I happened to be one of about 20 young people currently here in Israel on all forms of MASA grants selected to participate in this past month's MASA MAP Leadership Forum. It was a unique amalgam of students and young adults from all around the world, I happen to distinctly remember people from down under, Chile, Uzbekastan and Holland, not to mention a sizable group from North America. We all came together from our different groups (go OTZMA!) to become a little more familiar with what we've all come to know as the helping hand of MASA. Learned a bit about the history of the organization and took in fascinating seminars all day learning how to succinctly tell our own stories in a way that you might actually care to hear, perhaps even with a little mystique.

We got to meet with people involved with MASA on all levels, and with a man who just happens to be the best public speaker in the whole country. He was gracious enough to impart some of his knowledge on us, which we will be able to take and hopefully turn around to bring in even more money to MASA so as to perpetuate the main goal of strengthening the bond between the Diaspora communities and Israel.

I remember a young man in one of my groups during the day saying that it has been former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's dream for one in every five young Diaspora Jews to come here to Israel and live for at least a semester.  With the help of organizations like MASA, we draw closer to reaching and hopefully eclipsing goals like this everyday, and I'm proud to have been chosen to be part of a team that gets to focus on making the success of MASA a priority.  I hope, and secretly suspect, that everyone else involved with the day was inspired even more so than we had been before, and I look forward to my future involvement with MAP projects. Hope to see all of you out there!

Anne Alexander
Washington D.C., USA
OTZMA XXII