Belgrade: Landing in the Team Seminar
January, 2016
After a month of orientation of my Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship, meeting key directors of JDC in Jerusalem and New York, I started my first placement working with JDC Junction Europe. Junction is an initiative of the JDC, the Schusterman Foundation, and YESOD, that seeks to empower young Jewish adults and professionals to engage with the pan-European Jewish community.
I jumped right in, and landed in Belgrade, Serbia, where Gesher team preparation seminar was taking place. Gesher is one of the largest annual events in the Balkans for young Jewish adults, bringing people together to explore and celebrate what it means to be Jewish. This year Gesher marked 15 years of Gesher, and with it, it opened its doors from being a Balkan festival to a pan-European one. People from all over Europe were invited to join.
For the last few years, Gesher has recruited every year a group of selected and dedicated volunteers who worked before and during Gesher, making sure that all participants have the best experience they can get. The work of the team always starts with the team preparation seminar - and this is exactly where I landed in.
Because Gesher was open this year for pan-European participants, so were the team members. Coming from a diversity of European countries - Bulgaria, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland, Romania and Serbia. This also allowed us to learn about each other’s nationality, culture and mentality, and to try and design a program and experience that will fit everyone.
Everyone were new to me, but while some of the team members were new to Gesher, I was not. I actually been to Gesher in 2015 - thanks to JDC Europe and the Schustherman family foundation that invited me. At Gesher I was exposed for the first time to the rich and vibrant Jewish life that exist in the Balkans, and so I could already imagine what kind of experience we want o create as well as the challenges we were facing.
From the moment I arrived I literally joined the Junction team. The incredible team made me feel included from the very first moment, including me in adjusting the seminar’s program, asking for my point of view on things, and letting me lead a session for everyone.
From this moment on, we’ve all been in constant contact with the team members, having regularly Skype calls, building Gesher piece by piece, until it became the wonderful experience we had in summer 2016.
To read about Gesher 2016 - press here.
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