Today we would like to share with the readers of our website the achievements that have become possible in recent years thanks to cooperation with the organization “JCC Global”. Everyone will agree that we live in a small city, even by Ukrainian standards. Our community members are territorially settled within a radius of one hundred kilometers around Khmelnytskyi. We maintain contact with the community through a network of Community Centers in the region and conduct many trips from the "Thiya" Community Center so that every Jew does not feel disconnected from the Jewish community.
Since 2012, our work has been inspired by new ideas and stimulus received from acquaintance with "JCC Global". Then the Chairman of the Board of the Municipality and the Director of the Hesed Besht CBF, Igor Ratushny, visited the conference in Budapest for the first time, where he established warm and friendly relations with many representatives of community centers around the world. Thanks to the coordination of "JCC Global" employees, a group of representatives of Israel, France, the United States of America and Ukraine was created as part of the Amitim 1.0 program to implement the international Jewish project.
It is very pleasant that the group immediately found a common language and determined the importance of joint activity in the direction of the development of Jewish youth. It is the new generation that has to create bridges between communities from different parts of the world, the foundation for which we lay with our activities. This is how the cultural and educational project "L`Alience" for teenagers of our community centers came about. It took us almost an hour to achieve the standards necessary for participation in this project: the teenagers actively studied English, took specially designed courses and lectures and, on a competitive basis, actually fought for the right to be part of the project group. We selected the best and, as a result, in December 2015, three of our teenagers flew to Israel for their first meeting. Six months later, the same group went on a second trip to New York. Now a trip to Paris to our French partners is planned.
It should be noted that the experience gained from this project is invaluable. Already during the first visit to Israel, we realized how different our ideas are about Jewish life in different countries and the realities that we learned during excursions, visits, and personal communication with each other. The main thing that justified the hopes is that everyone is united by the Jewish soul and the common desire to understand the culture of both our united people and the cultural features of each separate community.
We hope for the further promotion of the "L`Alience" project, because there is still a visit to the Paris community ahead and, of course, a visit to us. We are confident that our community will be no less interesting for teenagers from all over the world, as we have preserved the deep traditions of our ancestors, preserved the unique architecture of the Ashkinaz era, the analogues of which cannot be found anywhere else.
The project is, of course, an important part of our general activity. However, this is not the only thing that brings benefits to cooperation. Thanks to "JCC Global", many other perspectives have opened up before us, and most importantly - acquaintances who are now penetrating our community and improving it. We think that everyone who has at least once visited the "JCC Global" conferences will confirm that they are held at the highest level in terms of logistics and content. Starting in 2012, being impressed by what we saw in Budapest, we radically changed our approach to organizing events both within the community and in external work with other organizations. In accordance with the high Israeli and world standards in the organization of events, our community made a huge leap in Ukrainian society, which did not go unnoticed. This made it possible for our people to feel involved in a single Jewish space, to feel pride in their organization. Both in Khmelnytskyi and on the outskirts of the region, we began to be noticed, they began to reach out to us and consult us.
Individual tools that were used in the work of the Amitim 1.0 program were also not left without attention. For example, during the conference in Jerusalem in 2015, a huge arch was erected by the participants as a symbol of unity. This instrument also found application in our community.
"JCC Global" is precisely the organization that unites Jews from different countries of the world in a single cultural and communication network. Our community is very grateful to the organization for the opportunities that open up thanks to our cooperation. This is similar to one of the sayings of Confucius: "If you want to help a starving person, don't give him a fish - give him a fishing rod and teach him to fish." "JCC Global" provides wide opportunities to all participants from Community Centers of different countries, but "how many fish we catch" depends on us.
We sincerely hope that the Amitim 2.0 program will open up even more opportunities for the development of cooperation between Community Centers. We are all part of one single nation, but each community is so individual that getting to know it is an exciting and incredible adventure. We sincerely thank Smadar Bar-Akiva (Smadar Bar-Akiva, Executive Director) and Anna Michelle (Anna Michel, Program Director) for help, support and continuation of the noble mission of "JCC Global"!
