Our Kids on EIE

For almost 25 years, a bequest from the estate of Hans Jacoby has helped our children to travel to Israel. In the last year high schoolers Sophie Kern and Adam Dreyfuss have each spent a semester in Israel touring and studying under the auspices of the URJ’s Eisendrath International Exchange (EIE), in part thanks to Mr. Jacoby’s generosity.

Some comments from our world travelers:

I spent the first semester of my senior year in Israel on the Eisendrath International Exchange Program, a decision I made fairly quickly during my junior year, through a mixture of curiosity and boredom with high school.   Rabbi Dreyfus had been encouraging me to go on the program for years, and The Hans Jacoby Fund supplied a generous donation to help.  As the date to leave drew nearer, I started to panic, realizing that I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  I had no idea what to expect.

Now that I’m back in the States and it’s been a few months, I’ve realized that there was no way I could have predicted the effect that Israel would have on me.  I couldn’t have predicted what it would be like to be able to immerse myself in an ancient history that wasn’t distant or abstract, that I could only read about in books, but one I could see for myself, one that had written itself all over the land, and one that belonged to me.  I saw some great things and made some great friends, and ultimately came away with a much clearer idea about where my people came from.  That was something that nobody could have taught me with the same relevance and power in the United States.

Sophie Kern

To: The Board of B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom and the Trustees of the Hans Jacoby Fund

I would like to begin my letter by saying that I can not express my gratitude enough for the funds that you have awarded me for my semester in Israel.  When first discovering that a program such as NFTY EIE exists, I immediately turned to my parents to see if this was a possible option in my future; and the immediate answer was NO!

“Money is too tight. You go to a great school already. Your brother never did anything like this. You can go during college.  Where do you expect us to get this kind of money?” was all I heard.  So I began to dig.  With the help of the rabbi I began to search, and I hunted down scholarships and I appealed again to my parents, this time with the promise of a smaller dent in their wallets.  This time I was given the green light. Had it not been for scholarships like yours, EIE would never have been a possibility for me.

So why is EIE so important for me?  I came to Israel with one question: what kind of Jew do I want to be?  Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox?  Observant or secular?  Actually when I came I did not actually know there was such a thing as a secular Jew which just goes to show how much I have learned.  Over four months the answer to this question slowly began to show itself to me. Within about 3 weeks I began wearing a kippa on a daily basis.  Within a month I strongly believed the Torah was written by G-d.  Me!  A person who grew up thinking it was silly that anyone could believe in G-d in the first place believing that the roots of the Jewish lifestyle were handed from G-d to the Jewish people at Sinai.  This program has guided me in my studies of the Jewish people and for that I am forever grateful.

Another belief I came to Israel with was that Israel was, and is, not an important place, and that Jews can live anywhere they so choose and prosper.  Then we went to Poland.  My fellow classmates and I boarded a plane and flew to Poland to view, what can only be described as a shocking crime against humanity.  It is a place where my great grandparents, Simon and Meta Dreyfuss, had been murdered.  It is a place that changed me forever.

And then we returned to Israel. From that point on, I took in Israel with a new perspective and I saw it for the first time as it really is, a necessary safe haven.  For 2000 years the Jews have lived in exile and now we are home.

The biggest question that plagues me now is what will I do with all this new information when I arrive home? The answer I have found is simple in its concept but hard in its implementation.  I will share my knowledge and encourage others to see the Jewish people as I do.  Yet, while this may seem easy, it is something that, without coming here on one’s own personal journey, is extremely hard to communicate.  I will begin by educating through teaching at our temple.  I will attempt to get my generation to understand as I do, and hopefully encourage a brighter tomorrow for the Jewish people.

Without your generous scholarship none of this would have been possible and so I thank you again with all my heart.

Thank You, Thank You.  A Thousand times Thank You.

Adam Dreyfuss