The MetroWest Rishonim — from left, Tal Meguira, Naama Cohen, and Aviv Nahon — are completing a year of service here before entering the Israeli army.
Photos by Johanna Ginsberg
July 17, 2008
Standing before children at boker tov at Camp Deeny Riback in Flanders one recent morning, Naama Cohen, Tal Meguira, and Aviv Nahon shouted the Hebrew word of the day and led the children in a cheer.
All three 19-year-olds have been on a mission since last August: bringing Israel to MetroWest. It is their shanat sherut, an optional year of service before entering the Israeli army. They have chosen to spend it here in Morris and Essex counties — they are the sixth group of “Rishonim” working with the community under the auspices of the Legow Family Israel Program Center of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, and by all accounts, they have brought a new level of enthusiasm for Israel with them.
Now they are beginning to look back over their year as they prepare to return home — all three are from MetroWest partnership towns — at the end of the summer.
Between them, they lived with eight local families, worked in three Jewish day schools, created ongoing programming at six synagogues and one day camp, and made one-time visits to a variety of public and private high schools.
For the children they touched, they became celebrities. “When I see kids I work with, I feel like a superstar,” said Meguira of Ofakim. “I’m driving in my car and they see me — ‘Oooh, it’s Tal!’ I feel like Michael Jordan,” he said. But he knows that means he’s done his job. “The most important thing is that now they know someone in Israel. Every time they talk about Israel, they know someone in Israel named Tal who lives in Ofakim.”
The goal of the Rishonim program is to bring Israel to the local community and deepen the connection between New Jersey and Israel. This happens in institutional settings and through individual relationships. This is particularly evident with the host families, whom youth shaliah Yaacov Friedberg calls “the backbone of the program.”
Most Rishonim stay with three families during the course of the year. “One of the great experiences of this year is that you have six more parents who care about you…,” said Nahon of Rishon Letzion. If they sometimes miss their own families back home, they all have managed to form close bonds, gaining new “siblings” and “parents” along the way.
Cohen, who comes from Ra’anana, formed such strong bonds with her second host family, she stayed with them through the rest of the summer.
Now, as her host sisters, one from each family, are in Israel, they are visiting with her family there. “It’s just amazing the bond you create with them,” she said. “It’s a real family.”
The hosts have similar feelings. At the beginning, Jackie Soslow of Randolph, second host mother to Cohen, was “cautiously optimistic” — but only until she met her guest. “She lights up a room when she comes in. She can get down and dirty with a two-year-old and have a mature conversation with adults, and everything in between.” She raves about the experience now, not only because of Cohen’s personality but also because of how she has changed their perspective.
“She really brings Israel into our daily lives,” said Soslow.
Cohen leaves notes on the fridge with words in English and Hebrew; she spices up telephone conversations with Hebrew words like tov (good), b’seder (okay), and mah nishma? (what’s up?). She has introduced the family to her favorite Israeli foods, like shakshuka (an egg and tomato sauce dish) and a puree of white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots.
Her family, Soslow said, is now more aware of local Israel-centered events. “We’ve gone to Israel at 60 celebrations, Yom Ha’atzmaut events, and Israeli dinners.”
For Soslow, the personal interactions really clinched the experience. She watched her two daughters gain a new sister; and her parents have embraced Cohen as another granddaughter. Soslow said, she has gained not only a daughter but a friend. “We’d stay up very late talking and chatting and hanging out. In addition to being a daughter, she was a contemporary and a companion.”
At their assigned institutions, the three Rishonim — “firsts” in Hebrew — created all kinds of programming, from human backgammon, to a day in the life of an average Israeli, to an Israeli chug, or workshop, at Deeny Riback that “the campers are signing up for in droves,” according to Jewish programming director Sharon Nessel.
An Israel “touring” program Nahon created at one of the synagogues he worked with turned out to be a highlight of his year, he said. He created different stations so kids could visit different parts of Israel, complete with a map of Israel and “passports.” “It was really great,” he said. “I involved all the kids and the teachers. It was a great feeling to create something that wasn’t there before. They were all really busy, and at the end, you could see they really appreciated ‘traveling’ all over Israel.”
Coming up with a range of different programs was one of the challenges the three Israelis faced. “We have to be creative all the time. Some ideas come like that, in one second, but some take five hours of sitting, opening books, using the experience we each bring, working together,” Meguira said. They also seek help, Nahon said, from a closet in the IPC offices on the Aidekman campus in Whippany, where previous Rishonim have left all sorts of books and ideas for creative programming.
In the schools
It’s the fifth year that some of the schools in the area have been hosting the Rishonim visitors.
The Rishonim greet campers with “boker tov” — “good morning” — at JCC MetroWest’s Camp Deeny Riback in Flanders.
But at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston this past school year, said assistant principal Rabbi Nachum Wachtel, Cohen “was super-fantastic and really reached new heights. She was unique in that she viewed it as her responsibility to participate in students’ activities that had nothing to do with her programs. She went to their Humash plays, their siddur plays — she made it her business to be part of their lives.”
And the students became part of the Israelis’ lives. “I had the best experience,” said Cohen. “Every day I couldn’t wait to come to the school. The kids were amazing.
“When I would come to the school, the kids would jump and hug me; this you really remember.”
All three have come with plenty of experience gained in the Israeli Scouts. Meguira has been to this community twice before, once with a delegation from Ofakim and once with the Scouts, and he has started what he calls “a love affair with the MetroWest Jewish community.”
None will quickly forget the year that started, as Cohen put it “at a barbecue at someone’s house where we saw our first fireflies.”
One of the things they each said they would take back with them to Israel was a deepened understanding of the different streams of Judaism in the United States, something they don’t really have at home — although Reform and Conservative Judaism each has a presence in Israel, both still have only a minimal influence on a culture that emphasizes either Orthodoxy or secularism.
“Before we came here, we went to a Reform synagogue in Jerusalem. I tried to understand, but until I came here, I didn’t really understand what it means,” said Nahon.
Cohen, who grew up in the Masorti movement in Israel, said she hopes to bring back the lessons of the diversity she saw.
“No matter what stream people were in, they love their Jewish identity. It taught me a lot about how I want to raise my kids — I want them to be open-minded.”
While Meguira said the experience made him feel “more Jewish,” Nahon acknowledged that the relationships he formed were the most important part of his stay. Oh, and the treats. “I will miss Dunkin’ Donuts!” he declared with a smile.
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