last word
Keren Keshet
LEADS PHILADELPHIA’S ISRAEL SCOUTS
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
Courtesy of Keren Keshet
A t the May 7 Taste of Israel
festival, visitors to the tent
with the large “Paamon”
banner flapping in the breeze were
barely able to spot Keren Keshet
among the gaggle of teens in tan shirts
and green kerchiefs socializing and
selling cupcakes to passersby.

Keshet, 49, best described the group
as a big Israeli family, and she is their
leader. As head of the Philadelphia
chapter of Tzofim, the Friends of Israel
Scouts, Inc., Keshet helps to teach the
102 Philadelphia-area kids involved
about leadership and Jewish culture.

Most kids and teens involved have at
least one Israeli parent who seeks out
the organization to connect with an
Israeli community in the U.S.

“They come, and they don’t need to
explain [to] other kids why their parents
are talking in Hebrew at home and why
every summer they’re going to Israel,”
Keshet said. “It’s a place that they feel
they all have something in common,
and they feel a sense of belonging.”
Founded in 1995, Tzofim is a volun-
teer-led organization developed
as a way to grow and maintain the
connection between “Israel and North
American Jewry,” according to the
organization’s website. While fourth
through 10th graders can participate in
scout activities and overnight camps,
15- to 18-year-olds can take gap years
or make aliyah to Israel and are counsel-
ors that help lead the younger kids.

All of Tzofim’s programming is in
Hebrew, though most kids chat to each
other in English, making it a haven for
bilingual kids straddling Israeli and
American culture.

Tzofim’s 24 chapters, or Shvatim,
across the country emulate Boy and
Girl Scout troops, each with a unique
identity. Paamon, the name of the
Philadelphia Tzofim shevet, means
“bell” in Hebrew, a reference to the
city’s Liberty Bell. Keshet, who lives
in Malvern, has headed Paamon for
almost five years.

Keshet works for Israel-based
software company Amdocs, and her
job in customer engagement brought
her to the U.S. When Keshet emigrated
from Israel to Philadelphia 13 years
ago, she sought the same connec-
tion for her young daughter, who was
learning English and having difficulty
adapting to her public school.

Within a week of coming to the U.S.,
a friend told Keshet about Tzofim, and
they attended an event together on
a Sunday.

“Israelis always find Israelis,” Keshet
said. Keshet was born and raised
in Moshav Lachish in the northern
Negev of Israel, the small, tight-knit
community where her family owned a
vineyard for table grapes. Since she
was a teenager, Keshet volunteered in
the moshav. When her eldest daughter
was in the first grade, Keshet helped
establish a school within the village
that still operates. Previously, students
from the moshav commuted more than
30 minutes to a nearby school.

Keshet’s mother, brother and sister
still live in the moshav, and her eldest
daughter is 21 and a lone soldier in
the Israel Defense Forces preparing to
become an officer. The Philadelphia-
based family travels to Israel every
three months to visit them.

“The house of our heart is still there,”
Keshet said.

It’s common for Tzofim members
to venture back and forth from Israel.

Paamon has a shlichim program for
young Israeli emissaries to stay in
Philadelphia for two years. While the
first year at Paamon gives the shlichim
a chance to get to know the kids, the
second year is when the real bonding
takes place. In August, Paamon’s
shlicha will return to Israel, and Keshet
is looking for someone to fill the role.

Because Tzofim is volunteer-led, the
funding for chapters waxes and wanes,
and Paamon is still recovering from
the pandemic, where it was difficult to
adapt online because of the hands-on
nature of the group’s programming.

Fundraising, such as the cupcake sale
at Taste of Israel, as well as contri-
butions from parents, help keep the
chapter afloat.

But in the past couple of years,
Paamon’s number of scouts has
increased to near the pre-COVID
levels. Events with other chapters
in Pennsylvania and Maryland have
grown too large to accommodate all
the groups involved, Keshet said, a
good problem to have.

She hopes to improve the chapter’s
outreach to other parts of the
Philadelphia area.

“We hope to grow and expand,” she
said. ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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