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My Israeli Notebook: Bridge-Building

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Correspondence

Exchange with Dr. Tropper about His Reflections on Recent Gesher Seminars (1971)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Gesher’s Seminar #2 ended last night and was, believe it or not, even more successful than #1. Despite the worst weather all winter, and the most rainy Pesach on record (it rained all or parts of every day, temperatures dropped into the 30’s) Gesher pulled off another one. The truth is that due to the cold I was unable to be at Kfar Etzion most of the time (couldn’t possibly expose the children to it) but from what I saw and heard it was a gem. First let me provide you with some of the essential data and then I can relate a few ‘human interest’ stories which capture the essence of the experience. There were 44 participants (of the 48 who registered – which astounded us, since flood warnings went out that morning on the radio, for the Kfar Etzion area), 6 madrichim (of whom four were from the Bet Sefer Sadeh, including Chanan, and two whom we brought ourselves) and Yakov Boyar supervising and organizing. The seminar began on Tuesday Chol Hamoed Pesach, and lasted five days, till Motzaei Shabbat. The students were representatives of 12 schools from the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beersheba areas.
Gesher Israel

Correspondence

Letter to R. Jung about Gesher Programming (1970)

Dear Rabbi Jung, By now you must have received my postcard, although with Israel's on-again-off-again mail strikes (they alternate with the biweekly phone slow-downs) it is hard to tell when a piece of mail will arrive! However, while my first communication was a general "Hello," enough time has just about elapsed for me to have enough experience here to give you at least a preliminary idea of where we are headed in Gesher. Naturally, I can only offer rashei perakim at the present, and I hope to fill in all the rest when we meet, iyh.The job to which Gesher is dedicated is even greater than I realized at first — and I was under no illusions of excessive optimism. There is a great deal that must be done to bridge the two camps (and after every Ashkelon affair the gap grows ever wider), and the longer we wait the worse it becomes. On the other side of the ledger, however, a great deal can be done, and even if it is done on a small scale every little bit helps.As you can well imagine, I've not only been doing a lot of speaking, but also a great deal of meeting both with Danny Tropper of Lesher and with other people who ought and might be interested in its work. My impression, as a result of all this, is that we have to concentrate more in smaller areas and do the job well, rather than scatter our energies superficially in too wide a field. Our major successes have been in the age group of upper-high school students, ages 16-18. We ran a Yeshiva-University-style Youth Seminar at Gush Etzion, and the results were extremely satisfying. I hesitated to discuss it with anyone until we could check ourselves. Such a check came with a "reunion" we arranged for the youngsters over Shabbat in Jerusalem, held just about a week ago. We invited 29 of the original 30 participants (boys and girls from non-religious schools outside of Jerusalem, mostly Tel Aviv and Haifa) to participate. Two called to say they were ill! All the others returned with their enthusiasm intact. We have bee…
Gesher Israel

Correspondence

Letter from Ahava Gross about Gesher Foundation Sukkot Seminar (1971)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Enclosed please find the latest "Dear All" letter from Daniel. It speaks for itself in terms of the success and enthusiasm of the latest Gesher projects. Hoping that this finds you well and having enjoyed a pleasant Yom Tov. Sincerely, Ahava Gross, Gesher Foundation. Dear all, You have not received a letter from me in about three weeks only because of the unusual work load which we have been carrying. However, it has all been worth it because we’ve just scored a grand success on top of the summer success. B'li Ayin Hara things are proceeding so very very well for us in the last few months. Before getting to the Sukkot seminars I must tell you about the Yom Iyun which we had in Tichon Boyar in Jerusalem on Friday, Erev Shabbat Shuva. The Yom Iyun was for the entire school -600 students- in 2 shifts. First the Freshmen and Sophomores heard a lecture by Rabbi Chaim Brovender. They then broke up into 20 kvutzot diyun led by 20 volunteer madrichim from Mercaz, Yeshivat Hakotel and Heb. U. Halfway thru the workshops the Junior and Senior classes listened to a talk by Chanan and then as the first group ended workshops the second group began led by the same team of madrichim. Each group then came together for a summation and amazingly enough one girl got up and said just about word for word the quote which appears in the last Jcr Latter in the name of the girl from Kfar Saba. Over three quarters of the madrichim succeeded and the administration seemed quite satisfied, we will probably receive a thank you letter from them shortly. One of the lessons learned from this experience is not to conduct a Yom Iyun for so many kids--the workshops end up too large and the 2 shift system leaves too little time for successful workshops. In about 3 weeks we’ll be having another one for the junior or senior class in the Gymnasia in Rechavia--we hope to cover a substantial portion of all lo-dati tichonim here in Jer in the course of the year. Now to the Sukkot seminars, T…
Gesher Israel