Jewish students reunited with friends
Jewish UA students who traveled to Israel over winter break were temporarily reunited this week with four Israeli soldiers they befriended while visiting the country.
When the UA Hillel Foundation sent 40 students to Israel over the winter, the students met and befriended eight Israeli soldiers who were partnered with them by the Parallel Lives Project.
Ze'ev Cohen, 21, Omer Hartung, 20, Limor Bajayo, 19 and Chen Levinstain, 19, arrived in Tucson Wednesday at about 10 p.m. after a 30-hour trip from Israel and will stay until April 25.
Gil Lang, a pre-communication sophomore who went on the trip to Israel, said reuniting with Cohen and the others was exciting, and it was a great feeling when he first saw them yesterday.
"I thought, 'Wow, I was just with them a few months ago, and now we're together again,'" Lang said. "But it's in my home now."
The Parallel Lives Project was created to arrange permanent relationships between universities and units of the Israeli army, said Shara Grifenhagen, program director of the Hillel Foundation.
The project was created in collaboration with Birthright Israel, an organization that arranges trips for young people of Jewish heritage from all over the world to visit Israel for the first time, according to a document released by Parallel Lives Project.
Since the Israeli government requires its citizens to serve in the army for two to three years after their 18th birthday, Hartung said they are not free to choose where they can go after high school.
"In Israel, after high school it's normal that we go into the army," said Hartung, who is a paratrooper. "(In the United States), you get to choose whether to go to school or not."
"We don't have a choice," said Levinstain, smiling.
Cohen said the soldiers' lives are limited, and it was unusual for the government to let them leave Israel while in active duty.
"It was very, very, very, hard for us to be allowed to come over here," Cohen said.
The soldiers attended part of the 24-hour Holocaust vigil on campus early yesterday morning and said though they had never seen a memorial exactly like it.
"It was very special for us," said Bajayo, who teaches war ethics in the education unit with Levinstain.
"The 24-hour vigil, when they read all the names off, it was a beautiful thing," Cohen said.
In the afternoon yesterday, Levinstain said the quartet went Downtown to meet Mayor Bob Walkup, who talked mostly about his trip to Israel and meeting the mayor of Jerusalem.
Melissa Deitch, an elementary education senior, is housing Hartung with her fiancé Josh Wright, a religious studies and psychology senior and SafeRide director.
Deitch said when she and Wright went to Israel with the Hillel Foundation, Hartung was the first person that talked to them.
"We've been communicating with (the soldiers) since we left," Deitch said. "But Hartung we got to know the best."
Lang said the soldiers are close in age to UA students, which has helped him appreciate his life in the United States, and he thinks the partnership promotes cultural awareness and the birthright trip overall.
"I got to meet these kids the same age as us and their lives are intense," Lang said. "I hope that (the project) brings awareness about what we need to do to have better relations with the Israeli people."