Seattle's Shinshinim Program Builds Bridges to Israel
The successful ongoing program brings Israeli teens to schools and synagogues.
By Hadar Katsman, Special to The Cholent
The end of the 2024-2025 school year marks yet another successful year of the Shinshinim Young Ambassadors Program. The Shinshinim program, made possible through a partnership between the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and the Jewish Agency for Israel, brings two Israeli post-high schoolers to Seattle every year to teach the community about Israeli culture and Jewish life in Israel, among other topics.
This year’s shinshinim—a Hebrew acronym for Sh’nat Sherut (year of service)—were Ashira Chasen, 18, from Ra’anana, Israel, and Eliya Hovav, 18, from Elishama, Israel.
“I always had the dream of coming and doing shlichut,” Chasen said, referring to the Israeli experience of connecting Diaspora communities to Israel. “Being a child of people who made aliyah, I really saw the value of the shlichim,” Chasen said. Chasen’s parents were impacted by the shlichim who came to South Africa.
Chasen described living in Israel like sometimes living in a bubble, because it is easier to forget there are so many Jews living in the Diaspora. “It’s really important to connect all the dots and really outreach,” she said.
While Chasen did not originally plan to do shlicut immediately after high school, she was happy to fulfill her dream this year. “My overall experience was amazing,” Chasen said. “Everyone was very supportive, warm, and welcoming.” Families hosted the shinshinim in their homes for the year and helped them transition into their communities.
Hovav, after learning about the shinshinim program, knew she wanted to participate. “I come from a very Zionist house so I was really excited to teach about Israel,” Hovav said. “I really wanted to kind of have my own community [that] I can affect and be really a part of.”
Back home, Hovav was a counselor in her moshav’s youth movement, and she worked with kids with special needs for a few years, too. Chasen was involved with Bnei Akiva as a teenager and was a madricha (leader) for Bnei Akiva for two years. During their year of shlichut, Chasen and Hovav primarily worked in Seattle’s local schools and synagogues, strengthening the bridge between the Greater Seattle community and Israel.
Four days a week, Chasen worked with all ages at Seattle Hebrew Academy, and on Shabbat mornings she led the youth programs at one of Seward Park’s synagogues, Minyan Ohr Chadash. Chasen also worked at Sephardic Religious School at the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Sunday mornings.
“Straight away I fell in love with the school and with the kids, who are all so cute,” Chasen said. “I really feel like the connections with the kids was maybe the biggest gift I got this year.”
While Chasen resided in the Seward Park community, Hovav lived in the North End and worked at Congregation Beth Shalom. “The community is amazing, and they accepted me so well,” Hovav said.
Hovav led programming with the kids on Shabbat mornings. On weekdays and Sundays, she also worked in Beth Shalom’s religious school, from toddlers in the Early Childhood Center to the twelfth grade, teaching them Hebrew and about Israel.
Hovav is Iraqi and Ashkenazi, with a grandmother who is a Holocaust survivor and a father who was injured in the Israeli Defense Force. “There is a lot of things that a lot of Americans [don’t] know about those things,” Hovav said. “I bring a lot of different things and different cultures that I learn in my house and I really wanted to pass it [on].”
One of the programs from this year that stuck with Hovav was her Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) programming, where she discussed with her younger teenage students the State of Israel and its past wars.
“They were so into the conversation and wanting to talk about it,” Hovav said. “I really expected for them to be kind of shy and they [weren’t]. They were amazing.”
Chasen also put on special programming during the chagim (holidays), dedicated to enriching the students’ Judaism outside the classroom. Chasen planned a post-Shabbat Tu B’Shvat event at SHA with Haggit Yoav, an SHA Israeli teacher on shlicut with her family. That night, along with Havdalah and singing, Chasen and Yoav sold products from the Gaza Envelope and baked goods. They donated the money raised to farmers in Israel who were impacted by the war.
“I think there’s an amazing support and love for Israel in this community, and that’s not something I take for granted at all,” Chasen said. “We’re so far from Israel here, and still people here are so connected and care so much and do so much.”
Samuel Klein, Director of Jewish Engagement at the Jewish Federation, said, “It’s been hard to be Israeli—or even just Jewish—in Seattle, especially for our teens. Ashira and Eliya have been powerful role models, showing what it means to hold complexity, to speak with courage and compassion, and to show up with authenticity.”
For both Chasen and Hovav, not being in Israel during the war was hard. Chasen, however, said she felt it was “more important” to be in the Diaspora this year because it gave her the opportunity to impact how those in Seattle viewed the situation.
“Any kid who goes on social media gets so much anti-Israel information that’s wrong, so being a person that they can connect to and say ‘Okay, this is how people in Israel actually look, this is what actually goes on in Israel’ was very important to me,” Chasen said.
In regards to the war, Hovav said she always felt supported and cared for by the community. “When you’re alone, it’s harder,” Hovav said. “I never felt alone here.”
The Jewish Federation has also supported the shinshinim throughout the entire year. Alana Gross, Associate Director of Foundation Operations at the Jewish Federation, met with the shinshinim weekly and supported Chasen and Hovav as they adjusted to Seattle, exploring the city and Jewish communities together.
“When I just arrived, I was a little bit in shock from the whole situation, [but] I had a really positive impression,” Chasen said.
In her free time, Chasen further explored Seattle, hung out with friends, worked out, and joined events like shiurim in the Seward Park neighborhood. Most people her age were on a gap year in Israel or in college, Chasen said, “so I had a lot of time by myself, which is something I don’t really have in Israel that much, and I really learned to appreciate it and value that time.”
Some of Hovav’s host families took her to explore Bainbridge Island and made her a memorable first Thanksgiving dinner. Hovav wanted to “experience a lot,” and on top of touring Seattle, she traveled to New York, Florida, and even Hawaii during vacations.
While Chasen and Hovav, Klein said, have “contributed deeply to the life of this community,” the Jewish Federation currently does not have any official plans to expand the program.
“A lot depends on the community’s engagement—how fully we welcome [the shinshinim] and integrate them into our events and life throughout the year,” Klein said. “It’s not hard to imagine what our community might look like if even more institutions opened their doors to host shinshinim.”
Both Chasen and Hovav extended their stay a few weeks into summer vacation to work at Sephardic Adventure Camp and Camp Solomon Schechter, respectively. In fact, many of their campers were their students this year.
“It’s been an amazing year,” Hovav said. “I feel like I learned and I feel like I also gave what I wanted to give.”
Next year, Hovav will join the Israeli Defense Forces and do psychotechnical diagnostics, where she will interview new recruits and assign them to a job in the army. For her Sherut Leumi (year of service), Chasen will be a madricha at the seminary Midreshet HaRova, a seminary in Jerusalem.
Chasen and Hovav have learned from and given a lot to Seattle’s Jewish communities this year. Next year’s shinshinim will be arriving in Seattle at the end of the summer.
“There’s a lot of stuff I gained but I would say a lot of maturity, a lot of independence,” Chasen said. “I just loved it here and really I felt so much love.”
Hadar Katsman is an incoming junior at Stern College for Women, where she is studying journalism. A Seattle native, she enjoys witnessing her local Jewish community develop, and is eager to further explore and write about the inner workings of her hometown.
Cover photo: Eliya Hovav and Ashira Chasen. Courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle
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