
Children:
Amichai Yisrael – 7
Roi Dor – 5
Shvut – 1.5
Tell us about the community you’re in:
The role is very fulfilling and also challenging. The community we’re in is not large and mostly older. The outreach work we do with students is extremely important, as is the place of emissaries – precisely because the Jewish world is far from most of them. There are no other emissaries here, so as a result, we are able to take part in several areas: youth, children, Israelis, Zionism, etc. Most of those who come to the synagogue are not Shabbat-observant, which further strengthens our involvement in the community. Next year we anticipate a cooperation with the Zionist Federation in addition to our regular work.
What did you receive from the Straus-Amiel Rabbinical Emissary Training Progam and the Claudia Cohen Women Educator Institute?
Support, accompaniment, tools, an understanding of the needs in different communities, and an understanding of our roles as shlichim.
What message would you like to impart regarding shlichut?
In the type of shlichut that we are on, on the one hand there is a lot of loneliness and we are, one might say, a “two-person enterprise”. There is no one here who is similar to us in any way, which is extremely challenging. On the other hand, the work we are doing is, we feel, truly sacred and extremely important, for example when a Jewish student sits down to eat a Shabbat meal for the first time, or students who remember the Shabbat they were hosted by us six months ago and still want to taste more and more.