Over 2,000 Americans from all over the United States and Canada are now in Israel for a period from seven weeks to a year on various work and study projects conducted by the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Section of the Jewish Agency reported today. Of this group, several hundred will spend an entire year in Israel but the great majority are on summer programs of from seven to ten weeks in duration.
The largest group, over a thousand, are on programs sponsored by the American Zionist Youth Foundation and cooperating American Jewish organizations. 612 young men and women are in Israel as participants in the Israel Summer Institute Study program of the Foundation in cooperattion with Young Judaea, United Synagogue Youth, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, National Federation of Temple Youth, Mizrachi Hatzair, Jr. Hadassah, Hillel Foundation, and the Student Zionist Organization, as well as unaffiliated college students.
176 college students are enrolled in the Summer-in-Kibbutz program which provides for eight weeks of work in a kibbutz in Israel border settlements, and a two week tour of the country. In cooperation with the National Jewish Welfare Board, 36 Jewish Center directors, program directors and group workers are on a study tour designed to broaden their knowledge of Israel so that they can improve and increase the Israel content of their programming in Jewish community centers throughout America.
Another group of 28 regional youth directors of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization will visit Israel later this summer on a study-tour similarly designed to expand their knowledge of Israel and Jewish life and values in preparation for their work in the United States with Jewish youth. In cooperation with the Masada, 79 youths are spending the summer in a teenage camp in Israel.
For the first time this year, in cooperation with the 92nd Street YMHA in New York, a teenage service-study program is being sponsored in Beersheba. The participants are engaged in a program to aid in the integration of newly arrived immigrant children in Israel. For the second year, the American Zionist Youth Foundation is cooperating with the Bureau of Jewish Education in Los Angeles in a high school summer ulpan for third year students from Conservative and Reform Hebrew high schools. This group is spending two weeks in Israel on its study-work program.
EDUCATORS, PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL WORKERS ON SUMMER PROJECTS
The Summer Work Program of PATWA (Professional and Technical Workers Aliyah) Department, this year is made up of 54 young college students and graduates, of whom about half are girls. This group is spending ten weeks in Israel, six weeks on assignments in their specialized field of work and the other four weeks in travel and sightseeing. Their fields of study and work include biology, psychology, medicine, sociology, architecture, nursing, education, statistics, civil engineering, dentistry, and social work.
There are two tours for adult workers in the field of Jewish education. One, open to teachers, principals and educational directors, has attracted 32 educators in the Hebrew schools. The second is for workers in the field of adult education and it too has attracted 32 participants for a seven week trip. The Haim Greenberg Institute, which this year has an American enrollment of 39, begins a one year’s teacher-training course this summer.
The Agency’s Department of Education and Culture, in cooperation with various groups, has sent 492 individuals to Israel this summer. 126 thirteen year old youngsters are enrolled in the 1965 Bar Mitzvah Pilgrimage, a seven week tour that makes its headquarters at Alonei Yitzchak. The youngsters, all of whom are between thirteen and fourteen years of age, are touring Israel during which time they will participate in special ceremonies and receptions appropriate to the observance of the Bar Mitzvah year.
The Agency’s Torah Education and Culture Department has sent four groups to Israel this summer. Twenty-eight rabbis and educators are attending a one month summer seminar. Three other groups will spend a year in Israel. Fourteen Yeshiva students will study at Kerem B’Yavne, six college students will study at Machon Gold, and, in cooperation with Yavnah–the National Religious Jewish Students Association–ten college students will study at Merkaz Harav in Jerusalem.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
