Seeing the bundle of energy that is Noa Nave, one can understand why she could and would want to spend a summer at a Jewish day camp and teach Kansas City children about her homeland … Israel.
“Television and radio does not present Israel in the best way,” said Nave. “You only see about war and Gaza. I want to show the other side, the beaches, the people, the language.”
At the end of the summer, Nave wants the campers to “love Israel and want to go there one day.” While she’s here in Kansas City she will spend time with all 11 of the Jewish Community Center’s Barney Goodman camp groups. She will meet with each group once a week, every week, for 45 minutes, teaching the campers about Israel using a different activity each week. Sports Campers and Ma’asim Tovim participants will also have opportunities to meet with Nave.
Before coming to the United States, Nave spent six months training and studying for her time in the United States. Shaliachs, or emissaries, are carefully chosen and matched with a summer camp program. The program is voluntary and the shaliachs are not paid to come to camp, just provided with airfare, home hospitality and pocket money.
Nave said wanted to work with children, so this seemed like a great opportunity to her after she finished her army commitment. While in the army she spent part of her time as a commander with new recruits at a base called Zikim.
“I really like kids,” she said. “I like to teach in a creative way, I like to help people and teach in a different way that they did not know before.”
Nave believes her experience in Macabbi Zaer (Young Macabbi), an Israeli youth group, also contributed to her desire to work in a camp and teach about Israel.
One important thing she wants to tell the children is about the real Israel.
“When I think about Israel I think about home, beach, friends, family,” Nave said. “The way we live is very different from here. There everything moves very fast, here they chill and relax.”
“Noa has done a fabulous job defining Israel in the imaginations of all of our campers as a place of rich cultural diversity and stunning natural beauty,” said Bridey Stangler, interim director of JCC Camps. “Noa is the greatest symbol of Israel that our camp has, and we’re lucky to have her teaching our campers about the Jewish homeland!”
Although Nave is the Israeli shlicha (female emissary), she does have one thing in common with many of her campers. She was actually born in the United States and moved to Israel when she was 6 months old. Her parents, Nurit and Yehuda, had come to the United States to travel after they got married. They liked it so much they stayed and found jobs. But after Nave was born the family of three returned to Israel. Now 21, she grew up in Carmi Yosef, a town located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Six years ago she returned to the United States with her family to tour the East Coast. They went from Florida to New Jersey, but they never came to the Midwest or Kansas. Nave is impressed by what she sees here.
“The spirit they have here is amazing,” Nave said. “I am going to learn a lot as well. It is a different population than Israel. I am getting to see how another Jewish population lives. When you teach, you learn from your students. Camp started only a (couple of weeks) ago, but I am learning a lot every day.”
Nave is enjoying her time in Kansas. She will live with three different host families.
“I will spend three weeks with each family,” Noa said. “I will really get to know people better this way. I never got to do this before.”
The first family she stayed with was Norm and Alison Heisler. Ilana Heisler also works at the JCC camps.
After her time in Kansas is over, Nave plans to travel to Central America with some friends before returning to Israel to start college. She also plans to recommend the shaliach program to her younger sister, Neta.