Nestled in the northwestern corner of the State of Israel lies the city of Kiryat Bialik. Like its sister city of Boca Raton, Kiryat Bialik is a suburb of a metropolitan region (Haifa), includes an area that borders on the coast, and has a large, beautiful shopping mall. These physical simlarities however are just the start of what it really means to be a sister city.

Under the auspices of the Jewish Agencies Partnerhip 2000 Program, Boca Raton and Kiryat Bialik became sister cities in 2002. This global program connects 550 worldwide communities with 45 Israeli partners. The goal of the program is to build living bridges between the communities to support educational, cultural and welfare programs.

As part of this program, I recently visited Kiryat Bialik along with nine other women from South Palm Beach County. We spent four days meeting and touring with eleven dynamic women from Kiryat Bialik.

Just like us, the women of Kiryat Bialik are professionals, businesswomen, teachers and stay at home moms. Just as we are, they are daughters, mothers, grandmothers and sisters concerned about the health and safety of their families.

Just as we face specific local challenges, Kiryat Bialik has its own unique concerns. We toured a community center where Ethiopian immigrants learned hebrew, a preschool early intervention program for Ethiopian children, a meeting place where troubled teens receive group counselling and support, and saw bomb shelters that residents used during the recent Lebanon War. We discussed ways in which we could continue to help the citizens of our sister city and provide programs to empower both communities.

Our group will continue our contact by hosting the women of Kiryat Bialik in Boca Raton in March. The relationships forged through our Israeli foray, and similar meetings between groups of teachers and teenagers, are the true living bridge between our communities. The friendship and camraderie developed and our continuing projects together are what really makes the Boca Raton/ Kiryat Bialik relationship a sister city partnership.

If you would like more information about the Jewish Federation of SPBC please log onto their website at http://www.jewishboca.org or more specifically about this partnership project please call Gail Marlow at 561-852-3163 or gailm@bocafed.org.

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