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Israeli Hillel Students Help Rehabilitate War-Damaged Northern Communities
January 31, 2007Comments (0) | Add | E-mail this to a friend
 Israeli students engage in community service in northern Israel.
Ki HaAdam Eitz HaSadeh, a project to bring 250 Israeli college and university students to several northern communities damaged by last summer’s war, will launch on February 5, 2007. The project, launched by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, is sponsored by The Samuel Bronfman Foundation, will be led by Adam Bronfman, the foundation’s managing director.
“We are excited about helping Israeli students develop their own model for engaging in community service as part of their Jewish identity," said Bronfman. "We’ll begin in Kiryat Shemona, Haifa, and Ma’alot, which are still struggling with the aftermath of the summer war. It’s appropriate.”
“That we are launching in conjunction with Tu B’eshvat, the holiday of trees. The Hebrew name of the project -- Ki HaAdam Eitz HaSadeh -- translates in English as 'every person a tree,' with the idea that young people, like trees, need to be nurtured and developed to reach their full potential,” continued Bronfman.
The project’s aim is to nurture students’ individual Jewish identity as well as their dedication to ongoing community service projects that strengthen the communities they live in.
Ki HaAdam represents the first time that students from campuses across Israel will join together in a single coordinated project to perform tzedek (community service) for fellow Israelis in the north. Hillel students from Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University, Technion and several other schools will travel to northern Israel on their February academic break. Focusing on economically disadvantaged communities, they will work with local school children and adults to plant trees, clean up parks, and paint shelters, community centers and schools.
Yossie Goldman, director of Hillel Israel, said, “We are seeing a renaissance of Jewish student life in Israel as demonstrated by the tremendous response to the Ki HaAdam project. Israeli students are increasingly eager to explore their Jewish identity alongside other Hillel students in projects that have meaning and value for the broader community as well as for themselves.”
As follow-up to the project’s northern launch in February, The Samuel Bronfman Foundation and Hillel will provide grants for an additional 15 student-initiated Tzedek projects in students’ local communities.
“The idea,” said Dana Raucher, TSBF’s executive director, “is for students to take their experience up north and apply it in their home communities as a means of strengthening their Jewish identity, not only as individuals but as part of a larger community in which they can have a meaningful presence.”
Additional Stories:
Hillel Expanding its Horizons for Israeli College Students - JTA
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