lauded by BBYO, UK & IRELAND
Left: BBYO, UK & IRELAND, 70th ANNIVERSARY MAGAZINE ‘ME’ITANU, FROM US’ and right: former BBYO Education and Development officer, Michael Harris stops for a chat with Palestinian businessman in the village of Barta’a during a seminar for BBYO organized by the International Department of Givat Haviva
For many years Jewish youth movements have viewed a seminar at Givat Haviva as an important component of their movement organized summer Israel Tour. One of the most stalwart of the movements participating in seminars organized by the Givat Haviva International Department is BBYO and this past summer hundreds of North American, British and Irish members of the movement visited the campus and toured the Wadi Ara region with our experienced staff.
A peer-led Zionist and pluralist youth movement, BBYO, UK & IRELAND is open to all Jewish youth between the ages of 13-18 and based on the principles of brotherhood and charity. Originally founded in the USA 13 years beforehand, BBYO has been active in Britain for seven decades the first chapter opened in the northern city of Leeds. The movement nowadays boasts 8 thriving chapters throughout the UK and Ireland.
A recently published special 70th anniversary edition of the British movement journal Me’itanu contains a guest article from International Department lecturer and special tour guide Lydia Aisenberg. The article, first published in the UK’s Jewish Telegraph, deals with Jewish Israeli volunteers who assist in ferrying chronically sick Palestinian children from checkpoints to the hospitals treating them in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
A letter from Me’itanu editor Matthew Herman, a history student at Oxford University, sent with a copy of the magazine to Givat Haviva reads:
‘Dear Lydia.
Thank you for allowing us to include this article in Me’itanu. I’m really pleased to be able to enclose a copy of the finished journal for you.
You have spoken to many groups of BBYO tours and given them thought provoking tours of Givat Haviva and the area around the Green Line, helping them realize the reality of the situation for the Palestinians caught on both sides of the security fence. I hope that your article will make BBYO members think more about this and I also hope it will help them realize the good, non-political, work many Israelis are doing to foster co-existence.
Me’itanu is a brilliant demonstration of the way BBYO educates and inspires its members. Me’itanu’s articles not only demonstrate the effect BBYO ideologies and education have had on our bogrim, but it has the ability to have the same effect on a new generation of members.
B’Shalom,
Matt Herman.’
October, 2010
