Purim Recap

Students with Habonim Dror volunteers at Kiryat Yam

Thanks to generous donations through the AZM Purim Connection, traditional mishloach manot holiday gift baskets filled with goodies were distributed to 900 IDF soldiers and 600 children at risk in the North of Israel. Americans participating in Habonim Dror year programs in Israel distributed the baskets to the children, who were at the Ahava Youth Village in Kiryat Bialik and Amirim in Kiryat Yam.

Rabbi Mauricio Balter with student at Purim party, Photo by Tally Gur

Two MASA students from Maagen Michael with soldiers of the Egoz unit on Purim

In addition, children from immigrant families from South America at the HaKrayot Synagogue in Kiryat Bialik received Purim gifts. The soldier recipients included wounded soldiers at the Beit Levenshtein Hospital and Egoz elite guerilla fighting unit, who suffered heavy losses in the war in Lebanon this past summer, members of a tank unit in the South, and Golani Palsar, the elite Golani unit. The baskets to soldiers were given out by American students receiving MASA scholarships who are studying in Ulpan at Maagen Michael and Yagur.

AZM's Helyn B. Reich Memorial Scholarship Fund

The Helyn B. Reich Memorial Scholarship, which has traditionally offered student scholarships to Tel Aviv University, will be expanding to offer fellowships to American students attending Haifa University and Ben Gurion University, in addition to the post-university programs Career Experience and WUJS Institute-Arad. The scholarship fund was named in memory of the wife of a past AZM President whose daughter studied at Tel Aviv University and now lives in Israel. The fund seeks to honor candidates with a strong sense of community involvement who profess a desire to engage with Israeli society.

The Amazing Israel Race in New York

On April 22, 2007, teams of college students and birthright alumni will compete in The Amazing Israel Race, a fun and innovative way of celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut, which this year marks Israel's 59th birthday. The contest involves deciphering and following a sequence of clues leading to a variety of sites in Manhattan with a historical or cultural Zionist significance. At each site, students will complete a challenge. The first team to visit all of the landmarks will win the Grand Prize of $500 towards a flight to Israel for each team member.

Registration will take place online here beginning March 19. The race is sponsored by the American Zionist Movement, Jewish National Fund, and USD Hagshama. For more information, e-mail usd@jazo.org.il or call 1-800-27 ISRAEL.