Each year, a couple of Israeli teens come to the Philadelphia area to join the team at the Kaiserman JCC. These young people, called shinshinim, are welcomed by the JCC and participate in a variety of activities while they work and live with host families.

While it’s nice for the JCC to have some extra hands to help out, this program is so much more than just a way to get a few more workers in the building: It’s an important cross-cultural exchange.

This year’s shinshinim, Dan and Noya — who preferred to just use their first names due to security concerns — said that they are thrilled to be spending a year at the Kaiserman JCC between the end of school and the start of their service in the Israel Defense Forces. There are plenty of places in the United States where they could have ended

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