Bridging the global culture gap

Bridging the gap between nations and religions isn’t that difficult if the younger generations get acquainted and that is the goal of the Jewish/German Youth Exchange Program that had eight German high school students living with seven Five Towns high school students last week.

The ninth annual incarnation of this program featured Christian-German students from the Bettina Von Arnim Gymnasium (high school) in Berlin and Jewish students from Lawrence and Hewlett-Woodmere high schools.

Though the program was facilitated through Temple Israel in Lawrence, the American students represented several congregations in the Five Towns area. “Germans and Jews have an intertwined relationship through a shared history,” said Temple Israel Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum, who as secretary general of the North American Board of Rabbis, helped to establish this program that began shortly after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

“The new Germany shares the same values and goals as we do and if we can get children together from different backgrounds and faiths to share those common goal we can make the world better,” Rabbi Rosenbaum said.

What these young people found out in the short time they had together — the visit was from Oct. 23-30 — was how much they have in common as the clothing everyone wore was similar and their shyness in answering questions was comparable.

The German students experienced a whirlwind tour of the Five Towns and New York City as they arrived at JFK on Oct. 23 just past 5:30 p.m. and spent the following day with their host families.

A visit and having lunch in Manhattan was on the agenda for Oct. 25, and the German students saw the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and walked on Fifth Avenue.

“It’s like a film and it is much bigger,” said Felix Jurgens, one of the German students, describing his first trip into New York City. “A lot of bling-bling,” he added to a chorus of laughter from his peers as everyone ate during a meet and greet dinner at Temple Israel that Monday.

Lawrence High School sophomore Steven Krim was paired with Jurgens — a coupling of the oldest and youngest (Krim) students — but the duo seemed to hit it off.

Krim, who learned of the program through his older sister who went to Italy last winter, first communicated with Jurgens by emails. “I like to see how other cultures are,” Krim said, in explaining why he participated in the program. “To gain a better idea [of the world] and more than just what it is to grow up in America.” All of the American students will visit Berlin in February.

Hewlett public schools’ Spirit Week coincided with the German students’ visit and Monica Sigler and Brittany Schacht planned to show their new friends, Lisa-Marie Kruger, Luisa Koch and Janett Rabaza Quintero, the excitement surrounding Homecoming and American football.

“This a good experience to learn about another culture,” said Sigler, a junior at Hewlett High School. “To study and learn about a different part of the world is really interesting.”

Schacht, a senior, also had an older sister who traveled to Italy as part of the student-exchange program and said “this a great experience that I couldn’t turn down.”

Both Sigler and Schacht took Kruger, Koch and Quintero to Roosevelt Field Mall, along with introducing them to Ralph’s Ices and Carvel ice cream. Kruder was already planning where to take her American pals noting the shopping in Berlin.

Rabbi Rosenbaum summed up the goal of the exchange program, “[To learn] you can’t paint all people with the same brush.”