Last night Year Course participants, staff and guests took part in the closing ceremony of YC 2011-2012.
The evening, as usual, was hosted by YC MCs and talented YCers performed. We were also joined by a number of distinguished guests, Marlene Post, Barbara Goldstein (BG), Gil Troy the author of Why I am A Zionist and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. BG addressed the crowd in her usual direct fashion as she charged them to go out and make Jewish babies! Marlene then addressed YC impressing everyone with her love of Israel, generosity of spirit, and inspiration to the chanichim to impact the future of the Jewish people.
We were honored to have the Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat with us which may have had a little something to do with the fact that his daughter, Noam, was with us all year as one of the Garin Atid Tzofim based with our YCers in Bat Yam! He spoke about the importance of YC for Israel and the Jewish people and talked about Jerusalem’s future for our YC alumni.
Gil Troy, one of our well-known YC alumni spoke taking the opportunity to remind the YCers that if they remain strongly rooted in their past, they and the friends they made this year can take their ideas for social change into the future.
A number of participants spoke emotionally about their year, the experiences they had, the connections they have made and how they feel today about their Judaism and Israel.
This has been a very successful year. We changed the staffing structure for the better and while many people worked ridiculously hard this year, we see the results clearly in the journey that the YCers have taken. Hearing the chanichim speak so eloquently last night, feeling the emotion as they said their farewells to their good friends, makes it all worthwhile.
FZY wishes to Thank and Kol Hakavod to all the Year Course staff in Israel as well as Joel Jacobs, Aron Lazarus and especially the FZY YC madrich Jason Roston for a superb year.
For those of you coming on Year Course 2012/13, we are already hard at work preparing to welcome you in September, which will be here sooner than you think!
Adam Jenshil
Director of Year Course
