Our Club focuses on Service at home and abroad

Rotary’s commitment to peace and understanding in our own communities and around the world is nowhere more important than in countries suffering from deep-rooted and seemingly intractable conflicts. In this Report sent to our Member Sir Sigmund Sternberg, President Kern E. Wisman of the Rotary Club of Jerusalem reports on his Club’s programme, including the active part it plays in promoting dialogue and understanding.

The activities of our Club this past year included the continuation of our premier project, that of providing scholarships to secondary school youth. This was our 43rd
year to allocate money to students to assist them in defraying the expenses associated with their respective choices in continuing their educations. Close to US$8,000 was distributed among 69 students in varying amounts.

In December, one of our number, P.P. Rizek Abusharr, was given an honour by the District 490 when he became one of eight Rotarian recipients in the District to receive the ‘Shield of Tolerance’ award for his efforts in coexistence and intercultural cooperation.

In January our Club responded to the devastating Tsunami disaster by contacting Rotarians in Chennai in Madras State [Tamil Nadu], with whom we were acquainted. Initially we sent money to be used to repair the fishermen’s boats that
were damaged in the Tsunami, but after the governmentstepped in to repair them, P.D.G. Rehka Shetty of District 3230 identified another need, and so the US$2,700 were used to replace bicycles for the children of the area, in order that they could again get to school.

In cooperation with Clubs in the United States, the Jerusalem Rotary Club cosponsored a ‘Young Entrepreneurs’ programme with the San Marino Club from
California, encouraging teams of youths to conceive of a product, produce, and market it. In a Matching Grant project with the Skokie Valley and Jerusalem West Clubs, our Club assisted in the building of a playground in the Musrara seam community in Jerusalem, where children from the bordering Jewish and Arab cultures could play together.

The Club organized two major fundraising projects to raise money for its Centennial Matching Grant project to benefit the Gan Shalom (Peace Kindergarten) of the Jerusalem International YMCA (a programme for preschool children taught in Hebrew and Arabic to equal numbers of Christian and Muslim Arabs and Jews where they learn about each other’s cultures and traditions while cooperating and discovering that there is much more that is similar about them than is different). The first project was to co-sponsor a play, ‘The Two Charlottes’, with the Hadassah group and the second was our annual Treasures Sale, a much anticipated and well attended sale of like new and still useable ‘treasures’.
Kern E. Wisman

[This letter is reprinted from the London Rotarian, Autumn 2005, Vol. 90 No. 1]