Artists Wow Seattle!

The four Israeli artists have had busy schedule in Seattle.  Three arrived on Friday, Feb. 10th at 10 a.m.  By 11:30 they were at Seattle Hebrew Academy for lunch and to work with the 6th through 8th graders.

 Vered and Ada overseeing work:

 Vered advising.

 Three-dimentional Magen David:

 Stars within a bigger star--work in progress.

 Rivy Kletenik, Principal of SHA, and Korin Gorin, artist scheduler from the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle:

The SHA students had a wonderful time working with art and gave the 3 women thank-you gifts from their school.

 They 8th graders will be traveling to Israel in the spring with a stopover in our region.  They had Shabbat dinners with their two host families and friends.  Vered is staying with a dear friend Ron whom she has known since her childhood. 

Saturday afternoon, three of the women met with almost 70 teens at a NFTY leadership conference in Tacoma. One group made a large mandala picture together.

 Others under Sara's guidance made hamsas.

That night, over 30 adults throughout Seattle came to Congregation Beth  Shalom and learned to draw Mandala style.   One participant said that she had not had so much fun in synagogue in years! Vered modeling:

 

Sunday morning, after picking up Yehudit from the airport, Dina and Renee drove the women to Tacoma for a day visiting the Tacoma Glass Museum.   The interim director gave the group a private tour, and they had a fabulous time. Below are Sara and Ada by an outside glass sculpture.

 A glass artist at work.

AT 5:30 they met with an older group of the local Israeli Scouts in Bellevue.

From 7:30 to 9:30, the four women met with almost 30 local Jewish artists at Lorna and Dave Isenberg's home.  Here are the notes that came from their branstorming of ways to stay connected:

Cultural exchange:

  o Take ideas from the NW to Israel

  o How does the Israeli artist experience influence Seattle Jews?

  Artists in search of a curator
 oTheme needed – ie. subject matter, medium
  o Who can be a curator?
  o Work on a theme

Have exhibitions in each city and online

Sending a piece of work between the two communities (Seattle and Hof Ashkelon)
   o Collaborate on pieces through this means
   o Complete a piece of work together and have it move between the cities

  Set up virtual communities – ie. Facebook, Skype, ect.

  Look at the links between Seattle and Israel

  Have “logical” collaborations
    oArtists who use the same/similar mediums working together

Monday was a very full day, with the women beginning at 8 a.m., teaching 6th and 8th graders from the Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle. 

Afterwards, they drive to see the spectacular Snoqualmie Falls, then toured downtown Seattle and saw such places as Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, and the Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park.

At 5 p.m. , they had dinner with the Federation's Israel and Overseas Committee.  Then from 6 to 9 p.m. they held a work shop on teaching art to local Jewish educators. The evening began with an art project where the teachers were taught about the Magen David in history and symbolism and then expressed their creativity with it by drawing pictures.  The artists and teachers then discussed how to bring art into their classrooms and keep the children engaged.

Tuesday, February 14th, they started the day at 9 at the Northwest Yeshiva High School.  AT noon, they had a "lunch and Learn" session with Jewish Federation staff following boy a similar program at 1 with Jewish Family Service staff. The Federation Staff heard about the artists' work and their lives in Hof Ashkelon.  They staff members participated in making hamsa key chains and getting to know the artists on a personal level. 
From 2:30 until 5 p.m., the 4 women had a private tour of the Seattle Art Museum Gauguin exhibit which ws an incredible treat for them.  Because they were on a private tour, they were able to ask many questions.  They spent about two hours, walking through the exhibit and discussing the details of Gauguin's life.

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In the evening two artists met with 20 students at Hillel, ages 21 and up, from JConnect while the other two met with teens at from Temple B'nai Torah and Temple De Hirsch Sinai to create art for Shabbat through the senses.

Of course, the next morning, they headed to the airport early for their flight back home!

A Phoenix 10-year-old gets school supplies for Kiryat Malachi in lieu of birthday gifts

Most ten-year-olds enjoy having a birthday party and getting gifts from family and friends.  But a special young man in Phoenix had other ideas.  Evan T., his parents, and 7-year-old sister were supposed to go on a trip with his local Jewish Federation to Israel in late spring.  However, the trip got postponed until next year. 

Evan had been excited about going to Israel since he was in kindegarten, so of course he was disappointed when the trip got postponed,  but he still thought about Israel..  If he could not go this year, something from him would definitely go.

He decided that instead of birthday gifts, he would ask friends and family to bring school and craft supplies to be used at a school in Kiryat Malachi, one of our Israeli partnership communities.

Since his birthday is in the July after school gets out, he had an early party.  He asked everyone to bring school/art supplies for one of the elementary school in our partnership region.  He will be entering 5th grade in the fall. He attends one of the Jewish Day Schools here in Phoenix, with his 7 1/2 year old sister Sarah. He loves to draw, write stories, and build with LEGOs.

A number of people got him the supplies he asked for:  crayons, markers, colored pencils, scissors, drawing paper, coloring books, beads, yarn, etc.    Some donated money, and he went shopping with his family to get more supplies. 


In June, he met Dalia Burgana, the co-chair of TIPS, and Shalom Eldar, another lay leader of the TIPS steering committee, both from Kiryat Malachi.  He gave them a duffle-ful of items to take.

  Because of baggage limitation, they were brought to Israel by Dina Tanners, the other co-chair of TIPS, from Seattle, and delivered to the HaAchim school in early July.  HaAchim was the first elementary school to open in Kiryat Malachi, and together with the city just celebrated its 60th anniversary.

sign at school:  60 years of Achim school in Kiryat Malachi

  Ofra Yishaya, the principal of the school, was delighted to receive the gifts and would be in contact with Evan. 

2 shelves stuffed with donations from Evan

And when Evan comes to Israel, hopefully next year in late spring, he can visit HaAchim school and meet some of the children there.

So what do you thing--Do other children in Tucson, Phoenix or Seattle in 5th or 6th grade  (or other grades) like Evan's idea?  What would they like to do to help and connect with our partnership communities of Hof Ashkelon and Kiryat Malachi?  Children are very creative.  I am sure they can come up with wonderful ideas!

Maybe Evan will be the first elementary school student with a creative idea to help strengthen the connection between kids in the US and Israel TIPS communities.

Counselors from Kiryat Malachi and Hof Ashkelon--US Shabbat experiences

On Saturday, August 8th, counselors from Hof Ashkelon and Kiryat Malachi working at the Stroum JCC on Mercer Island, were invited as guests to the Herzl Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation Shabbat services. Nancy Height Morse, one of the host parents for the counselors, read Torah, and the counselors were briefly introduced and told a bit about themselves and their experineces. The counselors are in the US for six weeks to add Jewish and Israeli content to the JCC camp.

Adapted from the OC Register in Orange County:
On Saturday, Aug. 1, two special guests spoke following an instrumental Shabbat Service at Temple Beth Emet in Anaheim.
The guests are Youth Ambassadors in the United States as part of an America-Israel Friendship League program. The mission of the AIFL is to strengthen the ties between the people of the United States and Israel; bridging distances to reveal the beauty, the humanity and the modern democratic values that define both nations.
Safir Shalev lives on Moshav Geha in the Ashketon Coast Region near Kiryat Malachi, and is in the 11th grade at the Shikma School in Yad Mordechai. She has been active as a counselor in the Bnai Moshavim Youth Movement.
Noy Sujaz is from Kiryat Malachi and is in the 11th grade at the Amal High School. Noy is active in the Kiryat Malachi Youth Council. She volunteers in the Tzeva after-school tutoring program with elementary school children.
The Instrumental Shabbat, which begins at 10 a.m., is a special recurring feature of worship at Beth Emet. It is part of the Temple's commitment to explore and expand the spiritual nature of traditional Jewish worship. The congregation invites everyone to the Kiddush and to visit with our speakers following services.

TIPS Trip Boosts Morale, Programs

TIPS Trip Boosts Morale, Programs
Report from the Field
by Ken Miller

When the conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip escalated and hundreds of missiles and mortars began landing in southern Israel it became very tentative whether we would be able to hold our annual meeting for the TIPS (Tucson, Israel, Phoenix and Seattle) Partnership 2000 in Israel. A number of the members, including me and fellow Tucsonian Ken Brandis, felt it important to travel to our partnership region of Kiryat Malachi and Hof Ashkelon in Israel to show our solidarity. with Israel and with our friends and co-workers. In the week before our January 29 departure, the military situation de-escalated enough for our Israeli associates to agree that we could.

Our first night in Israel, the eight USA TIPS representatives joined some 30 of our Israeli counterparts for an informal dinner. One Israeli member, who resides in a community bordering Gaza that has been shelled for years, stated how moved she was that Americans had come to the region at this time. Knowing the impact our trip had on Israeli morale was enough to make the annual meeting a success - even if we did nothing more during our visit.

We stayed in a hotel in Ashkelon, Israel’s largest city in the south and an area often targeted by Hamas. I was just about to get into the shower when the missile attack siren sounded. A missile landed not too far from the hotel. Luckily no one was injured from this attack but the attack brought home the reality of what our friends and Israel were experiencing. I am a US Air Force veteran and was in Israel during the wars in 1973 and in 2006 but others were seeing for the first time what war was like.

Our meetings focused on TIPS efforts empowering youth, developing young adult programs, establishing educational opportunities at all levels, addressing the needs of the poorer communities and helping to address psychological counseling for children growing up in a war zone. During the current crisis, emergency funding helped transport children and teens out of the war zone into areas where they could experience less stress. In quite a few of the communities in the Hof Ashkelon region, bomb shelters were the only place where the children could safely gather. Tucson raised money for the emergency purchase of heaters to equip the shelters for extended periods.

Seeing the immediate changes in the lives of the children, youth and older citizens in the region evokes much more than a satisfying feeling. Each time we visit, we see how effective the TIPS Partnership 2000 organization truly is - and how much more we can still accomplish.

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NOTE: The above is a piece Ken Miller wrote for the Arizona Jewish Post and the blog, about the trip and meeting for the TIPS Partnership in February.

Facebook has links to all Ken Miller's photos from this annual meeting with the 2nd Art City, Festival B'shekel and last year's 2008 Annual Meeting which has the 1st Art City.

To see Ken Miller's photos: please add the "TIPS Partnership 2000" to your Facebook groups, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55003201630#/group.php?gid=55003201630

The photo albums are listed as links you can click on, which puts you into Ken's photo album section under Ken's Facebook page. You can see the photos by adding Ken's name to your friends list. The url to Ken's page is http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=658607391&ref=name#/profile.php?id=658607391&ref=name or you can find Ken's name in the search as "Ken Miller" location of Tucson.

The Nov 2008 Mission in HOF ASHKELON

Here are pictures from the Phoenix and Tucson visit to Hof Ashkelon and Kiryat Malachi on November 11. Over 70 Americans came for half a day to visit with their Israeli partners, learn about the progress of their programs, and even dedicate a few new projects.

Rachel Barkai, Israel TIPS chair, welcomes Americans

People from the communities got to see where some of their supplemental and regular overseas funds went. Greetings were given by Itai Zeidenberg, Revital Lavy, Yair Farjoun - head of the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, Dvora Attal, Yaffa Cohen, and Rachel Barkai.

Plaques were unveiled at the Hof Ashkelon White Room, the Emergency Night Health Clinic in Kiryat Malachi, and at the Science Center - all recipients of supplemental funding from different TIPS communities. The municipalities gave gifts to some of the major donors of supplemental projects - Herschel and Jill Rosenzweig, Phyllis Maizlish, Diane and Ron Weintraub.

Phyliss Maizlish and daughters view their gift of the White Room

Revital Lavy explains about the Family Treatment Center

Yair Farjoun, Head of Hof Ashkelon Municipal Council, expresses his feeling of connection to TIPS

Yair thanks Phyliss Maizlish for her contribution to the region

Yair thanks Jill and Herschel Rosenzweig for their contributions

Yair Farjoun, receiving the Phoenix plaque

Yair Farjoun, Head of Hof Ashkelon Municipal Council, welcoming the Tucson Delegation

The Tucson Delegation appreciating the words of Yair Farjoun

JCC Day Camp in Seattle

This past summer, 2 teens from Hof Ashkelon and 2 from Kiryat Malachi, together with their chaperone Tal Rozen from Moshav Gea, enthusiastically added great Israel content to the JCC Day Camp in Seattle.

Tal and Campers playing Food Bingo

In addition to their regular daily time with campers, they organized a special afternoon ISRAELAND with 11 booths representing different places in Israel that the campers rotated through.

Yuval teaching a camper to milk a kibbutz cow

Livnat teaching about the kotel/Temple Western Wall before campers wrote messages for it

They also led an hour-long "hoog" on different topics about Israeli Monday through Thursday for five weeks. For more details about their involvement, go to http://www.dinaisrael.blogspot.com/

(Posted by Dina Tanners - Seattle)

The Maslans from Seattle Make a Difference

The Maslans

During July, 2007, Carol and Rabbi Bob Maslan of Seattle visited Kiryat Malachi and Hof Ashkelon for a day. Both are members and Carol is on the staff of Herzl Ner-Tamid synagogue, a conservative synagogue in the Seattle area, which has raised funds during its high holiday appeal in recent years for over and above projects in the region.

The Maslans visited the Senior Day Center in Kiryat Malachi and were very touched by the reception they received. They asked if there was a smaller need at the center that their Havurah might be able to help support.

Herzl Morad, head of the Senior Day Center, told them of the need to renovate the "beauty" salon, so the Maslans came back to Seattle and raised over $4500 for the project. The money arrived in Israel in late summer, and we hope the renovations can begin soon!

Herzl with the beautician and Carol Maslan

(Posted by Dina Tanners - Seattle)

Introduction to the Partnership

TIPS is one of more than 45 partnerships developed by the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), to help world Jewish communities connect to Israel as partners working together and not in the traditional donor-recipient relationship. The Jewish Federations of Tucson, Phoenix, and Seattle form the TIPS partnership, which works with Kiryat Malachi and the rural region of Hof Ashkelon. Several Jewish Federations in California also have a relationship with those two areas through the Western Region Network.

Kiryat Malachi is an immigrant town of about 23,000 people, located an hour’s drive from both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Today more than 25% of the town is from Ethiopia. Hof Ashkelon is a rural district of stretching from just north of the Gaza Strip to south of Ashdod with 13,500 residents in 19 moshavim and kibbutzim and a “temporary” town of Gaza émigrés. The communities closest to Gaza have often been targets of mortars, missiles, and even land attacks.

The Israeli and American members of the joint steering committee decided in 2006 to place the emphasis of their core budget funds on teenagers in order to change the image of the region and to instill in them a pride for their home communities. The teens themselves created the programs that are now being implemented, which include a first ever regional sports league, a performing arts program in cooperation with the national “happening” - Festival B'Shekel, youth leadership regional clubs, leadership taught through sports, and teen work groups renovating public areas.

The remaining 1/3 of the budget is for exchanges and interaction of people in the 3 US and 2 Israeli communities. Programs include a joint teen trip for the summer of 2009, teen counselor exchanges, an apartment in Kiryat Malachi for Americans volunteering in the town, school e-mail exchanges and visits, and an art contest and a calendar featuring the winning entries.P2K is not just a list of wonderful projects.

We work together to help promote the values of volunteerism, accountability, empowerment, cooperation, and mutuality, as well as the creation of lifelong friendships. Members of our communities are invited to participate.

For more information, contact Adam Tennen in Phoenix (480 634 4900 x 1102), Moshe Babel-Pour in Tucson (520-299-3000 x191), and Dina Tanners in Seattle (tanners47@yahoo.com).