If you have attended a JEWISHcolorado event in the past year, you may very likely have encountered one of JEWISHcolorado’s Shinshinim. For a full year, these young Israelis, all recent high school graduates who delay service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), serve in Israel and in diaspora communities around the world. They spend a year immersed in the local Jewish community, educating youth about Israeli society and culture, current affairs, and Jewish traditions. They bring with them unique interests and passions and, above all, a willingness to create a bridge to Israel. Meet JEWISHcolorado’s five new Shinshinim!
Liraz Bar
Liraz Bar has already visited 26 U.S. states, thanks to the Tzofim Friendship Caravan, a three-month Friends of Israel Scouts program. In the summer of 2024, 10 teen Israelis plus adult drivers (including one who had been a Shinshin in London) drove up and down the East Coast delivering a presentation about Israel to Americans.
“It was the best thing I had ever done in my life,” Bar says. “It was incredible how many different Jewish cultures we encountered. That is the reason I wanted to become a Shinshinim.”
Bar qualified for the Friendship Caravan in part because of her excellent English, which she learned watching American movies—”The Greatest Showman” is her favorite, a nod to her love for musical theater. The youngest of three siblings, she is the only member of her family who speaks English. Her grandparents immigrated to Israel from Morocco and Iraq and speak Arabic. Her parents and siblings speak Hebrew.
“In high school, I majored in Arabic,” Bar says. “I wanted to be able to talk to my grandparents to really get to know them.”
Bar grew up in Rehovot, about twenty minutes from Tel Aviv. In addition to her extensive travels in the U.S., she has visited the UK, Poland, France, and Hungary. She describes herself as a traveler and a hiker, but when she first learned she would be spending a year in Colorado, she had to reach for her computer.
“I googled Colorado to see if there is a sea there,” she says with a laugh. “No sea, but that’s fine because there are mountains, and I have never seen snow.”
She is eager to get to work as a Shinshinit, with a clear view of her main goals.
“I want to influence people,” she says. “I want them to feel Israel’s power and culture from my experience.”
Adi Buchman
If you are a fan of the popular television show “Friends,” you know that the episode titles all start “The one that….” In the case of Adi Buchman, there should be an episode titled “The One that Teaches English to Young Israelis”—because “Friends” was Buchman’s favorite television show.
She also practiced English during a month-long visit to relatives in Canada last year. In high school, all the classes in her major—diplomacy—were held in English. With great language skills, she would be a strong candidate for the Shinshinim program, but she had never heard of it until a friend mentioned that the applications were starting in a couple weeks. Intrigued, Buchman applied.
“It is a very selective program and there were a lot of hurdles,” Buchman says. “They only take the best of the best, so I was shocked when I made it, but I am very happy to be here.”
Shock number two came when she found out where she had been assigned.
“I did not know there was a city named Denver!” she says with a laugh. “But I did know about the mountains because I had been in Canada. I am really excited to be here. It will be my first chance to go skiing. I have never even seen snow!”
This is Buchman’s first trip to the United States. She comes from Hadera, a city she describes as “bigger in land than Tel Aviv but not with very many people.” She is active in Krembo Wings, a youth movement that works to integrate children who have special needs into activities with a larger population of children. She comes from a family that is more secular than religious, so she sees this year as an opportunity to explore her Jewish identity as she both teaches and learns.
“I really love Israel, and I want to show people how amazing it is through my eyes,” she says. “I want to show our traditions, but I also want to see what traditions people do here differently. Mostly, I just want to have impact by being myself as best as I can.”
Alma Elad
Alma Elad calls K’mehin, a moshav under the jurisdiction of Ramat HaNegev Regional Council, home. She describes it as a small community of 50 families near the border with Egypt, where everyone works in agriculture. Her family has a tomato farm.
“I love it there,” she says. “It’s quiet, everyone knows everyone, you can walk barefoot in the streets and play with the children.”
She learned English from her parents and from her classes at Ramat HaNegev High School. The oldest of five children in the family, she is already hearing from her seven-year-old sister that she is very much missed since she left home for a year’s service as a Shinshinit.
Elad remembers knowing about the Shinshinim program from the time she was in elementary school because she “saw it in action” around her moshav. When she was in tenth grade, she traveled to Denver with the Ambassadors Ramat HaNegev Teens (ART) program and saw Shinshinim at work at Denver Jewish Day School.
“It’s an important year when you can figure things out about yourself,” she says. “It’s a year when you can both help people and grow and get ready to be an adult.”
In addition to her visit to Denver, Elad has traveled to New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. She knew that the partnership between Ramat HaNegev and JEWISHcolorado meant that the odds were good that she would land as a Shinshinit in Denver, but even if that had not been the case, Denver was her first-choice destination.
“I want to learn about this community and give as much as I can back to the community,” she says. “Mainly, I want to share the Israeli story—how I see Israel through my eyes.”
Tomer Eli
Tomer Eli says, “I dreamed of this for years.”
He first heard about Shinshinim when he was six or seven years old from a cousin who had served in the program. From that time on, he was single-mindedly focused on doing a year of service outside of Israel. He checked out the Shinshinim application when he was in eighth grade and waited patiently until eleventh grade, when he could apply.
“I just gave it my all and decided if this was going to happen, it would be amazing,” he says. “But I always was just myself during the application, because if you get in, you want them to know who you really are.”
A self-described “theater kid through and through,” Eli lives in Pardes Hanna-Karkur, where he has many friends who date back to his earliest memories.
“You know people from the first day of Kindergarten,” he says. “They watch you grow up and you watch them, and you are so proud of the people they are today.”
When he became Bar Mitzvah, Eli took a family trip that included Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Disney World, and several national parks, including the Grand Canyon. When he learned he would be coming to Denver, he googled the city and was surprised that it was not quite the desert he had expected. Since he arrived, he has found people to be very welcoming, and he believes that is partly due to the excellent work done by previous Shinshinim. He already knows how he wants to be remembered after his year in Colorado.
“I want to leave here with people I consider family,” he says. “If someone thinks of Israel and they think of the Shinshinim, of our faces, then we have done our job.”
Maayan Hayoun Rozenfeld
Maayan Hayoun Rozenfeld wanted to become a Shinshinim so much that he checked the Jewish Agency website “constantly” so he could be one of the first to submit his application. His goals were already clear in his mind—he wanted to “make connections, influence people, and be a role model.”
Hayoun Rozenfeld grew up in Mitzpe Ramon in the Negev Desert, a town he describes as “small enough that when you walked the streets, you recognized everyone.” He learned English from watching YouTube and American movies and playing video games. He attended Ramat HaNegev High School, where he heard about the Shinshinim program while working as an apprentice to the coordinator of the partnership between Colorado and Ramat HaNegev.
“I thought to myself, ‘Wow, you can do service outside of Israel,’” he recalls. “It sounded like a huge opportunity and an experience you could get nowhere else.”
His determination to become a Shinshin redoubled after he visited Denver in the 10th grade through the Ambassadors Ramat HaNegev Teens (ART) program and later had the opportunity to spend time with Denver teenagers on the Joyce Zeff Israel Study Tour (IST). During that trip, he visited Denver Jewish Day School and saw the current Colorado Shinshinim in action.
“I was able to see the Jewish community and how different it was from being Jewish in Israel,” he says. “That opened my mind and made me curious because here, not everything around you is Jewish.”
He is looking forward to trying all of Colorado’s outdoor activities—the mountains, the rivers, and especially snowboarding.” And now that his diligent attention to the application process has paid off, he is ready to fulfill his main goals.
“When I was young, I had experience with Shinshinim, and I saw how they really affected people,” he says. “They gave of themselves, and I want to be like them.”