A Tribute to Outgoing Beer Sheva Chair Carole Rosenblatt

This gift was presented to Carole Rosenblatt at a luncheon on her retirement as Chair of ESRA Beer Sheva

Carole Rosenblatt became the first chairperson of ESRA Beer Sheva in May 2018 following a meeting with the ESRA executives in a private home. She immediately organized a first committee meeting at her home with willing participants. It happened to be an excellent time for a new English speaking group to start as AACI South (Association for Americans and Canadians in Israel) had ceased to function and HOB (Association of British Immigrants) had long since departed. Telfed (South African Zionist Federation, Israel), for some reason, does not encourage new olim to come to Beer Sheva. All this, despite the fact that there have been many new arrivals here in recent years.

Carole is both "hands on" and a good delegator. The first program that was set in motion was the search and agreement of live speakers as now efficiently coordinated by Dr. Albert Jacob.

The second important start-up meeting that Carole set up was with Beer Sheva's Mayor who attended a meeting of well over 50 participants at the Nave Sheva's Kivunim center. He spoke (using his official interpreter) about the importance of increasing the English speaking community in the city.

Another project that Carole set up was the purchase of skateboard equipment together with the appointment of a trainer for 10 children who could not normally afford such an activity. An investor was found and there are now weekly practice sessions for the children.

Carole also started the knitting group which has produced many articles for the Soroka Hospital patients and has been written about in a previous article in this magazine.

Another activity that materialized was the Mahjong group, now run by Lesley Baker and meeting monthly.

Probably our most important activity is our English Tutoring Program team run by Ellen Danino and operating in 10 different schools in Beer Sheva once or twice a week.

We have managed to keep these activities going during the Covid pandemic.

Lectures have been advertised and given on ZOOM, bringing in much needed funds for our volunteer activities.

We all wish to thank Carole for her tireless efforts and for putting Beer Sheva well and truly on the map!