Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Jewish Agency launches partnership between US, Israel, Poland communities

“This process creates meaningful connections that support and uplift three or more communities at a time through their joint partnership activities, with Israel at the heart of it all,” said Andrea Arbel, the director of the partnership unit at the Jewish Agency.

The Star of David logo of the Jewish Agency on Keren Heyesod Street in Jerusalem. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
The Star of David logo of the Jewish Agency on Keren Heyesod Street in Jerusalem. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership2Gether (P2G) Peoplehood platform has added the Polish capital of Warsaw as the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s third partner region within the program, creating enduring relationships between Israel and the Jewish communities outside the Jewish state.

P2G’s existing partnership between Pittsburgh and the northern Israeli regions of Karmiel and Misgav will have the opportunity to partake in the rebuilding process as Warsaw’s Jews seek to rediscover their Jewish faith and revive their culture.

With Warsaw’s addition to its framework, this P2G partnership seeks to forge unique trilateral bonds between American, Israeli and Polish Jews.

The Jewish Agency’s P2G program connects hundreds of Jewish organizations and communities around the world in 46 partnerships. Each partnership provides opportunities for communities to connect and for interpersonal relationships to flourish.

“We include smaller Jewish communities in the Partnership2Gether Platform that do not have the capacity to maintain a traditional bilateral partnership, while simultaneously allowing individuals and communities to gain a more diversified and complex understanding of peoplehood,” said Andrea Arbel, the director of the partnership unit at the Jewish Agency.

“This process creates meaningful connections that support and uplift three or more communities at a time through their joint partnership activities, with Israel at the heart of it all,” she continued.

In a shared committee process, more than 10,000 volunteers work together annually to determine the ways in which partnered communities engage with and support one another.

Through hands-on projects and personal interactions that engage 350,000 Israelis and Jews each year, individuals and communities across the world learn from one another and experience the enriching reciprocal benefits of being part of the global Jewish family.

“With Warsaw joining our relationship, we have a unique opportunity to make an imprint and impact on a Jewish community that has many young people involved who are eager to make connections with Jews from other communities and in Israel,” said Debbie Swartz, overseas planning associate at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

“The charging by the FBI of Haverford College associate professor Guangtian Ha for harassment and intimidation of a Jewish Israeli professor closes the dotted line between verbal acts of harassment and actionable violence which, when Jews are the recipients, is far too often ignored,” Lori Lowenthal Marcus, of the Deborah Project, told JNS.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog marked the third anniversary of the Hamas attack by lighting a memorial candle at 6:29 a.m., the time the terror invasion began.
Three years after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, the families of Capt. Elay Adany and those he helped rescue remain bound by his final acts of courage.
More than 1,000 Christian leaders and influencers from 117 countries arrived in Israel on Monday for the annual Friends of Zion Ambassador Summit.