Name: Jeffrey Blanck
Date: May, 4, 2008
Email: jeffblanck@yahoo.com
Machzor year: Oct. 1993
I haven't kept in touch with very many of my friends from WUJS. I am Still happily married to Sharrone. Our son Noah is 9 and Max is 8. Not
a very large Jewish community here in the Reno area. I have been president of both synagogues (conservative and reform) and I have been teaching Hebrew at the Reform shul. I have my own law practice focusing on employment, Civil rights and education matters.
WUJS was great. Any other 93 grads around. Shai Wolff is in Berkeley but I have lost touch with most others.
B'shalom
Jeff

Name: Ivor Kosowitz
Date: May, 1, 2008
Email: ikoso@bigpond.net.au
Machzor year: T1976
Spent a wonderful 4 months at the Arad Ulpan from April till August 1976.

Name: Miche Norman
Date: April, 29, 2008
Email: miabatal@netvision.net.il
Machzor year: 1986
Still in Israel after 22 years - Now finally happily married (2nd time around) and living in hod Hasharon. I work as the financial controller with Israel's leading ELT publisher and also run a freelance translation agency specializing in Hebrew- english business, financial and legal translations. I have two children, a son Tal who will be twenty this June and is in the last few weeks of officer training in the artillery corps and a daughter Maya, who having spent the last 10 years making her father go grey trying to get her up in the morning and to clear a path into the tel she calls a bedroom is going into the army in july where she will be in charge of new recruits, inter alia being responsible for them getting up in the morning and keeping their barracks clean - proof that there is a g-d up there.

Name: Eytan Coll
Date: March, 31, 2008
Email: soec12@gmail.com
Machzor year: July 92
Living in Stamford,CT. with three very active boys. Miss Israel alot. Stayed in Israel for four plus years after WUJS.
Would love to hear from my fellow Wujs alumni.

Name: Debra Krawetz
Date: March, 26, 2008
Email: dkrawetz@mac.com
Machzor year:July 1983
I am in touch with Roxanne Epstein Rosenthal, Jeff Weinstock and Eileen Martell.
Is anyone else still out there from July 1983?
I have not been back to Israel since 1997.

Name: Eric Greenberg
Date: March, 24, 2008
Email: egreenberg@comcast.net
Machzor year: July 1993
I just moved back to the Philadelphia area to take a job with the American Collage of Physicians.
I would love to hear from anyone in the July or October 1993 Machzor. Any alumnai in Philadelphia?

Name: Belinda Barnett (now Talkar)
Date: March, 5, 2008
Email: scot@netvision.net.il
Machzor year: July 1992
I had planned to spend only 6 months in Israel in 92, and I am still here, now married with 4 kids living in Modiin area. Would love to hear updates from other people on my machzor!

Name: Yana Kessel
Date: February, 13, 2008
Email: ykessel@yahoo.co.uk
Machzor year: April 1991
Hi,
Would be great to hear from those who were in WUJS in April 1991 machzor.

Name: Lorin Fife
Date: February, 12, 2008
Email: lorinmf@aol.com
Machzor year: October 1978
My wife Linda and I were on WUJS together almost 30 years ago. Hard to believe! Linda and I would love to get back in touch with folks who
overlapped with us at WUJS, most of whom we lost touch with during pre-Internet days. We have very fond memories of our WUJS experiences and our subsequent time living in Israel.

WUJS had a huge impact on our lives. In fact, I think we both would rank it among our top five most important experiences. We lasted in Israel for a
couple of years before we gave up on our Aliyah, assuming we would return in a few years. During our years there, I worked as a waiter at the Tel Aviv Sheraton, we both taught English at Ulpan Amerikai on Dizengoff and I studied in the MBA program at TAU. I had been accepted to Hebrew U's and TAU's law schools, but wasn't convinced I was as fluent in Hebrew as the schools said I was, so I used the MBA program to test the water. Turned out my Hebrew was fine, but with 120% inflation, dwindling resources, a newborn son (Yoni) which caused Linda to miss her family, and three years of law school in the States vs. 4 years in Israel, plus a two year stazh (internship requirement, i.e. six years before I could make a living as an Israeli lawyer), returning to L.A., our hometown, became a simple analysis.
We brought home two souvenirs from our years in Israel, Yoni and our black and white kelev bedoui Dever (originally known affectionately as Shithead in the Merkaz Klitah). It's safe to say we left our hearts in Israel, and we've returned frequently over the years to reconnect, with and without our kids.

I went back to law school at USC. Our younger son Ari was born shortly after my graduation. I practiced at a large firm, O'Melveny & Myers, in
L.A., and later headed the legal department and served as a senior executive for a large financial services company. In the meantime, Linda went back into teaching and later got her Master's in Education from the University of Judaism (now known as American Jewish University). She taught all sorts of adult education courses in the Jewish community and served as the Conservative movement's education expert for many years here in Southern California.

I retired from SunAmerica in 1998 to spend more time with the family and to get more involved in community activities. Linda and I are approaching 33 years of marriage... unbelievable! We're both still very involved in the Jewish community. I was President of Adat Ari El, the large Conservative
synagogue near us in Valley Village, for a couple of years. I now chair the L.A. Jewish Federation's Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership and the Finance Committee at the Jewish Community Foundation. I also served on the UJC's Israel Emergency Allocations Committee following the Second Lebanon War.
Linda's also heavily involved in volunteer activities, and is co-chairing LimmudLA, which takes place this coming weekend and is sold out with over
600 attendees. I took up painting after retiring (too bad I didn't know I had any talent while we were in Arad!), and actually have had some stuff
exhibited and sold, including a solo show last year at a gallery in Downtown LA.

Our kids are also doing great. Yoni graduated from UC Berkeley, married his college sweetheart Kitt (a UCLA grad he met on Junior Year Abroad at Hebrew U. in Jerusalem), did a stint in the Israeli army during the recent Intifada after they also attended WUJS together, came back to Georgetown Law School, and is now an attorney at Skadden Arps in LA. They live in Brentwood, and Kitt is expecting our first grandchild in June. Ari is pursuing a career in musical theatre. He moved to New York about three years ago, got his Equity card and worked as an actor, before deciding to return to school for his degree. He's now in the musical theatre BFA program at Pace University in Downtown Manhattan (home of the Actors Studio), and is having a great experience. He lives in Stuyvesant Town, just north of the East Village.

Dever the dog, whom I never expected to make it to his first birthday (I was sure I would kill him!) actually made it to 18 and a half years, having made the adjustment from Bedouin dog to suburban house dog quite comfortably. We miss him a lot, although his successor Barak (no relation to the former prime minister or the presidential candidate), a gorgeous German Shepherd/Husky mix we rescued from South Central LA, is now 11 and going strong.

We actually got in back in touch with our friends and neighbors from WUJS, Rossy and Daniel Klug, who were on the Spring '79 Machzor, a few months ago during one of our visits in Israel. They look great and are still living in Raanana!

I'll be back in Israel probably twice this year and Linda will probably accompany me in September. I'll also be there for meetings during the UJC
General Assembly in November. If other WUJSniks from our vintage will be there, maybe we could have a mini-reunion.

When did they start calling us WUJies, by the way?

That's us in a nutshell.

We would love to get back in touch with anyone who remembers us from our days in Arad.

B'shalom, Lorin

Name: Arlene Pukach
Date: February, 12, 2008
Email: pukach@012.net.il
Machzor year: Spring, 1978
Hard to believe that 30 years have passed. still have wonderful memories of WUJS and special friends from that time. Married to Yaron since
1979, ema to 4 great kids; Dorit(26);Daniel (24); Hagit (21) and Alon (18) living in Kfar Yona since 1989 and in Israel from 1986. Anyone out there
from my machzor or around that time.

Name: Peter Freedman
Date: February, 6, 2008
Email: peter.freedman@gmail.com
Machzor year: 1978
It's hard to believe that my kids are now roughly the same age I was when I arrived for the October 78 Machzor. Just not possible! Well, almost 30 years since I met the girl across the hall (Leah Friedman), who has been Leah Freedman for almost 27 years.
And almost 30 years since I roomed with Jeff and Brian, the crazy Leeds United fans who I would love to hear from again.

Name: Doris Frisch
Date: February, 4, 2008
Email: dorisfca@sbcglobal.net
Machzor year: 1978
Looking for a tour guide on next trip to Israel, particularly in Jerusalem. What ever happened to Sharon Morgenstern?

Name:Ruth Doniach-Durant
Date: February, 2, 2008
Email: rruth_doniachdurant@hotmail
Machzor year: 1967/1968
Arrived in December 1967 after volunteering in the forests near Tsefat, then Mount Scopus and then Kibbutz Sarid.Freezing cold but wonderful atmosphere, brilliant teachers and amazingly diverse collection of fellow students - unforgettable experience....

Name:Amy Lewis (now Girling)
Date: January, 31, 2008
Email: agirling@hotmail.com
Machzor year: 1978
I met my husband, Ivan, at Ulpan in 1986. We both worked at Hadassah hospital at the time. Now we live in Santa Barbara, California.
Have 2 sons - Boris 17 and Gad 15. Some of my best and favorite friends are those I made at WUJS

Name: sydney danziger
Date: January, 26, 2008
Email: sydney@swcp.com
Machzor year: 1978
30 years ago WUJS changed my life. I am still living in NM, but have recently moved to a small town in the mountains. Paul Malin and I married and then divorced. I went back to school and got a second master's degree in Speech Therapy. Have been working in this field for about 18 years now. My Hebrew is still terrible.

Name: carmen lewitus (sabah)
Date: January, 24, 2008
Email: erichl47@gmail.com
Machzor year: october l969
Looking at the dates I must be the oldest one on the list, even way back then we had a great time, I live in Ness Ziona, Israel, married to Erich from Peru, have 3 kids 33, 32, 29. I have my own English "school" at home, where I have been teaching for nearly 20 years. Will be happy to hear from anyone who was there.

Name: Danielle Sabah-Israel
Date: January, 22, 2008
Email: danielles-i@hotmail.com
Machzor year: 1978
Came to WUJS in May 1978. Have been in Israel since then and living in Rehovot since 1982. Who'd have thought that 30 years would go by so fast?

Name: Adam Frank
Date: January, 22, 2008
Email: adamfrank38@hotmail.com
Machzor year: Oct. 1993
Living in Jerusalem. Happy to for our machzor to be in touch when in town, too. word.

Name: Jonathan Woolfson
Date: January 20, 2008
Email: jwoolfson@woolfsoneye.com
Machzor year: July 1990
would love to hear from any of the group, Hershel are you out there?

Name: Robin Hyman
Date: January, 18, 2008
Email: RachelH355@Bellsouth.net
Machzor year: April '79
it will soon be 30 years...are you partying and having reunions without me?? Live in Atlanta with husband. 2 kids are in college.

Name:Mark Budman
Date: January 17, 2008
Email: budman@generation.net
Machzor year: machzoryear: 1996 (January)
Married, 3 year old son and living in montreal. Would love to hear from WUJS Alumni

Name: Alexander (Sasha) Katzman
Date: January, 11, 2008
Email: alexander.katzman@teva.co.il
Machzor year: 1990-91
Dear friends! Is there somebody who remembers "crazy" Russians from Mahzor 90-91? I believe that I am one of them. It was really amazing time for my friends from the entire world in this Mahzor and especially for us - immigrants from USSR (1990). We were so enthusiastic and so "hungry" for freedom and for feeling home - real home for Jews. And we got this feeling in our first home in Israel ?
WUJS institute in Arad. It was great time of love and new discovering.
We were so young and after leaving WUGS should deal with ups and downs of real life,
even if it in your "real home". So, some of us stayed in Israel and some of us left.
But all of us took a piece of WUJS with him ? piece of belonging.
That is what I feel about WUJS. I would love to hear from anyone who remembers me.