U.S. Community College Presidents Travel to, Experience Israel with AJC

After a week of connecting with their counterparts and experiential learning in Israel, four community college presidents have now returned stateside after participating in an American Jewish Committee (AJC) Project Interchange and AJC Center for Education Advocacy delegation. 

South Texas College President Ricardo Solis, Rockland Community College President William Mullaney, Suffolk County Community College President Edward Bonahue, and Tidewater Community College President Marcia Conston traveled across Israel this week, meeting with higher education professionals and experts on Israeli history, culture, and current events.

The first AJC Project Interchange delegation specifically tailored for community college professionals, the group met with representatives from and visited institutes including Tel Aviv University, Sapir College, ORT Academic College Tel Aviv, and the Council for Higher Education in Israel (MALAG).

Suffolk County Community College President Edward Bonahue said, “Our American two-year colleges expand access to educational and economic opportunity, and we foster democratic values and civic engagement for students from all backgrounds. AJC Project Interchange’s program showed us we have colleagues and partners in Israel working toward the same goals amidst even more complex circumstances. We learned about national higher education policy and programs, but hearing the personal stories of so many Israeli students and leaders made the experience especially meaningful."

In addition to their higher education focused meetings, the delegation also heard from Rabbi Ishay Kibeda, founder of the first pre-military prep school for the Ethiopian Community and Samer Sinijlawi, Palestinian political activist and Chair of the Jerusalem Development Fund. The group also bore witness to the destruction at Kibbutz Be’eri, hearing from a survivor of the October 7, 2023 massacre, and toured the Re’im Nova Music Festival site with a first responder who was on the scene during the Hamas attack.

For more than 40 years, AJC Project Interchange, a nonprofit educational institute of American Jewish Committee (AJC), has brought more than 6,300 influential figures to Israel from more than 120 countries and all 50 U.S. states, offering them broad exposure and firsthand understanding of the complex issues facing Israel and the region. For more, please visit www.ajc.org/projectinterchange 

AJC established its Center for Education Advocacy in 2024 amid a massive surge in antisemitic and anti-Zionist incidents at U.S. colleges and K-12 schools. The Center’s bold, multi-tiered approach builds on AJC’s strong record of advocating for educational spaces that are inclusive of Jews and Jewish identity, resilient against antisemitism, and deeply committed to civic education and democratic values. For more, please visit www.ajc.org/cea. 

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