Three 20-year-old Israeli Arabs from the Galilee region visited Dayton for a week in June. It was the culmination of a program for Israeli Arab students in the Galilee that volunteers here have led.

Dr. Marti Moody Jacobs began the summer English camp project there in 2007 and since 2012, has also facilitated 10 Israeli Arab student trips to Dayton — all through private donations.

The young men took in the Dayton Air Show, met regional SWAT team members, visited Carillon Park, Huffman Prairie, the Air Force museum including Prejudice & Memory: A Holocaust Exhibit, toured Kettering Hospital’s simulation lab and nuclear medicine department, joined Sinclair Community College’s Juneteenth celebration, and volunteered at the Dayton Foodbank.

Each will begin engineering studies this fall: Ayham at Ben-Gurion University and Amir at The Technion; Mohammad is finalizing his plans.

“They arrived here on the fifth set of flights we’d purchased for them,” Jacobs said. “The earlier flights were all cancelled.”

The three took part in the project’s final English summer camp, held in August 2023 at Kaokab High School in the Galilee.

“This trip here was the final push of our committee, and me,” Jacobs added. “I’m getting too old and tired to do this and now I have six grandchildren. But it’s been a great run and I’m proud of everyone participating.”

Jacobs said she’s heard over and over that the trips have opened up the world for the students.

“The students have almost all been from small towns and close, big families. To learn that there are kind people of different nationalities and backgrounds and religions other than theirs who care about them and their future is a big deal. And the volunteers who have gone to help at the camp also feel their worlds have been enlarged in a hugely positive way. We’re all humans, after all.”

— Marshall Weiss

To read the complete August 2026 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.