Source: YU News
Yeshiva University recently announced that 20 outstanding tenth graders from the Yeshiva University high schools – 10 from the Yeshiva University High School for Boys/Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy (YUHSB) and 10 from the Samuel H. Wang Yeshiva University High School for Girls (YUHSG) – will be participating in a unique six-week student exchange program with Israeli high schools. Now in its second year, the program aims to immerse the American students in Israeli culture and help them connect with their Israeli counterparts.
The YUHSG students, who arrived in Israel on December 6, have already joined their peers at Ulpanat Tzvia in Ma'aleh Adumim, while the YUHSB students will begin classes at Yeshivat Mekor Haim in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion upon their December 17 arrival.
In this program, the students are fully-integrated into the Israeli classrooms, sitting in on all Judaic studies classes, and included in all school activities, and housed in the same dormitories as the Israeli students.
The YU high school students will also take part in a series of field trips intended to show them Israel’s out-of-the-way treasures and will enjoy special Shabbat programs at the Yeshiva University Gruss Kollel in Bayit Ve’Gan arranged by the Kollel families themselves.
Later this year, six Yeshivat Mekor Haim students and four Ulpanat Tzvia students will travel to New York to study at the Yeshiva University high schools for a six-week period. In addition to attending classes, the Israeli students will tour New York City and Philadelphia to learn about American history and culture, and will experience life in U.S. Jewish communities.
The YU school administrators see this program as involving the students in the Global Jewish Community an important part of the preparation of future Jewish leaders.