationships with their counselors, and a stronger connection to Israel and Israelis.

Decades after her own first experiences in Young Judaea, Sharon is bringing her work back to the camps and movement that played such an important role in her own path. Through her work with Kayitz Kef, she is helping a new generation of campers experience Hebrew not just as something they learn, but as a living part of camp and Jewish culture.

The connection between Vardit’s summer at Tel Yehudah in 1972, Sharon’s experience there ten years later, and the work now taking place across Young Judaea camps and others demonstrates how Hebrew experiences at camp can shape lives, careers, relationships, and Jewish identity across generations.

Pictured Above:

TOP LEFT: Cooking Chug (in Hebrew) at CYJ Texas

TOP MIDDLE: Squeezing lemons for Israeli salad in the Sprout b’Ivrit program at Sprout Brooklyn

TOP RIGHT: Sharon’s second year as merakezet at Sprout Lake in 1987, she is on the bottom right

BOTTOM LEFT: Sprout Lake Kitchen

BOTTOM MIDDLE: Sharon on Year Course

Back in January, Rabbi Adam Drucker, Director of Education for Young Judaea Israel, traveled across the U.S. to reconnect with Year Course alumni on college campuses.

Over the course of the tour, Rabbi Adam visited five key campuses and engaged with more than 180 students, including over 100 Young Judaea program alumni. Gatherings took place at Binghamton University, UT Austin, Tulane University, Rutgers University, and the University of Miami.

Alumni enjoyed the opportunity to catch up and stay engaged with the Young Judaea community!

The YJ community recently lost our beloved colleague, teacher, and friend, Orit Segal, z”l. After a courageous battle with cancer, our community has lost an angel and a true source of light.

Orit’s professional legacy with Young Judaea Israel spanned nearly three decades, during which she was the source of magic and inspiration behind one of our core missions: teaching Hebrew.

She joined YJI in 1999 as a dedicated member of our Hebrew Studies faculty. In 2014, she was appointed Director of Ulpan, a leadership role she held until 2026.

As a professional, Orit was profoundly modest, yet her impact on our organization was immense. Under her direction, the Hebrew department was completely transformed. She championed teaching Hebrew not just as an academic subject, but as a living, breathing language. She created an Ulpan curriculum that was cutting-edge, engaging, fun, and deeply meaningful. Relentlessly driven to help every single student succeed, she extended her passion to personalized classes for advanced learners and proudly taught Arabic to those eager to expand their horizons. Beyond the classroom, she also served as the brilliant architect of our Yom Hazikaron program for many years, guiding our participants through moments of national remembrance with immense sensitivity and grace.

Thousands of Young Judaea participants have been touched by her leadership, her warmth, and the program she so masterfully built. The Hebrew program of Young Judaea is Orit’s creation, and her professional contributions are forever woven into the very fabric of our organization.

We extend our deepest condolences to her husband, Asaf, and her children, Maayan, Noam, and Avigail.

יהי זכרה ברוך

May her memory be a blessing

By Ayelet Medjuck-Bruckner, Year Course 2025-26

I hadn’t spent most of my time running to bomb shelters until a week ago, but five weeks of war has still changed everything. In February, I was volunteering with Magen David Adom as a certified first responder, riding in the back of ambulances in Tel Aviv, building a routine. When the war started, that stopped. No more shifts. No more normal schedule.

War isn’t just about sirens. It’s about learning how to adjust to a reality that keeps changing.

At the beginning of my gap year in Israel, I remember asking if there was a miklat in the bathroom. I meant miklachat–a shower. Everyone laughed. I didn’t really understand the difference then. Now I do. Now I know exactly where the nearest miklat is wherever I go. 

At around 8:30 in the morning on February 28th, I woke up to the sound of a siren. I had slept through the initial Home Front Command warning. Now our instructions were stark: “Enter the protected space. Time: one and a half minutes.”

“Is this real?” I asked my roommate.

We grabbed whatever we could and ran. Phone, water bottle, book. Our counselor was yelling, “This is serious– go, go!”

We squeezed into the shelter, everyone still in pajamas. I was fully awake. It felt like being slapped in the face and then forced to sprint.

Later, we were told to pack. Twenty minutes. One suitcase. “One week.”

I knew it wouldn’t be one week.

As I rolled my suitcase towards the chartered bus, people were sitting at cafes, walking their dogs, and talking with friends. It felt surreal. Almost like a joke–a group of American teenagers rushing through the streets of Tel Aviv with suitcases, while life around us looked completely normal. At first, I didn’t understand them. But after weeks of war I now see things differently. It’s the resilience that I’ve heard so much about and now I’m seeing it first-hand.

We were evacuated to Kibbutz Ketura near Eilat, a kibbutz that was founded decades ago by passionate members of our very own movement, Young Judaea. Not completely without sirens but far enough from the barrage. Far enough from our dorm near the Kiryah (IDF Headquarters) in Tel Aviv where nearby streets were blown up by a ballistic missile in the earliest days of the war. 

In Ketura we were safe and the people there welcomed us with open arms, plates of cookies, and sweet sticky dates. We unpacked, unsure how long we would stay. Days filled with random activities, meals together, volunteering in the kitchen, engaging with people in the special needs program, and filling sandbags for security. We were trying to create some kind of structure for our time there and also be useful. Life didn’t stop–it just looked different.

And somehow, a lot of it was funny. Not actually funny. But we laughed. We laughed when a friend ran to the safe room in a towel from the shower. We laughed at how absurd everything felt. Sometimes it was real laughter, and sometimes it felt like the only possible response. Laughter was the perfect release, helping us cope and make things feel normal.

We adapted quickly. Six people in a room because that’s what was available. Sharing clothes, especially for Shabbat. I lent out skirts and dresses to girls who hadn’t packed enough. We sat together when we were sad. We cried together. We hugged each other in silence. We celebrated when our friend committed to her college for next year and for birthdays we bought cakes and balloons from the kibbutz makolet (store). At night, we sat around bonfires, listening to music, talking, laughing. For a few hours, it could feel like nothing else existed. We forced each other to get out of bed, to go on walks, to move, to keep going. It wasn’t just about passing time. It was about taking care of each other.

Through everything, life kept happening in strange ways. I was in the gym in Eilat when a siren went off so I ran into a bomb shelter with a group of sweaty strangers. A few minutes later, I was having a conversation with a random girl who gave me her nail technician’s phone number. 

Life just… continued. 

On the kibbutz, I found meaningful ways to grow. I prayed every day. I led Kabbalat Shabbat for the entire kibbutz community. I leyned Torah for the first time since my Bat Mitzvah. And then I even leyned again the next week. It has felt incredible to step up in these ways and connect with my Judaism more deeply during this time. 

I met people I never would have met otherwise. I practiced fire spinning with someone on the kibbutz who lent me his spinning staff. I spent Shabbat afternoons talking with new people who quickly felt familiar. Several other overseas programs also spent time in Ketura during these weeks, so we all played a lot of Jewish geography and on Purim we came together to read and hear megillah.

In the middle of all of this, my grandfather passed away in New York–and it was impossible for me to fly home for his funeral. I had known this moment was coming, but hearing about it so far from home felt unreal. Everything stopped. My friends sat with me, hugged me, and didn’t try to fix anything. This togetherness got me through.

After that first week on the kibbutz, I realized I had to be proactive. It would have been easy to shut down, to feel stuck in the uncertainty of war. But I needed to take care of myself– physically, emotionally, mentally. Art helped with that. I painted for hours, sitting quietly with the mountains and trees. It gave me space to think, to process, to reconnect. I committed to spending more time moving my body and running loops of the perimeter of the kibbutz.

Now I’m thinking a lot about what my next few weeks will look like. We left Ketura and returned to Tel Aviv, despite the ongoing war. Now I am in the cycle of frequent sirens and shelters. Some of us dispersed to family and friends throughout Israel for Pesach, some of my friends figured out ways to go abroad to visit but hope to return to Israel as soon as possible. I almost didn’t get to Jerusalem for Seder when I was delayed by four sirens in two hours and a cancelled train. Throughout the country, Seder night was disrupted by countless sirens. Everyone is navigating uncertainty in real time.

I really hope my Magen David Adom internship starts up again soon. Most of all, I am eternally grateful for the tireless efforts of all Year Course staff. They have worked incredibly hard to keep us feeling safe and engaged with programming, obviously all year long but especially now – even as they juggle the complexities and challenges of war with their own families. All of their backup plans have backup plans, and that has really mattered lately.

This experience is exposing me to a reality I hadn’t fully understood before:

People who can’t just leave.

Families adjusting overnight, night after night.

Showers and sleep frequently interrupted by sirens.

Peers serving in the IDF.

People called up to the reserves. 

Lives put on hold–or completely changed. 

I came to Israel as someone choosing to be here for one year. That choice feels different now.

What is staying with me throughout this war isn’t the fear, or even the uncertainty.  It’s the way people show up for each other. 

The way friends become family.

The way strangers become familiar.

The way life continues, even while we are still figuring out how to make it all make sense.

The way public space and personal space are jumbled together. Because in Israel, especially in moments like this, being together isn’t optional.

It’s everything.

 HINEH MAH TOV UMA NAYIM– HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS WHEN WE SIT TOGETHER!

Written by several members of the 1964 YC shicva.

60 years(!) ago, 52 Young Judaeans left New York via 2 passenger liners — first to La Havre, France, and then from Marseille to Haifa. We arrived in Israel on October 7, 1964 and were the last Year Course to travel to Israel by boat.

On September 26-29, 2024,17 (33%) of us (and a few spouses) gathered in San Francisco for our 60th Reunion. Given our average age of 78 (40% are no longer living or have not been found), being together was extraordinary.  It wasn’t just because we came from both coasts, Israel and Italy, but much more because of the loving memories we had of the outstanding year we had spent together, the many friendships we formed then that have lasted a lifetime, and the lives that were changed because of our Year Course experience.

On Thursday evening, we began our reunion in a private room in the oldest Italian restaurant in San Francisco (located in the Hotel San Remo, which is ironically the namesake of our Jerusalem dormitory). The emotional hugs and joy we shared were tearful and moving.  Some of us hadn’t seen or been in contact with one another for 60 years.

On Friday, we ferried back and forth to Sausalito, reminiscing over the boat rides we had taken to Israel. Shabbat dinner was hosted by one of our chevra at a nearby home, and we made every moment we had together count.

On Saturday, we toured the Contemporary Jewish Museum, visited the Yerba Buena Gardens and Martin Luther King Memorial Fountains, and spent quality time renewing our friendships and sharing our individual histories.  That night, we had a catered dinner aboard the spectacularly renovated Historic Klamath “ferry” (permanently docked, adjacent to the SF Ferry Building). 

We viewed a kaleidoscope of photos and videos from over the years (on multiple screens), sang our favorite Year Course songs, and expressed our personal thoughts about the significant impact that Year Course made on our lives. We were welcomed by a video from YJ CEO Adina Frydman, and two of our chevra (YJ Board members) updated us on the activities and successes of Year Course and other YJ Israel-related programs.

When we said Shalom on Sunday morning, our hearts were full of love and appreciation for our Year Course and for each other. We are already planning the next reunion!  Forward, Together….