If you have attended a JEWISHcolorado event in the past year, you may very likely have encountered one of JEWISHcolorado’s Shinshinim, young Israelis who share their lives, knowledge, and culture with Coloradans.
Shinshinim is a Hebrew acronym for Shnat Sherut or “year of service.” For a full year, these young people, all recent high school graduates who delayed service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), serve in Israel and in diaspora communities around the world. They spend a year immersed in the local Jewish community, educating youth about Israeli society and culture, current affairs, and Jewish traditions.
Typically JEWISHcolorado has four Shinshinim, but this year, for the first time, Jco welcomed five new Shinshinim. They bring with them unique interests and passions and, above all, a willingness to create a bridge to Israel.
Omri Hadad
When Omri Hadad filled out his application to become a Shinshin he wasn’t sure what his mission would be. Then he came to a question on the application that gave him his answer.
“It asked you, ‘Why do you love Israel?’,” he remembers. “In Israel, you just take for granted that you love your country, but it’s an important question to ask yourself. I appreciate and love my country even more now that I have decided to be an emissary for a year. I am doing it for my country.”
This is not Omri’s first adventure. As a child, he lived in Canada for six years with his parents, and that experience has stayed with him.
“I was only five or six years old, and I heard someone make antisemitic comments at the bakery where my mother worked,” he says. “I feel like a lot of people around the world are uninformed about Israel and especially about the war. The wave of hate that is spreading across the world inspired me to come here.”
Omri believes that during his year in Colorado, he can change hearts and minds about what is happening in Israel with casual daily conversations—including one he had just had with the Uber driver who brought him to JEWISHcolorado.
“I want to showcase the value of seeking out the truth,” he says. “I think everyone should be able to talk to one another and, even if they disagree, not turn to anger but have a meaningful conversation.”
Omri’s home is in Atlit, a coastal town south of Haifa. He plays water polo and rugby, and he surfs. He is also an experienced skier (he has skied in Russia, Japan, and Italy) and is looking forward to hitting the slopes in Colorado.
Yeara Samoha
Yeara Samoha uses the word “love” frequently—and when she says it, you understand she means it.
She loves Beit Hanan, the moshav (cooperative agricultural settlement) in central Israel, where she was born and has lived her entire life. Beit Hanan, a village of fewer than 600 people, was founded by her great-grandparents and other families who emigrated to Israel from Bulgaria in 1929.
“Everyone knows everyone there,” Yeara says. “It’s very peaceful. There are more dogs than cars, with little children running around everywhere. It’s just a lovely place.”
As a Shinshinit, Yeara hopes to share with Colorado the values that she learned growing up in Beit Hanan.
“I love Israel so much,” she says. “I know that people in the U.S. want to feel connected to Israel. I can bring that connection, and I think I will go back home more Israeli than when I came.”
Yeara was in the highest English-speaking group in her high school, but her real secret to learning English came at home where she watched the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon with English subtitles. She has studied ballet in New York, and she has family in Texas.
In Israel, she has been a coordinator of her Scouts tribe which she describes as a “family environment” and says she “loves the value of Scouts, learning to work together.”
When Yeara applied to be a Shinshinit, she had no idea where she would be sent, but she could not be happier with the outcome.
“This is the best place I could have gone,” she says. “My family in Texas would move to Colorado if they could!”
Ori Moryosef
Ori Moryosef made up her mind that she would be a Shinshinit two years ago. It happened when she had the good fortune to encounter JEWISHcolorado’s 2022 Shinshinim while she was visiting Denver Jewish Day School as an Israeli ambassador.
“When I met the Shinshinim, I realized I could do my year of service abroad,” she says. “I said to them, ‘I will be you in two years!’”
Ori comes from the kibbutz Mashabei Sade in JEWISHcolorado’s partnership region Ramat HaNegev. She loved Colorado on her first visit (“the mountains, the snow, the hiking!”), and she has returned to strengthen the connection between Israel and diaspora Jews.
“It is amazing to think that I can spend an entire year giving of myself to the Jewish community and especially to children,” she says. “When people hear things about Israel that are not true, I can tell the truth of what is happening.”
Ori has traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. When she was in third grade, her family spent half a year in India. She learned English in school and by watching American television, particularly “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” with subtitles on, and then, to improve her English, with subtitles off.
On her wrist, Ori wears a bracelet that is a replica of the wristbands worn by attendees at the Nova Music Festival. The wristband remembers those who were kidnapped on October 7 with these words: “10/7. Until everyone is here, we are still there.” Her 24-year-old brother is in the IDF and was sent to Gaza just as she arrived in Denver.
“It was hard to leave home because it feels like he and I are not in the same reality,” she says. “My mom told me to try to forget about the war, but I can’t.”
For Ori, the definition of success as a Shinshinit is very simple: “To keep the connections I make this year so I can come back and visit,” she says. “That would be meaningful.”
Yuval Tamir
Yuval Tamir was born and raised in Jerusalem, “my favorite city so far.” His family lives five minutes away from the headquarters of The Jewish Agency for Israel, and because of that, he was familiar with the Shinshinim program. He also has a family history of service as emissaries—his aunt was a Shlicha in Australia and his uncle was a Shaliach in Manchester, England.
“My family always has said we need to serve our country,” he says. “When I heard what we would do as Shinshinim, I realized this is how I wanted to serve. If I change one person’s mind about Israel or any issue, that would be a success.”
Yuval describes himself as a “huge fan” of hiking and camping and for the past two years has served as a guide in an Israeli youth movement focused on discovering the natural world.
“I worked with seventh and eighth graders and taught them that nature is unpredictable,” he says. “They needed to learn how to be powerful by working together.”
Since he was a child, Yuval has been an avid coffee drinker, and he is now looking for the best coffee in Denver. Advised that he may be disappointed by American coffee shops, he confides a small secret—he brought some coffee with him from Israel.
It was difficult to leave his family and his friends for a year—especially those friends who are serving in the IDF, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. “It’s important to be here,” he says. “If it weren’t important, I would not be here.”
Shoham Suisa
Shoham Suisa is a world traveler. She has been to nearly 20 countries (her favorite is Japan), including two month-long trips to the United States to celebrate her sister’s and her own bat mitzvah. But in all her American travels, she had not yet been to Colorado, so landing in Denver as a Shinshinit is a dream fulfilled.
“I really wanted to be here,” she says. “I knew about Aspen and had seen pictures of how beautiful the mountains are, and it’s exactly what I was expecting.”
Shoham spent the first four years of her life in Sderot, the largest city attacked by Hamas on October 7. Her grandparents on both sides still live in Sderot, but her family left many years ago when her Kindergarten was destroyed by a rocket and her father was hit by debris from another missile. The family moved to Talmei Yaffe, a moshav in Southern Israel near Ashkelon.
When she was in tenth grade, Shoham learned about the Shinshinim program from a presentation in school. She was so interested, she enrolled in a program to prepare for a year serving as an Israeli emissary.
“It seemed like something important to do,” she says. “It was something bigger than me. Israel is an amazing country—I want to show Israel through my eyes.”
Shoham loves to read (thrillers and classics), and she is a huge movie fan. She had an advantage when it came to learning English—her mother is a high school English teacher.
While it was difficult to leave Israel at this time, she says it was also a “perfect” time to leave.
“I have a story to tell,” she says. “The Jewish Agency Shinshinim program is especially important right now. Even if it means leaving your home for a year, it’s for a good cause. I knew I had to do it—not for me, but for others.”