On Dec. 4, the Dayton Jewish community, volunteers and Federation staff from the central United States, and Israelis celebrated 10 years of the Partnership with Israel program with a dinner at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

The event, held in the museum’s Modern Flight Gallery, was the culmination of this year’s Partnership Regional Steering Committee meetings, held Dec. 3-5. at the Boonshoft CJCE.
Dayton belongs to a consortium of 14 U.S. cities that form the Central Region’s Partnership with Israel, responsible for developing people-to-people relationships among the 14 American Jewish communities and Israel’s Western Galilee region.

The Partnership promotes cultural, social, medical, educational and economic programs between Israel and the United States.

The other American communities in our consortium are Akron, Canton, Dallas, Des Moines, Ft. Worth, Indianapolis, Louisville, Northwest Indiana, South Bend, Omaha, San Antonio, Toledo and Youngstown.

Locally, Irvin Moscowitz chairs the Partnership with Israel Committee, which organizes student/teacher exchanges, medical personnel exchanges, joint arts programs and various volunteer opportunities.

Our celebration marked a decade of rewarding and remarkable activities. The evening featured Simcha Stein, general director of the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum in the Western Galilee. He spoke about the nature of his museum, which unlike most other Holocaust museums, attempts to look forward while making sense of the past. Many Daytonians have visited this museum, a favorite of our missions, thanks to our Partnership connections.
The evening also included docent-led tours of Prejudice and Memory: A Holocaust Exhibit.

This exhibit is now on permanent display at the Air Force Museum after the museum director determined American Jewish personnel had been interned at concentration camps instead of POW camps, according to Renate Frydman, the exhibit’s curator and a member of the Partnership with Israel Committee.

The Partnership’s Central Area Consortium presented the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton with a beautiful glass Chanukah menorah in recognition of our 10 years of partnership. Accepting on behalf of the Federation was Dr. Gary Youra, president-elect of Federation, who carefully but quickly handed it back to those who knew how to handle it!

Several of our Israeli partners shared personal survival stories from last summer’s war with Hezbollah, accompanied by pictures of the destruction.

One Israeli noted his daughter’s recent troubled query as the family left their home on an outing: “Why are we going? Is there another Katyusha?”

Irv Moscowitz issued an open invitation for Daytonians to join the Partnership, saying “People to people. The Partnership’s a wonderful way to have these relationships.”

For more information about Partnership with Israel, contact Rena Neiger at the Federation, 610-1555, ext. 112.