Israel & Overseas: Partnership 2000

A Brief History of Partnership 2000
The Jewish Agency for Israel launched Partnership 2000 in 1995, together with United Jewish Appeal (now United Jewish Communities) and Keren Hayesod.
P2K offers Jewish communities in the United States and throughout the diaspora a chance to become directly involved in developing relationships with specific communities in Israel.
P2K differs from traditional project renewal "twinning" models where one side gave and the other received. Now, decision-making is a joint process. Diaspora communities are using their Partnership 2000 region as a vehicle for increasing Jewish awareness in the face of increasing indifference.
P2K thus serves as a framework for partnership in the truest sense of the word. P2K creates new avenues for "people-to-people" programs and reaches out to many who have not been approached by the organized Jewish community in the past.
P2K has been a great success in many communities, by galvanizing community interest in Israel, providing real relationships and partners with individual Israelis, and broadening the Federation's base as new affinity groups (teachers, doctors, businessmen, mental health workers, etc.) become involved in the partnership.

About our P2K partner: Kiryat Bialik
Kiryat Bialik is a suburb of nearby Haifa, the main Israeli port city on the Mediterranean Sea. Kiryat Bialik was founded by German-Jewish pioneers in 1934 and named after the Russian "poet laureate" -- Chaim Nachman Bialik.
Today, Kiryat Bialik is the largest resettler of Argentinean Jews in Israel. Kiryat Bialik's ORT school complex is the largest of its kind in Israel and features two junior high schools and one senior high school.
Well-developed educational and cultural resources in Kiryat Bialik afford a partnership based on mutual exchange of expertise.

Exchange Students
In the spring of 2003, Palm Beach County high school juniors and seniors shared the emotional March of the Living experience with their Partnership 2000 counterparts. During the two-week Holocaust-education trip, the local students visited Kiryat Bialik teens, stayed with host families and toured the Jewish state.
During 2004, students at the Donna Klein Jewish Academy High School on the North Campus of the Jewish Federation, and the Weinbaum Yeshiva High School on the grounds of Boca Raton Synagogue, e-mailed and teleconferenced with students at the ORT High School in Kiryat Bialik.
They finally put their "talk" into "action" when ORT students visited Boca Raton in December, stayed with host families and celebrated Hanukkah together. In the spring of 2005, local students visited Kiryat Bialk, to celebrate Purim with their new friends.


How the Professional Exchanges Work
Social Workers
Six social workers from Kiryat Bialik visited with their counterparts at Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service and JARC during the spring of 2004.
The delegation toured RRJFS and JARC facilities on the Federation's Siemens and North campuses, met with staff members and explored joint programs. In 2005 social workers from JFS went to Kiryat Bialik to continue the relationship created in 2004.
Law Enforcement Officers
During the summer of 2004, the commander of the Kiryat Bialik municipal police force and four members of his staff spent a week with the staff of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
The officers spent the week touring PBSO facilities, including the crime lab, firing range, training bureau, emergency response bureau and main jail. Highlights of the visit were a helicopter trip over Palm Beach County and a tour of the Intercoastal to review coastal security issues.
The participants took part in a ride-along with the SWAT team and observed the execution of search warrants.
In November, local PBSO officers will travel to Kiryat Bialik to participate in joint exercises and training.
Twenty teachers from local Jewish congregational and day schools, most of whom had never before been to Israel, participated in a once-in-a-lifetime experience in the Jewish state.
Joining with their counterparts in Kiryat Bialik, the teachers visited Biblical sites and toured historic locations, using the unique opportunity to enhance their teaching skills by gaining firsthand knowledge of Israel.
When the new school year started in August, the teachers began planning workshops to share the lessons they learned with their educational colleagues.
In June 2005, 10 local teachers traveled to Kiryat Bialik to attend workshops and seminars on how to incorporate G-d in their curriculum.

The P2K/AMHSI Connection
The Jewish Federation joined with the Alexander Muss Institute for Israel Education each summer to offer participants a unique experience during the summer semester of the Alexander Muss High School in Israel study-and-travel program.
The participants spend 10 days with their peers in Kiryat Bialik, learning what it's like to live and work in Israel.

Day Camp Counselors
Every summer, two local college-age young adults spend the summer in Kiryat Bialik, working at a local summer camp, teaching English to children.The day includes regular camp activities such as sports, games, arts & crafts, drama and field trips.
While interacting with the campers and their families, the local students learn more about life in Israel. They make personal connections and create lasting relationships.

Dance Troupe
In January 2005, the Kiryat Bialik teen Dance Troupe returned to our community after a two-year absence to help the Jewish Federation celebrate it's 25th anniversary.
The delegation included the mayor of Kiryat Bialik, Dr. Rafi Wertheim.

For more information about P2K
More programs are being developed to build upon this foundation and create a gesher chai or "living bridge" between Kiryat Bialik and south Palm Beach County. Interested in participating? Call the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County at 561-852-3100 or e-mail jcrc@bocafed.org

Partnership 2000 is a beneficiary of the Federation/UJA Annual Campaign. We partner with the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to raise funds on behalf of Jews in south Palm Beach County, Israel, Argentina, the former Soviet Union and more than 50 other regions around the world.