Passport to Israel

Issue of June 18, 2010/ 6 Tammuz 5770

By Malka Eisenberg

The Young Israel of North Woodmere has inaugurated a scholarship program to send its youngest members to Israel.

“We wanted to do something for the community rather than a kiddush,” explained shul President Stuart Katz who made the the pitch during the shul’s annual Shavout Yizkor appeal. “We wanted to have some impact on the community.”

He and his wife, Carol, came up with the idea. “We thought a long time about the impact of Israel on kids,” said Carol. “Not enough go.”

“Anything short of 100 percent is not enough,” added Stuart.

Over $15,000 was raised by the appeal.

During the appeal, Katz spoke about his own experiences with his family in Europe and the family’s upcoming Aliyah in August. He stressed how Israel strengthened commitment to Judaism and the need to make Israel available to a wider range of the Jewish community. He called on shul members to contribute to a scholarship fund, called Passport for Life. In the program’s inaugural year, Katz and his wife vowed to match any funds raised.

“It came as a surprise to me and to the community,” recalled Rabbi Yehuda Septimus, the rabbi of the shul. “It’s very impressive. It makes a tremendous amount of sense. Every community should be supporting its children to spend time, some kind of enrichment, in Israel.”

Rabbi Septimus also noted the Katz family had been very active in Israel-activism. The famly brought Bnei Akiva to North Woodmere and a chug aliyah to the Five Towns.

The Israel Scholarship Fund is available to full members of Young Israel of North Woodmere between the ages of 10 and 24 for participation in organized programs in Israel ranging from a three-week period to six months or more. The three levels are short, mid and long-term programs with different amounts available for each. The two parts of the fund are entitlement-based which are available to any member who fits the criteria; and need-based grants, which are dependent on financial need and requiring an application to be filled out by January of the year prior. Entitlement amounts to be distributed range from $250 to $1000, and the need-based distributions, given in addition to the entitlement amounts, range from $100 to $500. Funds will be paid directly to the programs to be attended.

Upon their return, awardees will be required to present some project, paper, talk, or art project to describe their experience. “When they come back and share their experiences, everybody is influenced,” Carol explained.

“The best way to do it was to create something that would be self-perpetuating, to set up something that would involve the entire community,” emphasized Stuart. “Ideally, we would love to see it happen in every shul in the Five Towns.”

“We each spent a year in Israel after high school,” Carol pointed out. “It’s a strong part of Jewish identity. We wanted to bring spending time in Israel to the forefront of the community. The tie is essential to both Israeli and American Jewry.”
“It breeds community leaders,” added Stuart.