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FRIENDS OF METRO-WEST COMMUNITY WHO VISITED IN ISRAEL: "WE PUT A SMILE ON MANY ISRAELI FACES"
 Members of the Metro-West singing troupe at Kibbutz Erez that is located at Gaza Strip border Hazamir Metro-West youth choir participants arrived in Israel last week, with no cancellations! The choir, numbering 15 teens and 4 staff members led by Cantor Joel Caplan and Nadav Keller, Youth Shaliach from Metro-West, spent 10 days touring Israel from north to nouth and singing to many different groups. The choir was hosted and sang before teams from Metro-Wests' partnership communities and cities of Raanana, Rishon LeZion, Kibbutz Erez and Ofakim-Merchavim. Hazamir also performed before a group of parents brought that the Jewish Agency brought to Israel from the Ukraine to visit their children who are serving in the army. The choir was swamped with requests to perform. They began their visit in with two days in Jerusalem, and then continued to Raanana where they performed before the Metro-West High School. Afterwards Nadav, a native of Rosh Pina, took the group on a special tour of his hometown - one of the earlier settlements in the land of Israel and a place symbolizing the first Aliya to Israel. After that the group met all of his family including his grandmother. Continuing to Tiberias, they performed for parents from the FSU and the next day hiked up the Massada and visited the excavations. After lunch they performed in Kibbutz Erez facing Gaza - where Metro-West assists in renovating the bomb shelters as part of its Israel Now campaign, and ended with home hospitality in Ofakim. In Mabuim elementary school (Merchavim) they sang the next morning and departed back to the Center of Israel - to the Ramat Eliyahu neighborhood in Rishon Lezion for the last Shabbat and farewell party and song in the Ramat Eliyahu community center. The visit was organized by JCC Maccabi Experience Israel Programs, and the Jewish Agency's Israel Experience Ltd. "We brought smiles to the faces of many Israelis" noted one participant happily before returning home.
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