Yahav Barnea, the new Israeli emissary (shlichah) working for the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, considers herself first and foremost an educator. Her plans while she’s here for the next year or two are to teach people a thing or two about Israel and, by doing so, garner support for the Jewish state.
Barnea, who moved here in mid-August, is the sixth emissary to work for the Jewish Federation. She takes over for Ophir Hacohen, who completed her commitment to the community in June and returned to Israel where she is now studying in Jerusalem.
“We are excited to have Yahav in the community. Since interviewing her for the position, we have been excited about her continuing the tradition of excellent shlichim (emissaries). Israel education continues to be vitally important and we are confident that knowledge about and commitment to Israel will be strengthened through Yahav’s efforts,” said Alan Edelman, Jewish Federation’s associate executive director. Kansas City is able to employ an Israeli emissary through a partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Thanks to Hacohen, Barnea is not starting from a blank slate and believes it is crucial to maintain some sort of consistency from one shaliach to another.
“I met with Ophir a few time in Israel after she came back. She wrote this amazing handbook to help me have a good start with a better understanding of the community, of the people here, and of the projects and events that she organized,” she said.
Just before the start of the High Holidays, Barnea said she planned to take it slow and get to know the community before she started planning any programs. However in the few short weeks she’s been here, she’s already visited with students at KU Hillel.
One of her goals with the student/young adult community is to cultivate relationships with those students who have returned home from a variety of Israel programs including Birthright and leadership trips.
“We want to try to help them stay connected to the community and Israel and not have that one-time experience,” she said. “They will be the kind of people who want to be involved in Israel programming because a lot of times when you have that connection to Israel you have a stronger connection to their own community. We hope when they graduate they will be leaders in the community”
Barnea, like most emissaries, will not work with just young people.
“I came here to make a dialogue with the Jewish community and the community at large,” she said. “I will have conversations about Israel with children and adults. When I am at events talking to people we will talk about what is different about the way you see Israel and the way I see it as a person who lives there and give my own unique perspective of Israel, which is what I call education.”
Growing up on a kibbutz
Barnea was born and raised in Israel and comes from a kibbutz located in the western Galilee called Shomrat. Kibbutz life, at least at Kibbutz Shomrat, has changed dramatically since Barnea was born in 1984. When she was young, it was still very communal. In fact she lived in a children’s house until she was about 7 years old, when the Gulf War started.
“Then we moved in with our parents because it was safer, and we never came back to the children’s house,” she said.
The war was not the reason the kibbutz decided to change its ways, it just sped things up a little.
“All the apartments in the kibbutz were very small. Ours had just one bedroom, small living room and a tiny kitchen because no one ate at home. Everybody ate at the communal dining room,” she explained.
“When the war started most of the kids just slept on the couch because we didn’t have rooms.”
Barnea explained that Shomrat, like most kibbutzim, started the privatization process about 15 to 20 years ago. “Now there is almost nothing communal in terms of services or community life. Everybody gets their own salary now, unlike before. Everyone does their own work, has their own home and their own little family,” she said.
Shomrat today is still an agricultural community with avocado plantations, cows and chickens. Over the years Barnea said she gained experience in all those areas.
Life after the kibbutz
Instead of joining the army immediately after high school, Barnea took a gap year and volunteered with the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, an international Zionist Jewish youth movement started 100 years ago in Europe. Barnea was a member herself, joining the movement when she was in sixth grade and becoming a counselor when she was in high school. Through this organization, she worked with children of foreign workers in Israel —such as Philipinos, Africans, Indians and Turks — many of whom were in the country illegally — and lived in Tel Aviv.
“That was very interesting work that led me to different job decisions later on,” she said.
In the military — she completed her service a decade ago — she served as an assistant in the military law offices. During her second year she was based near Ramallah, where Palestinian prisoners, ranging from petty thieves to terrorists, were jailed.
“The work there was very interesting and very eye opening. I worked with their lawyers and read some very disturbing cases about bombings and things that happened,” Barnea said.
The proximity of Palestinian prisoners actually made her feel more secure.
“No one would bomb that base because their friends were all there.”
Following the army, Barnea worked on a kibbutz close to the Gaza Strip as a counselor of sorts to 11th- and 12th-grade boarding-school students.
“I was their mother in some ways,” she explained. “We wouldn’t do things for them, we would do things with them … guiding them, helping them,” she said.
Before settling into college life, Barnea also traveled to Central America. She attended Kibbutzim College of Education, where she began pursuing a degree in education. Before she even graduated, which was earlier this year, she started working at a middle-school teaching history and Bible studies.
“They need good people in the system and they knew I was working on my undergrad and was getting my diploma. So they took me in,” she explained, noting that is common practice in Israel.
Coming to America
After graduation the 29-year-old emissary felt it was time once again to make a change.
“I felt like I wanted to get different kinds of professional experiences in education and to try to explore the different options in that field outside of a school, outside of a formal system. Although I learned a lot and I evolved a lot in those last two years it’s not necessarily what I want to do,” she said.
“I also truly love my country and the values of Zionism and I thought coming here would be a good way to give back to my community and spread these values through education,” she continued.
She’s excited to begin her work here, teaching us about Israel and learning about Jewish life in America. One thing she won’t have to worry about is honing her English-language skills. Barnea can thank her mother (who was born and raised in Canada and made aliyah in her early 20s) and her grandmother for that.
“We spoke Hebrew at home because my mother insisted it was a Jewish-Israeli home. But her mother came to live on the kibbutz when I was just a baby and with her we only spoke English,” she said. “My grandmother always corrected me on every single mistake I made, so thanks to her I speak English well.”
Barnea reiterates that she will take a modest approach as she begins her duties as Israeli emissary.
“I just came here,” she said. “First of all I want to get to know people and I want to learn about the community and the different things that are happening here before I start stating my opinions and my own big ideas. Who am I to say what is right for this place, for Kansas City, before I actually learn what the needs and the wants of the community are?”
As with the last couple of shlichim, Barnea has a presence on Facebook, where she posts articles and information about Israel. In mid-August she had almost 1,300 followers. You can follower her on Facebook at Yahav Shlicha Kansas. Or you can contact her at or 913-327-8124.
