Ibim, Israel (special) -- Israel’s founding Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, had a dream.  It was the Negev.  He saw its vast open spaces as an Israeli version of Southern California.  Just add water and it could become a paradise. 

Making his final home in the Negev town of Sde Boker,  Ben-Gurion urged Israelis to help him build a new society in the Negev, well within Israel’s recognized pre-1967 borders.  But except for a few hearty souls, most people ignored him.  Those seeking comfort remained in such major population centers as Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.  Those imbued with a pioneering dream of reestablishing biblical Israel created new, often controversial settlements in the territories won from Jordan, Syria and Egypt in the 1967 war. 

However, since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the opening of the gates for the great Russian aliyah to Israel, Ben-Gurion’s dream is flourishing once again.  The Negev capital of Be’er Sheva has become, in Israeli terms, a big city.  And Ibim--located in the northern Negev very close to the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip--has been established as a student village, where high school and college-aged immigrants from the former Soviet Union can keep up their education while being acclimated to Israeli life. 

About 400 students, on a variety of programs, live in Ibim.  Pleasant quarters--in bungalows accommodating four students each--are located within a short walking distance of Sderot, the town built around the Pinchas Sapir College of the Negev. At the college, the students immerse themselves in Hebrew ulpan  programs, and additionally take Russian-language engineering courses so that they will not fall behind in their studies as they go about becoming Israelis. No doubt, the man for whom the college was named, former Israeli Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir, would have approved; he was lauded as the father of Israeli industry. 

Officials hope many of the students will make their homes in Sha’ar Hanegev, a wide circle of agricultural settlements, including 10 kibbutzim and one moshav, which surround Sderot.  Although the Israeli agricultural settlements are self-governing within their own territorial jurisdictions, the municipality of Sha’ar Hanegev provides social, health, planning, recreational, educational and other services beyond any of their single capabilities.

Student Village in Ibim

The mayor of Sha’ar Hanegev, Shai Hermesh, also is the chairman of the Pinchas Sapir College of the Negev.  Along with kibbutz factories which manufacture rivets, plastic products, irrigation equipment, modular furniture, cutlery, and circuit boards, the college has become a major employer in the region whose 6,000 residents long ago realized the necessity of harkening to Sapir’s dream and diversifying their economy.   Today, students, faculty and staff of the college outnumber the residents in the surrounding settlements, with whom many lodge. 

Hermesh, a dovish member of Israel’s Labor party, knows that politics can lead to some interesting alliances.  For example, one of his closest allies in the development of the Sha’ar Hanegev region is Israel’s best known hawk, Gen. Ariel Sharon, a member of the ruling Likud party who recently was named as Israel’s Foreign Minister.  Sharon, who has a ranch in the area, disagrees with Hermesh on almost every other issue, but the two friends and neighbors  work together to encourage the expansion of the school and the Sha’ar Hanegev economy. 

Given such twists and turns, Hermesh could not have been surprised that a new partnership focusing on the Ibim student village between his municipality and the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County resulted, at least in part, from a growing political dispute between the national government of Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora. 

Although no surveys have been taken exactly on this point, it is probably fair to say that since the election in 1996 of Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, a majority of the Jews in San Diego County (like Jews elsewhere in the United States) had become disenchanted over two important arenas of Israeli politics.   First, they were upset that under Netanyahu, the momentum for peace with the Arabs which had been building up under the administrations of Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres had been stalled. 

Secondly, and perhaps even more emotionally, they felt that in order to stay in power, Netanyahu was catering to the desires of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox at the expense of American Jews, who overwhelmingly affiliate with non-Orthodox Jewish movements.  This issue had its symbolic flash point in the controversy over religious conversions--with American Jews outraged by Netanyahu’s failure to reject the demand of the Orthodox that only they be empowered to convert Jews in Israel. 

Angered by these two controversies, many Americans were wary of donating money to any organization which might support either the ultra-Orthodox point of view on religious conversions, or hawkish Israeli governmental views on the Middle East peace process.  Donors made it clear to the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County that they wanted to be able to follow their money: that is, they wanted to make certain it would be used for projects which had their approval.  These projects, they indicated, must recognize that there are many streams of Judaism, not just the Orthodox.  Further, they said, these projects must be consistent--not in opposition to--the world’s desire for Middle East peace. 

Yaacov Schneider, an Israeli with a background in the kibbutz movement of the Galilee, has been working at the United Jewish Federation’s headquarters on Mercury Street in San Diego as a community shaliach, or emissary.  His job is to tell people interested in traveling to Israel, doing business with Israel, or even moving to Israel, all about his country.  Additionally, he oversees various cultural programs linking San Diego and Israel.  For example, he set up the Yom HaZikaron services held in San Diego earlier this year to mourn all the Israeli soldiers who fell in battle.   He also helped develop the itinerary for the six-week Scott Stone Teen Trip to Israel last summer, and is in the process of finalizing next summer’s trip. 

But Schneider also was given another assignment by the United Jewish Federation’s board of directors.   According to UJF President Richard Katz, the shaliach  was asked to identify a variety of projects in Israel which were pro-peace and pro-pluralistic and in which donors to the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County could have the satisfaction of  “following their money.” 

Schneider developed several recommendations, including the Ibim student village.  The Federation sent a group of lay leaders to Israel to examine his recommendations.  The small group was led by Gary Jacobs, who is chairman of UJF’s Overseas Allocation Committee and who also serves as president of the Lawrence Family JCC.   Ibim quickly became the favorite, for a variety of reasons, according to Katz. 

First, although the neighboring kibbutzim had grown from secular roots, “there is a synagogue in Ibim village” which accepts everybody, Katz said.  Pluralism?  Check. 

Additionally, Katz said, “Sha’ar Hanegev is a municipality that has always been especially sensitive to the realities of the Palestinian difficulties in Israel.  They always have had Palestinian workers at the kibbutzim, and there are some who work at the Ibim village, and that too brought with it a certain optimism and energy as to the peace process.” 

There was another emotional component:  The students from the former Soviet Union, in the process of making new lives for themselves, reminded the San Diegans of their own ancestors, who several generations before had left Eastern Europe to build new lives in the United States.   Thanks to the sacrifices of those ancestors, the San Diegans had been brought up in relative luxury, with access to education, careers, and American opportunity.  In Ibim, San Diegans had an opportunity to lend a hand to modern-day equivalents of their own grandparents. 

* * * 

On Thursday, Nov. 5, about 90 San Diegans rolled in three buses up to the gates of Ibim, where they were asked to get in line to pick up packets and be assigned to their “residences” -- an exercise that could help them imagine what the first day for new olim  might be like at the student village.   Here, the San Diegans found out why the United Jewish Federation previously had asked for passport size photos--each member of the Shalom ‘98 Mission was issued an “identity card” bearing his or her picture. 

My wife, Nancy, and I found that we had been assigned along with our alphabetical neighbors Barbara Hoffer and Charlotte Horowitz to a cabin that was the home of four 17-year-old students, all originally from Moscow.  In their common kitchen, there were bottles of soft drinks and some snacks waiting for us, and the students treated us as if we were long-lost relatives, indicating by gestures and words that we must eat, and drink, and refresh ourselves.  We learned our hosts were Eugene Lukashenya, Vikdor Sosynsky-Semihad, Roman Gurevich and Vladislav Khatsevich, and that all had been in the village for just three weeks. 

In one of their rooms, we saw tacked up pictures of Israeli money, with notations explaining which bill represented which denomination.  Most of the students spoke very limited Hebrew, and out of shyness, they were initially reluctant to speak English, although they had a good reading knowledge of it.  As we San Diegans didn’t speak any Russian and our Hebrew was confined to that variety found in prayer books, it was good that the students overcame their reluctance.   English--even the fractured variety-- sufficed well enough for us to learn that they went to school Sundays through Thursdays, and had Friday and Saturdays for recreational activities and study. 

With some laughter and many linguistic circumlocutions, we learned the school week schedules of these students: 7 a.m., wake up; 7:30 a.m. breakfast; 8:15 a.m. bus to the ulpan at the College of the Negev.  The intensive Hebrew class lasts from 8:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., and then the students take a bus back to Ibim, where they eat lunch at 1 p.m.  From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., they have free time--which one student told me he uses for homework, and another laughed and said he spent “sleeping.”  At 4 p.m., the students return to the college, to take courses in their own language in history, geography of Israel and mathematics.  As the students all had graduated from their Russian high schools, these studies were considered to be special college preparatory courses.  At 7 p.m., they return to Ibim for supper, and after dinner, cultural activities, studying and even dancing is available.  Ibim village is coeducational 

One of the students has a grandfather who lives in the nearby city of Ashkelon, so he goes there on Fridays and Saturdays.  The other students enjoy weekend films, music and soccer games which are played at Ibim. 

Alice Spector, a 17-year-old student who lives in a nearby bungalow, dropped by.  As she was far more certain of her English than the boys were, she offered some thoughts for the group on why that had decided to leave their native land to live in Israel.  “In Russia,” she said, “people don’t like the Jewish.  I’m not speaking of the young people, but the grown ups.  My mother wanted me to come here.  Now I want to live here.” 

Spector shooed us all from the bungalow to another portion of the village where an unveiling ceremony was about to take place: San Diego and Ibim officials pulled a tarp off a large rectangular slab on which was written in Hebrew and English: “This stone is to commemorate the establishment of a new relationship between the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County and Ibim.” 

Speeches came later, after lunch, at a second ceremony in which after every few speeches or so, there would be a musical interlude provided by students who had immigrated from Russia. Elsewhere on stage were two tables filled with dignitaries.  It turned out that English-speaking Alice Spector had been given the honor of serving as mistress of ceremonies. 

Among the first to speak was Sha’ar Hanegev’s mayor, Shai Hermesh, who said “by arriving here today, the community of San Diego became a real partner in (the) aliyah project.  You didn’t come here as tourists, not as visitors, but from now on, you take the responsibility of four major tasks that were decided here by Ben-Gurion: 1) developing the Negev by building new settlements; 2) providing a high level of education and research; 3) absorption of new immigrants and 4) preparation of infrastructure for the young generation to motivate them to build their homes in Shaar Hanegev.” 

Mike Rosenberg, director general of the aliyah department of the Jewish Agency for Israel, explained that in forging direct relations with Ibim, the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County had created a unique progam “moving a step beyond philanthropy to partnership.  We are talking here about the joint management and oversight and the joint effort of both communities...to make Ibim even more of a success than it has been up until now.” 

From Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s minister of absorption who had to miss the ceremony to attend a Cabinet meeting on the Wye Plantation Accord, came the message:  “I am delighted that you are here in Israel and you have decided to adopt Ibim as your own San Diego community project.”  He described the student village as a “wonderful place which absorbs and helps young people on their very first steps in their new home.” 

Gary Jacobs said the relationship between the Diaspora and Israel is changing.  “It is no longer that we (in the United States) just give dollars and say goodbye to them and not understand what is going on, and just support blindly,” he said.  “Now it has turned into a real partnership where we have both sides contributing to the great works that go on in both communities.” 

Jacobs said San Diego students who go to Israel on future Scott Stone teen trips will visit Ibim.  Furthermore, he said, “there are a whole lot of JCC programs” such as “counselor exchanges for summer camp”  and exchanges of other professional staff that can be worked out in the future. 

Claire Ellman, past president of the San Diego Jewish Academy, was next, and she announced that a program linking that school with Sha’ar Hanegev’s public school (pre-college) is being planned.  Seventh grade students at the Jewish Academy, she said, “will adopt a partner in Israel at the school here, and they will develop mitzvot programs together in order to fulfill their commitments to community service (as part of their bar/bat mitzvah studies). 

“In no better way can we act as partners here in the Ibim program than through our children, who will then translate that to their parents and grandparents,” she said. 

Dick Katz, the UJF president, was a final speaker.   Wearing a Shalom ‘98 Mission t-shirt, which bragged about San Diego being the home of the National League champion San Diego Padres, he took the occasion to pull over the shirt another one with a message touting the San Diego-Ibim partnership.  It perhaps was one of the few occasions when someone on a stage was applauded for putting clothes on. 

* * * 
The four students with whom we met--and posed for pictures following the ceremony-- were participants in the SELAH program, an acronym meaning “Students Immigrating Before Their Parents.”   The major components of this program are Hebrew ulpan and college preparatory courses. 

Students in other programs also live in Ibim.  For example, there are students who have immigrated with their parents, but have signed up for a five-month intensive Hebrew langauge program.  Another program is for students who are working for a degree at the Pinchas Sapir College of the Negev.  Yet another program, unique in Israel, is a two-year program in which students study the Hebrew language and additionally earn transfer credits toward a degree in engineeering from Ben Gurion University in Be’er sheva.

Four students

The preponderance of students at Ibim now are from the former Soviet Union, but as groups of immigrants from other countries come to Israel, they too will be admitted to the student village. 

In an interview a day or so after the ceremonies, Katz explained the mechanics by which money flows from the United Jewish Federation to various programs in Israel.   After overhead for administration is deducted, he said, about half the money raised by UJF in San Diego County is allocated for overseas purposes, while the other half is retained for local needs. 

The overseas allocation--which this year totals $2.5 million--is forwarded to the United Jewish Appeal, which in turn divides the funds  between the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.  The former promotes immigration and settlement in Israel, while the JDC--also known as the “Joint”- supports the maintenance of Jewish life all over the globe, both in the Diaspora and in Israel. 

The Jewish Agency for Israel receives the lion’s share of the overseas allocation.   Money from San Diego County is directed into various  JAFI streams.  One is the general fund, to be used as JAFI deems appropriate.  It was because of the inability for donors to trace their money in this stream that UJF sought a direct San Diego project. 

A second stream is known as the Partnership 2000 fund.  San Diego is one of a number of federation communties in the western United States (excluding Los Angeles) which have adopted the City of Kiryat Malachi and the communities of Hof Ashkelon as partners.  Although San Diego has some say in how money is used in this program, it is through a consensus building process with the Hof Ashkelon and Kiryat Malachi leadership as well as the other U.S. federations.  San Diego’s portion of this fund is about $50,000. 

In contrast, about $750,000 per year is expected to be allocated to the San Diego-Ibim partnership under an arrangement that still is being formulated.  For legal and tax reasons, UJF will give the money to a separately incorporated non-profit organization expected to be called “Friends of Ibim.”   Trustees of that organization--many of whom also will be executive committee members of the United Jewish Federation--will participate in a joint council with officials of Ibim, UJA, and Sha’ar Hanegev.  Members of this new council will deliberate programs and budgets together. 

Besides supporting the student village, the Friends of Ibim will help finance operations of the Sha’ar Hanegev Community Center, which is an integral part of the cultural life of the area, not only for the students of Ibim but for other Israelis.“If we decide we need more programs to emphasize physical activities and sports, that can only occur at the community center,” Katz said. “To the extent that we want to offer Ibim students access to computer capabilities, the logical place for that to occur would be in one of the rooms of the community center.”

Katz said beyond the politics that led to the establishment of the San Diego-Ibim partnership lies the more important “concern that we have in the Federation that Israel is becoming more distant and that the Jewish community in San Diego is becoming disconnected from Israel.” 

With Israel too strong militarily and economically for anyone to doubt its continued ability to exist, American concern for the Israel-U.S. relationship lacks the fire and intensity of the past.  In Katz’s view, such a development hurts both Israel and the American Jewish community, which need each other.   Israel, he says, is the gasoline which “fills our tank” as Jews.  There is a need to recapture the energy and enthusiasm of the past, he said. 

In Federation’s judgment, Ibim--because of its freshness, its sense of optimism, and its feeling that it is on the cutting edge of building a new society--is a project made to order for San Diego.