One year ago, JEWISHcolorado’s five Shinshinim arrived with high hopes for a year of making connections between Israel and Colorado. In August, as they prepared to return home after their year of service, JEWISHcolorado talked with them about their plans for their future and their favorite memories of the past year.
Yuval Tamir
Yuval is leaving his mission in Colorado for a new mission in Israel. He will join 35 Shinshinim who are returning from around the world to start a new settlement in southern Israel on the border of Jordan. This will be a Garin Nahal kibbutz—Nahal is the combat unit in the IDF that Yuval will join in March, but until then, he will be building a new community.
“It’s another way to help my country,” he says. “It’s a whole new dream.”
Yuval came to Colorado with general expectations of what the year would be—work, host family, friends. He was surprised by “how big of a thing the Shinshinim are in Colorado.” During the year, many of his contributions were scheduled events and programs, but he also discovered “how much I felt I was contributing through small, unscheduled moments and casual conversations.”
What brought him joy were classes with students who remembered the lesson weeks later and dinners he prepared for his host families.
“They would ask me to make the dinner again a week later,” he says with a laugh. “And then they asked for the recipe.”
He would like to be remembered as someone who “really wanted to connect with people and learn from them.”
“When I first came, I thought I would be the one to teach,” he says. “But over time, I became someone who wanted to learn, and I achieved that goal 100 percent.”
He predicts that he will return to JEWISHcolorado, but for now, he leaves with these last words: “Thank you for the year. It was an incredible experience.”
Ori Moryosef
Ori admits sheepishly that as her date of departure nears, she has been fantasizing about going back to Israel for an extended visit—and then returning to Colorado. That speaks volumes about her experience this year, especially because at one point she experienced a “middle of the year crisis” and wanted to leave Colorado and return home to Israel.
“I just switched my mindset,” she says. “I realized that everything I was doing in Colorado was meaningful, and I wanted to keep doing it.”
She will miss her Wednesdays in Colorado, the day that every week she met with middle and high school students at Denver Jewish Day School.
“The Colorado community was warmer and more welcoming than I ever expected,” she says. “My connection to the kids was stronger than I imagined it could be.”
Ori praises her host families who “make me feel so comfortable—like part of the family.” She will also never forget her experience working at Shwayder Camp.
“I loved camp,” she says. “I feel like part of the Shwayder family—they just took me in.”
Ori will be drafted into the IDF at the end of November and will work in intelligence for the Air Force. She hopes to be remembered in Colorado as someone with “good energy, a happy person who brought Israel to Colorado.” Now, she returns to her homeland with no regrets.
“Ori is Israel,” she says. “And Israel is Ori.”
Omri Hadad
Omri is returning home to a job at a climbing gym. He plans to put his climbing skills into action with his brother on a trip to Greece where they will climb Mt. Olympus. In October, he will take the test for his dream position flying helicopters with IDF’s Unit 669, a heliborne combat search and rescue extraction unit.
A year ago, Omri arrived in Colorado with experience living in North America—he grew up in Toronto. But Colorado was a surprise to him.
“I didn’t expect to have such a strong and loving community surrounding me,” he says. “In Toronto, the Jewish community is huge. But in Colorado, it felt like a family where everyone knows everyone, and I loved that.”
Omri made connections in Colorado through his love of the outdoors.
“Summer camp at Ramah of the Rockies just fit me like a glove,” he says. “This whole year, I have enjoyed exploring beautiful Colorado, hiking, skiing, and doing these things with connections to people that I made.”
He plans to continue his love affair with Colorado after he finishes his IDF service with a dream of renting a van and driving across the United States—starting in Colorado. The first thing he plans to do when he returns to the U.S. is to go for all-you-can-eat sushi with the Shapiros, one of his host families.
Omri won’t be returning to Israel alone. He and Micah Shapiro, the son of his hosts, have become such good friends that Micah will be going to Haifa, Omri’s hometown, to study aerospace engineering at The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
So it should come as no surprise when you hear Omri say that he would like to be remembered in Colorado as someone who was a “great friend.”
Shoham Suisa
Shoham says she will need some time to disconnect from Colorado.
“This year has been so amazing, it will take me some time to actually get over it and move forward,” she says. “I mean that in the best way possible.”
She will have four months before she is drafted in December for a unit specializing in electronic communication. During those free months, she plans to work at a job she already has, spend time with her family, and travel—ideally to Cyprus.
Shoham says her greatest joy during the past year was being confirmed at Temple Emanuel. Originally, she was assigned to the confirmation class as a Shinshinim, but she decided to join their studies.
“It helped me think about my Jewish values and how I see being Jewish as my identity,” she says. “In Israel, we take Judaism for granted. Here you work harder to keep Jewish values. Being confirmed, I saw how that worked.”
She would like to be remembered as someone who was good at her job and left her mark in Colorado, creating a foundation that the next Shinshinim will build on after she has left.
Her greatest surprise of the year was the strength of the connections she built with people.
“They have become my family,” she says. “I didn’t expect to develop such a deep bond, so it was a really good surprise.”
It is no surprise to her how hard it is to leave Colorado.
“I don’t know what the future holds, but in Colorado I have been falling in love over and over again—with the work, the people, the state. I loved every bit of this year and it’s very hard to say goodbye.”
Yeara Samoha
Yeara laughs when asked how she would like to be remembered in Colorado.
“I think people will remember me as the girl who sang,” she says. “I sang at Yom HaZikaron and at the JCRC Luncheon. I love that I have been able to give this part of myself to the community.”
She will return home to spend time with her family and friends before she is drafted in February 2026. She is excited that the IDF plans to have her work in intelligence because “it is something meaningful.”
Coming to Colorado, Yeara confesses that she never expected to feel at home as quickly as she did.
“Usually when you go to a new place, it takes a long time to feel like you belong,” she says. “Here everyone was so warm and welcoming, I was surprised at how quickly I became part of the community and that is why I am so sad to be leaving.”
Yeara will remember with particular joy the many times that she went to teach a class—whether it was a preschool class or a high school class—and she discovered that the students recalled what she had taught them the last time she was there.
“Whether I taught them a dance or some Hebrew words or just played a game with them, I was amazed at how much they remembered it weeks later,” she says. “What I did meant something and that is what I am here for.”
When Yeara returns to Colorado, she says her first stop will be the offices of JEWISHcolorado, what she calls the “heart” of her work this past year. Until the time when she can return, she hopes that—in addition to her singing—she will be remembered as a person people could always talk with about any topic—especially Israel.
“If they ever encounter anything about Israel, I hope they will think to themselves, ‘I knew Yeara, and she was from Israel, and she was a great person.’”