A 33-member delegation of young people from the Karmiel-Misgav area returned home on August 12th, after a successful 2-week trip to the United States including a visit to region's partner community of Pittsburgh. The visit, which took place in the shadow of daily Katyusha rocket attacks on their homes, was organized by the Jewish Agency's "Partnership 2000" program.

This mission was a reciprocal visit following the Pittsburgh Mega Youth Mission that was cut short because of the war. All of the young people were to have participated in a unique 10-day summer camp in the region. With the outbreak of hostilities, the program was changed and the young people moved to the forests surrounding Jerusalem for a 3-day camp experience headed by Yuval Kisus, director of the Megedim Community Center in Karmiel that concentrated on social questions, Jewish Identity in Israel and abroad, camping activities and extreme sporting activities. At the camp's conclusion the Pittsburgh young people returned home but not before promising to return next summer to Israel and the region to participate in the summer Camp cancelled because of the war.

At the same time, the Israeli youngsters prepared to make their journey to Pittsburgh while the region was living under a state of emergency and rockets struck on a daily basis. Upon arriving in Pittsburgh, they presented community leaders with an updated status report of conditions in the north. The Pittsburgh Jewish Community welcomed the delegation with their usual warmth, excitement and a sincere concern for the safety of the region's residents who remained in what suddenly and unexpectedly had become a war zone.

The Israeli delegation got right down to "work"; conducting a variety of Israel related activities at the community's summer camps, visiting numerous community institutions and synagogues.

The US visit also included a visit to Washington D.C. and a tour of the Israeli embassy where they met with the embassy's press attaché.

The visit to Pittsburgh was conducted as planned although colored by the events occurring in the region on a daily basis literally in the kid's back yards. The young ambassadors represented our communities throughout the Pittsburgh Jewish Community and gave a first hand account of their experiences living in a war zone under attack, and they had plenty to tell. One of the young women from Karmiel told how her house suffered a direct hit and was demolished, another described the shrapnel that scraped the house and everyone talked about how Yuval was called up to fight, just a few days before the trip.

Throughout the visit, Jewish families from the Pittsburgh community hosted the young people, it was through this experience that they came to learn and understand something about Jewish life in America and contributed greatly to the Jewish Identity of both sides of the ocean.

The delegation concluded their visit to the United States with three exciting days in New York City.

The group plans to continue meeting as often as possible even after their return home. The main plan is to try to maintain and strengthen the fantastic relations developed between the young people of the partner communities by developing and implemented a joint project.

The "Partnership 2000" Karmiel, Misgav and Pittsburgh partnership has operated since 1995 and successful brought together adults and young people from across the three communities.