From Deliverer to Consultant

When I was young I lived in a very cold climate Minneapolis Minnesota. At the age of 9 my family moved to Washington DC. We were schooled in the public school system one of the worst in the country. The high school was filled with drugs crime and vandals. Nevertheless I did survive. I became a cheerleader which is VERY high status for a young girl in high school. I did well academically. It was the 60s which meant everything was up for negotiation. The old rules and regulations became questionable. We were changing the world no? My family was always involved in social action movements. The war in Vietnam. Helping refuseniks - the Russian Jews. Fighting for ecology. Fighting for the right to wear pants to school. Then I went off to college - Union College in Schenectady New York. I graduated in psychology in June 1974 summa cum laude and phi beta kappa. The summer after my freshman year my folks sent me of to Israel. I fell in love with Israel. The dust. The weather. The food. The people. The cube shaped apartment buildings. Buying milk in a bag. Paying bills at the post office. Upon my return to the USA I decided that I want to live in Israel after college graduation. The following three years passed and I managed to get to Israel as a counselor on youth trips working in a kibbutz and a semester abroad. I had become a fervent Zionist. On July 4 1974 I came to live in Israel. Alone. No family. No friends. Very little Hebrew. I was sent to Arad to WUJS (World Union of Jewish Students) where I studied Hebrew six hours a day. After WUJS I moved to Jerusalem and began working at the Hebrew University writing scholarship reports to donors. And I continued studying Hebrew. In 1975 I was fixed up with a cute army officer and the rest is history. We married in 1976 and 42 years later Amnon, a Jerusalemite, and I are still together. Happily. I then completed a masters degree in early education and family at The Schwartz Program at the Hebrew University. My thesis was on Family Day Care. The Demographic Center from the Prime Ministers Office and Joint Israel funded me to implement my project in Yehud from 1977 - 1987. Eventually I became the national coordinator for day care centers with the Community Center Corporation. After that I spent two years teaching in the early childhood education department at Hebrew University and then joined the staff of a training school in Netanya for early childhood educators. During that period I completed an MS degree in Life Span Sciences at Nova Southeastern University. In addition I studied sensory integration and regulation educational facilitation and coaching and supervision. From 1995 - 2009 I was a field supervisor and teacher at the Kibbutzim College of Education in the department of early education. I took pride in insisting on including in my class immigrants, Christians and Moslems. Diversity was important to me. During those years I took parenting of my three children very seriously. Today my children are all married; all are in Israel and live near our home in Herzliya where we have been since 1977. We have three grandchildren as well as our five grand dogs. I have been involved with ESRA for four years in various areas including being a magazine distributor and working with Students Build a Community and First Steps - an enrichment program for kindergarteners. I also am in charge of translations and editing for another outstanding organization: Aharai! Youth Leading Change . I have always believed that it is our mission and responsibility to leave the world a better place than when we arrived. To leave your mark. To make a difference. In my small world at Heftizba Netanya I know I am doing just that.