In an effort to encourage more teens to experience the wonder, beauty, and importance of Israel for themselves, Jewish Educational Services (JES) and JFGA have partnered to create the Passport to Israel Packet program. With funding provided by the Israel Experience Committee, JES is creating a series of highly informative and exciting information packets that are being distributed to our youth from participating synagogues who became Bat or Bar Mitzvah within the past two years. "The packets are designed to create a common language focusing on the Israel Experience for all of our Jewish youth in the Atlanta community. By reaching them in their homes twice a year over a two-year period we hope to strengthen their personal connection to the Jewish people and to Israel," said Paul A. Flexner, Executive Director of JES.

The material in the packets will help our youth explore the State, land and people of Israel. Each packet will contain letters from Israeli and Atlanta teens sharing their personal experiences living in and visiting Israel. Highlights will include detailed descriptions of activities such as people watching on the beaches in Tel Aviv, hiking under the waterfalls at Ein Gedi, digging for ancient pottery in the caves at Beit Guvrin, and praying at the Kotel (Western Wall) on Shabbat. There will be pages of fascinating facts, great web sites, popular culture, history and sports. A section in each packet will focus on the young adult aspect of Partnership 2000, that connects Atlanta with the region of Yokneam and Megiddo in Israel.

For more information about the packets, contact Jewish Educational Services at JES@jesatlanta.org or (770) 677-9480. For information about Passport to Israel certificates, contact Jessie Aziman-Rosenberg, Israel Experience Coordinator at (404) 870-7686.

Jewish Educational Services is a beneficiary agency of JFGA, and received an allocation of $476,514 in FY04.