The last time Jeffrey Hamilton went to Israel, the Oakland teen got to, in his words, “meet cool people and have fun in the desert.”
This summer, he’s going again. But he hopes this trip will be more educational.
Hamilton is one of three teens from the Bay Area to be selected as Bronfman Fellows. The other two are Jared Martin, also from Oakland, and Raphael Rosen of Berkeley.
All three will spend five weeks in Israel this summer, studying and talking with prominent Israeli politicians and writers. They will also have the opportunity to meet with Israelis their age, specially chosen for the Bronfman program.
What makes the Bronfman Fellowship unique is that its participants, 26 in all, are a mix of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews. All are chosen for their potential as leaders in the Jewish community.
“We open lines of communication among a group of outstanding young people on the major issues confronting the Jewish people in all its diversity,” Edgar M. Bronfman, chair of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, said in a statement. “In the process, they will discover that there is a common Jewish agenda that transcends the differences among them.”
That inter-movement dialogue is one reason that propelled Rosen, who is Orthodox, to apply for the program. Also, his sister was a Bronfman Fellow in 1997 and had a “great experience,” he said.
“You have all these different denominations getting along very poorly. It’s up to the next group of people” to work on improving it, he said.
Rosen, the son of Rena and Mordecai Rosen, is a member of Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley. He attends the College Preparatory School in Oakland, where he is on the track team. A writer for the school newspaper, the CPS Express, Rosen will be an editor next year. He is also a member of the school’s curriculum committee, which approves new classes and modifies others.
Last year, Rosen won first prize for the Bay Area region in the annual Holland & Knight Holocaust Essay competition, and third place nationally.
Rosen has been to Israel several times, including last summer, and that visit “was the first time I really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it,” he said. “I just felt connected to the land for the first time, and wanted to return this summer.”
Hamilton, son of Paula and Edward Hamilton, is a member of Conservative Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland. A student at the Urban School in San Francisco, he also attends Berkeley Midrasha, a teen program sponsored by East Bay synagogues and the Center for Jewish Living and Learning of the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay.
Last March, he was part of the East Bay youth delegation to the nation’s capital through Panim el Panim, a program run by the Washington Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values. “They teach you how to get involved writing letters and how to talk to senators,” he said.
Hamilton has had numerous jobs while in high school, and recently finished volunteering at Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay, where he catalogued the books for its ESL library.
Hamilton is hoping to gain firsthand knowledge of “how Israel works, how an all-Jewish state can function, and how Judaism is incorporated in all state affairs.”
Jared Martin, the son of Jim Martin and Jan Schmuckler, attends Berkeley High School. He is currently attending The Mountain School, a semester program in Vermont focused on the environment and farm life. He attends Berkeley Midrasha and Chochmat HaLev’s Jewish meditation group. A member of many environmental organizations, Martin began donating money to charities when he was 6.
Hamilton said he wasn’t too nervous about going to Israel at this time of instability.
“When I got the application, there wasn’t this situation,” he said. The recent murder of two Israeli teens in the West Bank got him a bit anxious, he admitted, “but I’m not worried.”