Jewish Federation volunteer says goodbye to Quad-Cities
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By Mary Louise Speer | Sunday, June 01, 2008 |
Nir Zernyak, an Israeli volunteer at the Jewish Federation of the Quad-Cities, said goodbye to the Quad-Cities last week. He is packing his bags and preparing to travel to Oslo, Norway for the summer and then home to Tel Aviv, Israel.
Zernyak fostered deeper understanding about Israel during his two years with the federation. He showed that halfway around the world is closer than most people think through his talks to students, community organizations and religious congregations.
“Nir was able to give kids a real picture of Israel,” said Linda Golden, an English teacher at Thurgood Marshall Learning Center, Rock Island. “For my students, Israel seems a world away. I think they were surprised more at the similarities rather then the differences.”
The question posed to him most often was if he’s afraid to live in the Middle East with the ongoing conflicts between Israeli Jews and Palestinian people.
“I think you usually feel safest at home and that’s why I feel safer in Israel than I do in the Quad-Cities,” he said. “When you grow up with terrorism, it’s easier to deal with that reality than it is to think of a gunman walking in (to a classroom) and shooting 20 students.”
He plans to study law and eventually return to the United States for graduate school. He served in the Israeli Army before coming to the Quad-Cities and participated in Abraham’s Vision, a conflict transformation fellowship program, where participants examine social relations between the Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian communities.
Zernyak traveled with U.S. Jewish and Palestinian students to Sarajevo and Bosnia searching for answers to conflicts in the Middle East.
Sorting through everything that occurred during his stay in the United States isn’t simple, he said. He recalls a time when he talked to third and fourth graders about the Holocaust and genocide, trying to frame those horrific topics in a way children could understand and accept.
Later, he received a letter from the students, who shared the impact his words had on them.
“What I wanted them to take from that is racism is bad. We need to stop racism. We need to stop bullying. We need to stop genocide,” he said.
Zernyak, and the two previous Israeli volunteers Hagit Biton and Reut Stamati, came to the Quad-Cities through the Young Israeli Volunteer program of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Unfortunately the Quad-Cities participation in the program is being put on hold, Allan Ross, the federation’s executive director, said. “We will not get a new volunteer next year and the main reason is the costs,” he said.
The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
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