Jeremy Avins (left) meeting with Dr. David Mendelsohn (seond left) in the International Department together with guests for the day Lynn Holstein, Clara Hirsch and Andre Boers

 

Four years ago Jeremy Avins, a native of San Francisco, spent a day at Givat Haviva participating in a seminar organized by the International Department.

At that time he was in Israel with a program known as the Diller Teen Fellows (DFT), founded by the Helen Diller Family Foundation.  The goal of DFT is to develop future generations of Jewish leaders who will be committed to the Jewish people, Israel and community service.

Originally set up in San Francisco, DFT is nowadays active in a number of cities across the United States and Canada, and has also inaugurated a twinning program with cities in Israel.

The seminar that Jeremy Avins participated in at Givat Haviva four years ago left a very deep impression on the young man and another of his peers, Marla Berger.  Upon their return to San Francisco they decided that their community project as part of the Diller Teen program would be to raise funds for the FACE TO FACE project in Givat Haviva.  FACE TO FACE brings thousands of Israeli Jewish and Arab teens together for encounter seminars on campus after working closely with them in their own schools before meeting up with 'the other' for encounters of a few days duration.

Jeremy and friends raised a sum of money which he had hoped to present personally to the program directors during a family visit to Israel.  However, the Second Lebanon War broke out whilst the family was touring Europe and so the donation was sent through other channels.

"It was very disappointing not to be able to come with my family at that time and am so happy to now have had the chance to visit and reconnect," said Jeremy recently after spending a day on campus, meeting with black American youth from the inner city of Baltimore on a seminar with Israeli peers organized by the International Department, and also meeting with a number of other guests visiting campus that day (the wife of the Canadian ambassador, Clara Hirsch and Lynn Holstein, director of external relations for the Steff Wertheimer company, ISCAR of Tefen, and Israeli businessman Andre Boers.

Jeremy told the guests of his experience at Givat Haviva four years ago and of the importance in remaining in contact with International Department staff over the interim period.  When staff member Lydia Aisenberg, the guests guide on campus for the day, spent a few weeks last year giving talks in the USA and Canada, Jeremy – a co-founder of the Jews & Muslim group at Yale University – arranged for her to speak about Givat Haviva's projects and Jewish-Arab relations in the Wadi Ara area to students at Yale.

In a few months Jeremy will be beginning his fourth and final year at Yale where he is studying Political Science and during his few weeks in Israel researching material for a paper to be entitled 'Voting Patterns in the Arab Community in Israel.'

A few weeks ago Givat Haviva hosted for the day Dr. Maha El-Taji Daghash, Post Doctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, Hebrew University who studied the influence of the extended family (hamula) on the voting patterns of the Arab communities in Israel, and now researching the relationship between the Israeli Arab community and the police force, with a main focus on community police.

A little bit of Givat Haviva networking brought Jeremy and Dr. Daghash together in Haifa.  "Meeting Maha was excellent and we will remain in contact of course," said Jeremy, whose list of people to meet in a very short time was very long indeed.

"The opportunity today to sit in on Dr. David Mendelsohn's workshop with the youth from Baltimore and to visit and hear more about the Givat Haviva activities in general has been very interesting and for sure I will continue to follow developments here from afar," concluded Jeremy following his rather packed day on campus.

 

Meeting with inner city youth from Baltimore at Givat Haviva

 

Text & Photos: Lydia Aisenberg