In the cozy American town of Tarrytown (57 km from the center of New York), a real surge of Jewish life took place from November 5 to 9. It was here that representatives of fifty-three community centers (according to the international rules of abbreviation, these structures are designated as "JCC" - Jewish Community Center) from fifteen countries of the world gathered to establish close partnerships and implement bold cultural or social projects. All this took place under the leadership of the JCC Global organization, which celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its founding during the conference. Among the participants of the conference were delegates from our community - Igor Ratushny and Vyacheslav Nagnybida.
New York became the third city in four years that our delegations visited as part of cooperation with JCC Global and the Amitim 1.0 project. This was preceded by conferences in Budapest (2014) and Jerusalem (2015), where the foundations of good partnership were laid. As a result, the successful project “L`Allience Teen Project”, in which three teenagers from our community participated, along with youth from Israel, the United States of America and France. In addition to the project, our community was enriched by the invaluable experience of foreign partners, our people visited similar community centers in different countries of the world, compared the goals and objectives of work and shared problems. As it turns out, they are completely different for each JCC and our community was sometimes able to give effective advice to foreign partners.
You can learn more about the conference in Tarrytown by following this link to the journalist's article. CATHRYN J. PRINCE.
This year, a new project has already begun - "Amitim 2.0". It involves a larger number of participants from different countries of the world. Representatives of the Khmelnytskyi region now played the role of not only participants, but also mentors for new members of the gathering from the CIS countries. Our delegates shared the experience of the previous project, introduced them to the intricacies of the partnership process and advised newcomers on how to better communicate with potential partners. It is nice that our role was also highly appreciated by the conference organizers.
As a result, new projects in the worldwide JCC Global system and new partnerships for our community. In 2018, our partners will be members of the community center from the city of Netanya, Israel. Potential partners from Chile and the United States of America are also expected to join the project.
In addition to the painstaking work of establishing contacts, the participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the life of American Jewish communities and mark important dates. Thus, on November 7, the fortieth anniversary of the founding of JCC Global was celebrated at the office of the Jewish Federation, honoring the family of the organization's founders and recalling the history and achievements of the past years.
You can visit the main JCC Global website at this link.
External relations are extremely important for our community, as has been repeatedly emphasized by the Chairman of the Board of the Khmelnytsky Jewish Community and Director of the Hesed Besht Jewish Community Foundation, Igor Ratushny. Thanks to cooperation with JCC Global, this becomes possible and opens up many opportunities for cultural exchange with other Jewish communities around the world. We are sincerely grateful to JCC Global Executive Director Smadar Bar-Akiva, Program Director Noah Tal, Natasha Malka, and our good friends and mentors Jane Hellman and Menachem Ruviv for facilitating the participation of our community in the worldwide process of unifying Jewish Community Centers!
