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Echad al Echad Informational Meeting
Wednesday, October 28th from 7:00-8:30pm in the Chapel

We will hear about the impact our exchange program, Echad al Echad, has had here in Oak Park and in Israel during our informational meeting, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., Wednesday October 28, in the chapel.

Gusti Braverman, the associate director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), will relate the importance that our award-winning program has had on the liberal Jewish religious movement; our sister congregation Ma’alot Tivon is part of that movement.

Teens who hosted Israeli students this summer will also share their experiences. Applications for teens interested in traveling to Israel in summer 2010 will also be available.

For more information, call Kathy Lewis at 708-848-8019.

 

ECHAD AL ECHAD
CREATING LASTING BONDS WITH ISRAEL

Echad al Echad (literally “One to One”) is our initiative designed to strengthen the bonds between Oak Park Temple and the Reform movement in Israel. Founded in 2007, Echad al Echad is a partnership between Oak Park and Kiryat Tivon, a town 20 miles east of Haifa and one of a few dozen communities in Israel with a Reform synagogue. That synagogue, Ma’alot Tivon, belongs to the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, the equivalent of the Reform movement in the United States. This partnership was coordinated through the Chicagoland/Great Lakes region of ARZA.

In the summer of 2007 eight teens visited us for two weeks. They lived in the homes of temple members with teens of the same age. The teens and their chaperones took in Chicago and the environs, attended a White Sox game, went to a Kallah at OSRUI and interacted with temple youth and adults alike. Nine Oak Park Temple teens then traveled to Israel in 2008 where they slept under the stars in the Negev Desert, toured through Israel and stayed with the families of the teens who visited the US the previous year. For two weeks this summer, 10 Israeli teens and two chaperones visited us and took in many similar experiences. We are in the planning stages of sending a second group of teens to Kiryat Tivon.
From the outset we hoped that these one-on-one connections between our congregation and Kiryat Tivon will lead to a deeper understanding and closeness with Israel. Over the past three years that hope has become true. Teens and adults on both sides of the Atlantic have found their bonds deepening with time: Israeli teens visiting the United States have returned to our community to see their American “families;” adults traveling through Israel have stopped in Kiryat Tivon to visit, worship and stay. One of our congregants took the step of becoming an International member of Ma’alot Tivon, an effort that further bolsters our bonds and strengthens the Reform movement in Israel.

Because of our leadership, Oak Park Temple has received the Roland Gittlesohn Award, given to congregations that have implemented extraordinary programs or initiatives related to Israel.