Israeli envoy at camp

Her mission is to help American children understand
Israeli culture.

By ELISE McKEOWN SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

YOUNGSTOWN — Dressed in a Coke T-shirt and jeans, Yael Alon is the picture of the typical 22-year-old American.

But when you look closer, you see the word “Coca-Cola” is spelled in Hebrew.

Yael is Israeli and a culture specialist working at the Jewish Community Center’s summer day camp program. She’s one of 1,400 Israeli young people working at summer camps throughout North America as part of an Israeli emissaries program sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel. She arrived here June 12.

Each day, Yael works with two groups of JCC campers, ages 5 to 13. She teaches them Hebrew words and songs, and about Israeli culture.

What she most hopes the kids will learn, though, is the concepts of patience and tolerance.

Those are “big, big values that are very important to me,” Yael said. “And I think that if you get those two, you can get what we want to do in Israel.”

“There are kids here who are Jewish, and there are kids here who aren’t Jewish,” said Christine Hughes, the JCC’s director of marketing and public relations.

Yael’s role at the camp, Hughes said, is to give the children a sense of a culture different from their own.

“We want kids to understand what Israel is about,” she said.

A childhood goal

Yael has wanted to be part of a program like the Jewish Agency emissaries program since she was 12 years old. At that time, she read a series of books about groups of teenagers traveling to the United States.

“When I read it, I knew I had to be a part of one of those,” she said.

First, she had to finish school and complete her stint in the army. In Israel, women serve in the army for two years, and men serve for three.

Yael was in charge of cultural activities while serving in the army. She coordinated holiday celebrations and scheduled entertainers to perform for the troops, in an effort to give them a break from daily military life.

“I had the best job ever,” she said.

In that role, she was also exposed to American youth. She was in charge of a program for the Jewish Agency that brings Americans ages 18 to 28 to Israel to serve in the army for three months.

“And then I was really exposed to the people [of the United States], and I knew I had to do it,” she said.

So far, the country is everything she had hoped it would be, if a bit bigger. For the most part, the two countries are similar, she said.

For example, television shows and clothing fashions are the same, she notes. But everything is bigger in the United States, she said. The malls here are bigger, there are more fast food chains and even more types of shampoos.

But “we’re the same,” she said. “We just live in another continent.”

Back home

In Israel, Yael lives with her mother, a high school physics teacher; her father, who is retired and will soon finish a bachelor of arts and begin pursuing a master of arts; and her 19-year-old sister, who is currently serving her stint in the Israeli army.

Yael is living with families in the Youngstown community while working at the JCC’s summer camp. After her nine weeks at the camp, Yael plans a tour of the United States, including visiting family on the West Coast as well as sightseeing in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Nashville, Tenn.

“I really want to see Disney World,” she said. “I have to see a musical. ‘Rent’ or ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ ‘Les Mis,’ something. I have to.”

When her four months in the United States is complete, Yael will return to Israel to complete the degree in human resource management she started before she left.