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Friday August 11, 2006

Diller Teens bring Israeli friends to the Bay

by dan pine
staff writer

The hugs and kisses were supposed to happen in Israel.

But war dashed the best-laid plans of the 20 young local Jews who comprise this year’s Diller Teens. Their trip to Israel –– which included a rendezvous with teens from the youth leadership organization Manhigut Esreh –– was canceled last month. But after a flurry of calls and some speedy planning, the two groups are now holding a happy reunion in the Bay Area.

All of the Manhigut teens live in northern Israel, a region currently under attack from Hezbollah. In the weeks since the war began, many spent time in bomb shelters, others evacuated to safety in the south. All have been through the wringer and are glad to enjoy some fellowship with their American friends, whom they first met in the Bay Area last spring.

“We love each other like brothers and sisters,” says Klil Regev, 16, of her Diller Teen friends. “We are Jews. It bonded us really fast.”

The Diller Teens greeted their counterparts at SFO on Aug. 2. The next day both groups attended a news conference (which started out as a shmooze conference as the kids barreled into the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s board room). There, several Israeli teens spoke of their recent experiences.

“I can’t tell you how it feels when you have the most secure place in the world and you can’t stay there anymore,” said Regev of her Metula home. “That was the hardest thing. But I’m not going to stop my life because someone says so.”

“You hear everything, you feel everything,” added Metula native Ran Rayn of the rocket attacks. “I haven’t been home in 20 days. It’s not a good feeling.”

Arbel Prague from Kibbutz Dafna in the Upper Galilee said he and his family had grown accustomed to occasional rocket fire over the years, but nothing like this. “We sat outside and ate dinner,” he recalls of the first hours of the war. “Heavy bombs were falling. It was very weird.”

The groups have a busy local itinerary. They went river rafting near Camp Newman last weekend, and on Wednesday, Aug. 9 they collaborated on a benefit dinner to raise money for ELEM, an organization for northern Israeli youth in crisis. It was held at Kanbar Hall in the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

“At first I was devastated,” said Rachel Roston, 17, after her Diller Teen trip to Israel was canceled. “But so many good things have come out of it. We’ve been worrying about [the Manhigut teens], so it’s great to see them.”

Nicole Sasson-Miller, coordinator of the Diller Teens program, is particularly impressed with this year’s cohort, given what the teens went through. “They’re amazing,” she says. “They inspire me. All of our lives were turned upside-down, but we really pulled together as a community.”

The Diller Teen Fellows is a project of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, operated by the Bureau of Jewish Education and funded by the Helen Diller Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund. Manhigut Esreh (Hebrew for “Teen Leadership”) is a project of the Living Bridge program of JCF.

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