July 17th finally arrived and after months of planning and fingers crossed that Covid would not interfere, four Charleston teens, joined seven other teens from the Southeast Consortium on a two-week trip to Israel.

Once on the ground, they were joined by Israel partners to share in the experience of learning and traveling together to see Israel in a unique experience.

Each American teen was hosted in an Israeli home in our Partnership Region of Hadera to have wonderful home hospitality and be immersed in Israeli life. They were joined by our Southeast Fellows- Jasmine Hubara (Charleston Native) and Benny Winklemann (Richmond.)

During the trip, they saw the sites of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Masada, the Dead Sea, and much more. They spent a significant amount of time in Charleston’s sister city of Hadera-Eiron while living with their host families.

While in the P2G region they also explored the North of Israel with day trips to the Golan and Haifa.

Participant Isaac Adelson noted, “In the summer of 2019, my family had the pleasure of hosting two Israeli boys fromthe Hadera-Eiron region as part of the Partnership 2gether program. It was a great experience and I knew then that I would want to go to Israel on this trip in the future.”

He continues, “I enjoyed so many parts of the trip. I especially enjoyed the fact that this program offered me the chance to stay in the home of a family in Israel. In fact, it happened to be the home of one of the boys who came to visit us in 2019.”

Check out a video the teens made to share their experience – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vm3cBG9mw0

This program is a unique summer experience in Israel for both American and Israeli teens. American teens travel to Israel and are hosted by Israeli families in the Hadera-Eiron Region.

The framework of this experience is a joint trip that includes traveling in Israel with an emphasis on home hospitality, getting to know the Hadera region and exposure to various places and projects in the country. The joint experience of discovering Israel together plants the seed for a connection to Israel, strengthens Jewish identity, and develops strong personal relations between the participants.

If you know of someone interested in this type of Israel travel program for Summer 2023, please contact Erin Boynton (ErinB@jewishcharleston.org) for more information.