“Facilitating the children's engagement and being a part of this program has made me a better person.”

I find that the Jewish state often remains an abstract concept for children and teens around the world who have never seen Israel with their own eyes or met an Israeli. But the Global School Twinning Network makes Israel come alive through the delegation experience. Every April, the ninth-graders from Israel come to visit California as part of a delegation and stay with us in our homes for 10 days, and the next year, in tenth grade, our kids travel to Israel on a 10 day delegation and stay with their Israeli friends deepening their connections that will last a lifetime.

- Amy Berg, Assistant Director of Education and Youth, Congregation Ner Tamid, (Conservative), Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. The high school offers a class with a partner school in Tel Aviv (the ORT Yad Singalovsky school - OYS) sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles through Partnership2Gether's Global School Twinning Network

"The relationships are real."

This program is truly remarkable. The Israeli teenagers are exposed to new ways of expressing their Jewishness. They are amazed by the Americans’ commitment to being Jewish. Several of my students have returned to Israel as campers, on Taglit-Birthright, or on personal trips to visit family and friends. It thrills me that while there, they reach out to people they met through School Twinning—people who were once strangers but who now feel like family. Families here in the USA that hosted Israeli teens keep in regular contact with them. They stay in touch via Skype, Facebook, and other social media channels. The relationships are real. I love seeing alumni status updates on Facebook like: 'I’m in Tel Aviv today!’ alongside photos with their Israeli School Twinning friends.