Desert Dreams and Reality: The Evolving Story of Yerucham with Uri Feinberg and Debbie Goldman Golan

In this session, we visit the Negev development town of Yerucham with local activist Debbie Goldman Golan and engage with local Israelis from a variety of backgrounds. We explore the incredible efforts of the State of Israel to take care of its own and the many challenges and mistakes that were made along the way. We discuss Jewish immigration to Israel in the first decades of its existence, including the waves of immigrants that arrived from Arab countries and North Africa. Debbie Goldman Golan has BAs from the University of Illinois and Spertus College of Judaica and an MA from Touro College. American-born, Debbie made Aliyah in 1972, worked as a freelance researcher, writer, editor, and teacher, and developed curriculum materials on Jewish values for secular schools at the David Schoen Institute for Creative Jewish Education. Debbie was Projects Coordinator of the Negev Center for Regional Development (1993-2000) and co-founder of the Midreshet Beyahad Seminar Center and the Teudat Zehut community documentation project, both in Yeroham, where she has resided with her family since 1987. Debbie received the New Israel Fund Fellowship for Leadership in Religious Pluralism (1987), Avi Chai Study-Sabbatical (2000), Liebhaber Prize for Encouraging Religious Pluralism and Cultural Openness in Israel (2006), Ministry of Education’s Torah Culture Department Citation of Excellence (2009), and she lit a torch at Mt. Herzl on Israel Independence Day (1988). Uri Feinberg has been a Jewish educator for almost 30 years and a licensed tour guide since 1999. Born in the US, Uri grew up in Jerusalem. He has an MA in Contemporary Jewish Studies, and taught Jewish History for many years. Uri has spent his career working as a tour educator in Israel, has guided Jewish heritage trips in Europe and has lectured widely throughout North America on Jewish History, identity and the State of Israel.