FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 10, 2018
For more information, contact Miki Golod, Director of Israel Programs
212-366-1194 and office@ameinu.net.
Ameinu Announces New “Urban Kibbutz Social Change” Masa Israel Journey Program
Ameinu, in cooperation with Dror Israel, the largest urban kibbutz movement in Israel, is launching a new Israel program called Urban Kibbutz Social Change. The first cohort of the five month program will begin in February, 2019 and is recognized by Masa Israel Journey. Participants will live communally in Haifa, volunteer in a range of social action settings alongside their Israeli counterparts, study Hebrew and tour around Israel.
“The distancing of young American Jews from Israel is well documented and this program addresses that issue head on”, said Ameinu President Kenneth Bob. “By living and working side by side with progressive Israelis who are making a difference in their society, young liberal American Jews will experience Israel with all its challenges and complexities. This will help the participants develop their own connection to Israel and the people.”
Program highlights include:
Urban kibbutz living – An urban kibbutz is a community of different groups of young educators and activists living together in shared households. They function as a single financial unit, living ideals of equality and cooperation. Program participants will live in their own apartments and form their own temporary group within the larger urban kibbutz.
Volunteering – Options will include teaching English in a progressive high school run by the urban kibbutz members, working on the English version of a daily online newspaper which covers social, political and economic issues in Israel, running educational programs for English speaking visitors to the movement’s fruit orchards, and more.
Haifa – Participants will live in Haifa, one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in Israel. The city is a microcosm of all of Israel’s social issues: coexistence between Jews and Arabs; social and economic gaps; religious pluralism and more.
Hebrew study – Conversational Hebrew will be the focus of the special Ulpan program provided to participants.
Program and registration information available at: www.kibbutzprogramcenter.net
Or contact: Miki Golod, Director of Israel Programs
212-366-1194
About Ameinu:
Ameinu, the leading progressive Zionist membership organization in the United States, is dedicated to promoting a negotiated peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, and to social and economic justice for all in Israel and America.
Ameinu reinforces Jewish continuity through support for Habonim Dror, the Labor Zionist youth movement, and management of the Kibbutz Program Center which sends hundreds of young adults on unique Israel experiential journeys every year.
About Dror Israel:
Dror Israel is a pioneering educational movement whose mission is to effect meaningful, long-term educational and social change in Israeli society in order to promote solidarity, social activism, democracy and equality. Dror Israel aims to form the grassroots nucleus of an exemplary society in Israel based on the vision of the prophets of Israel and the founders of Zionism.
Dror Israel emphasizes participation from every sector of Israeli society, including Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, Arab Israelis, Druze and Bedouins, and middle class and working class communities. In the past decade, Dror Israel has established 16 educators’ kibbutzim in the social and geographic periphery of Israel. Currently there are 1,200 young adults ages 20-40 living in these kibbutzim, who work daily in the organization’s educational, cultural and social activities with over 100,000 children, teens and adults.
