Zimriyah and Shlichut: A Joyous Combination

June 9, 2025 in Israel, Scroll

By Larry Sidman

On Sunday, May 11, our congregation celebrated Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, with a love-filled and voices-lifted program featuring our Religious School students in grades K-5. Our shaliach, Yoel Gleizer, led the children in singing a range of Israeli classics, including Shabbat BaBoker and Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu, culminating in Hatikvah, featuring a fifth-grader soloist. Our sanctuary was adorned with Israeli flags flying from the ceiling. In the adjoining social hall, a giant poster featuring a remarkable likeness of Golda Meir formed the background for the obligatory cake and sweets. It was more than a sing-along. It truly felt like a less raucous but equally exuberant cousin of Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebrations in Israel. Yoel deserves a great deal of the credit for bringing that sense of kinship and Jewish community to Beth El.

Yoel is the third in a line of shlichim/shlichot, messengers, to serve as youthful Israeli ambassadors to our congregation. The program, sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel with substantial financial support from Jewish Federations across the U.S., including locally the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, brings outstanding Israelis, mostly in their 20s, to synagogues and college campuses for a two- or three-year period. They are uniformly very bright, talented, energetic, and committed. Although it is often said that the best way to promote “ahavat Yisrael,” a love of Israel, is to go there, the shlichim and shlichot understand that the next best way is for them to make their presence felt in American and other global Jewish communities. By forming relationships with congregants, especially with school-age children, they communicate the reality of Israeli youth, a refreshing alternative to the stereotypes that populate both the entertainment world and traditional and social media.

Yoel and his predecessors as shlichim/shlichot at Beth El reflect the diversity of Israeli youth, as did the successive Beth El celebrations of Yom Ha’Atzmaut under their guidance and in collaboration with dedicated Beth El teachers, clergy, and staff. Itzik, a gay Israeli man, used his performing talent to engage our Religious School children in Israeli life experiences. Tal, an Israeli woman who had served in the Education Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, focused on teaching our students about Beth El members’ connections to Eretz Yisrael and the history of Israel’s quest for independence, drawing attention to the intimate connection between Yom
HaZikaron and Yom Ha’Atzmaut. Yoel, a budding Israeli rock star during his teen years, brought his extraordinary musical gifts to this year’s zimriyah, leading the students in happy and heartfelt song as they assembled on the bimah.

The priceless connection between our congregation and our brothers and sisters in Israel fostered by the shlichut program would not have been possible without the renewed commitment of Beth El clergy, leadership, staff, and donors. Before the pandemic, we shared with JDS the hosting institution’s cost of supporting a shaliach or shlichah. There was a pause during and immediately following the pandemic. Last year, Beth El determined to resume its hosting of shlichut without a local religious or educational partner, a meaningful two-year financial commitment. The communal, psychological, and educational dividends of that investment have been evident since Yoel arrived in August and were showcased in the Yom Ha’Atzmaut zimriyah.

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, Israelis and Diaspora Jews have been asking how we can rediscover joy. Our Yom Ha’Atzmaut zimriyah offered an example, a fusion of resilience and music. Our celebration was delayed several weeks because Yoel had to leave for Israel unexpectedly when his father passed away. He returned, still grieving, to lead the zimriyah, demonstrating the resilience, creativity, and strength that has been a hallmark of Israeli life in the last bitter 19 months. After the zimriyah, Yoel said that next year’s celebration would be even better. One day later, Edan Alexander, the last living Israeli-American captive in Gaza, was released and returned to Israel. May it be a sign that Yoel will prove to be prophetic. May Yom Ha’Atzmaut in 2026 be celebrated in peace, security, and joy. Od yavo shalom aleinu v’al kulam. (“Indeed it will come, peace upon us and upon everyone.”)