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October 10, 2003/Tishri 14 5764, Vol. 56, No.3
YLD Fall Event to bring 'Taste of Israel'
BETH OLSON
Staff Writer
The Young Leadership Division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix will hold their Fall Event "Taste of Israel," featuring wine, Israeli food and international speakers recounting their stories of making aliyah to Israel.
Speakers for the event are Avigail Zeiri, director of education and culture in the Jerusalem and Central Region of the Jewish Agency for Israel; Tova Grushko, a Russian immigrant; and Liat (Samanish) Demoze, an Ethiopian immigrant.
Zeiri has worked for JAFI since 1979 as a social worker, and became director of the absorption center in Kfar Saba in 1998.
Grushko was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1977. When her parents told her of her Jewish heritage at age 12, she chose to attend a Jewish school at the St. Petersburg synagogue.
"My lack of knowledge about Judaism and Israel led me to the decision to study and learn more about our heritage," Grushko recalled.
At age 15, Grushko left Russia and came to Israel to make aliyah on her own.
"I was a little bit afraid because my family does not have any relatives or friends in Israel, so I was going to a completely new place without expecting any kind of support," she said.
Despite her initial apprehension, Grushko said she soon made friends and several years later, her parents followed and also made aliyah.
For the past two years, Grushko has worked with JAFI's Tnuat Aliyah, working with volunteers and soldiers from the Former Soviet Union.
More than 2,000 soldiers from the former Soviet Union serve in the Israel Defense Force, and part of Grushko's role is to organize a seminar for their parents.
"Most of the parents cannot afford to buy a ticket to come to Israel to visit their sons and daughters," explained Grushko. "We locate the parents in all different areas of the former Soviet Union, and bring them to Israel to be reunited with their children and to provide them with a week of tours and meetings around Israel."
She said the program is funded through donations from Jewish federations in the United States.
Also speaking is Demoze, who came to Israel at age 2 with her family from Norra, a village in the Gondar region of Ethiopia. At the time, it was illegal to leave Ethiopia, so the family sold everything they owned and left at night - on foot - for Sudan. Eventually the family was able to get to Israel.
"Ever since (my parents) were children they heard stories about the holy land and the holy city of Jerusalem ... where you don't have to be afraid of practicing Judaism," Demoze said.
After graduating from a yeshiva high school for girls, Demoze spend a year of national service working in the Talpiot youth village in Hadera, a boarding school, working with 15-year-old boys, mostly from Ethiopia.
Last summer she worked with the World Summit for Sustainable Development, representing Israel to the international press in South Africa
"South Africa was a very special experience for me," she said. "It was the first time to go back to the continent I left 20 years ago, but this time as a representative of the Israeli state."
Chairpersons for "Taste of Israel" are Marni Steinberg and David Levin.
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