Sarah and Jason Grope hold a record that has enriched their lives and the lives of others.
The Gropes have hosted JEWISHcolorado Shinshinim for 10 years—a full decade. Ten young Israeli emissaries have found a second home with Sarah and Jason and their three sons, ages 20, 17, and 14.
“I feel like it’s good for everyone involved,” Sarah Grope says. “I feel like I have 13 kids and not just three!” It all started when the Grope children attended Camp Shai at the Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center and came home asking if the family could host an Israeli counselor for a short time. The family discovered that they enjoyed having an addition to the household—“a new person to love,” Sarah says.
When JEWISHcolorado asked the Gropes if they would like to host an Israeli teen emissary spending a year in Denver, they said yes.
“Part of being Jewish is having an open door and welcoming strangers,” says Sarah. “This seemed to me like a great way to live that lesson in real life and support Israel in a way that is tangible.” Through the years, the Gropes have been Ruby’s “go-to family” when she is looking for hosts. This year, they are hosting Yuval Tamir, one of the five Shinshinim serving Colorado.
The Grope family with Yuval Tamir
In contrast to the Gropes, Kareen and Hal Shapiro hosted an Israeli teen for the first time this year. In a way they could not have anticipated, hosting Omri Hadad changed the trajectory of the family’s future.
“Omri came to us at the last minute,” says Kareen. “But it all feels like it was meant to be.”
“This is what we always hoped the program would become,” says Michelle Ruby, Director of Israel Teen Emissaries and Education. “It’s an experience that enables families to build a living bridge to Israel through their kids, and we would love to give as many families in our community the opportunity to host as we can.”
‘They think of their friend who has a name and a face’
In the first couple of years that Ruby started looking for host families, it was, she says, “the most difficult part of my job.” Then COVID years hit, which did not make finding families any easier. But in the past two years, she has seen a cultural shift in the community.
“Families are meeting the teens because they interacted with them in multiple places, and the Shinshinim are coming back to me and asking if they could stay with a specific family,” Ruby says. “Or in some cases, parents are calling me and saying, ‘My child met this Shinshin. Could we host them?’”
JEWISHcolorado’s Shinshinim are here in partnership with a global program run by the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI). They stay in Colorado for a year, and they are in the community daily, visiting 40 different sites every week—everything from religious schools, Jewish Student Connection (JSC) clubs in high schools, Hillels, Denver Jewish Day School, and summer camps.
“They work a lot and they are ‘on’ all the time,” says Ruby. “Even when they are hanging out with other teens, they are expected to be role models, so I look for families who will not treat them as guests but will allow them to be themselves and see what it means to be part of an American family.”
Through the Shinshinim program, children of all ages—from very young preschoolers to college-age students—connect with a person who brings the faraway country of Israel close to home.
“The closest experience we can give American teens to Israel—other than traveling there—is to have a peer who is from there,” Ruby says. “Now, when they hear the word ‘Israel,’ they don’t think of war and hostages. They think of their friend who has a name and a face.”
‘The ultimate connection’
Hosting Shinshinim renews and revitalizes a family’s ties with Israel. The Gropes have hosted Yuval’s family in Colorado, including his mother, father, and brother. They have also visited three of their former Shinshinim in Israel. Both of their older sons have traveled to Israel on the Joyce Zeff Israel Study Tour (IST) and stayed with their very first Shinshin, Shay. Shay has also returned to Colorado to visit.
“Shay is a fighter pilot in the IDF, and now he is married, so we have met his wife,” Sarah says. “We watched him grow up from being a teenager to being a really mature young man who is defending his country.” Particularly in a post-October 7th world, the connections families make by hosting Shinshinim are more meaningful than ever.
“Since October 7th, we worry about our homeland and the people we love there,” Sarah says. “But through the Shinshinim, kids on college campuses who face antisemitism know that in Israel, Jews are always welcome.”
Micah Shapiro and Omri Hadad
Last fall, when Omri arrived, the Shapiros’ son Micah was beginning the process of applying for colleges. His parents had gently suggested that he take a look at college in Israel, but he wasn’t interested—until he and Omri became fast friends, bonding over their mutual interest in engineering. Omri introduced Micah to The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and now Micah will head to Haifa—Omri’s hometown—to study aerospace engineering.
“We are excited because we love Israel,” Kareen says. “Now we have a reason to go even more frequently. And through the Shinshinim, Micah feels like he has a group of friends in Israel already.”
To Michelle Ruby, the connection between Micah Shapiro and Omri Hadad is a classic example of the Shinshinim program at its very best—and a reminder that without host families, it cannot exist.
“It’s a two-way street where host families get a wonderful and unforgettable lifelong relationship and Shinshinim have a home any time they return to the U.S.,” Ruby says. “We hope to make that connection, and what happened with Micah and Omri seems like the ultimate connection to me.”