After exchanging New Year's wishes for many years with our Sister Club Tonsberg in Norway, it was time to meet face to face and it came to pass last month.
SI/ Tonsberg answered SI/Haifa-Naveh Shaanan's invitation to have two members visit us for a week.
Marit Marthinssen and Gro Goeystdal accepted and their visit was set for 9-16 November 2008!
All twenty members of our club mobilised themselves to plan a program that would take our Norwegian guests from the Northern Galilee to Beersheva in the Negev including the Dead Sea.
Exchange of information by e-mail, nowadays, shortens communication noticeably and the day, rather the night, quickly came to receive our guests at the Airport - arrival time 02.30 a.m.

There was an immediate click between the guests and the hostesses. Was it our guests' love of travel (Gro taught Geography) or was it the informality and enthusiasm of their hostesses?
On the very morning of their arrival, they visited Mount Carmel, the Churches and the Bahai Shrine and had lunch at The Golda Meir International Training Center whose director is a member of our Club.
At the evening meeting, they told about themselves, the Tonsberg Club (50 members) and their projects. We told them about our scholarship program for young women studying at the College for Technicians and Junior Engineers of the "Technion" Institution of Technology, fulfilling the Sorop slogan " A profession for every woman, a woman in every profession."

Tzipora Maimon Daniela Stern Gro Goeystdal Marit Marthinssen	Marit Marthinssen guest Judy Brosh Hanna Bickel..	Our Norvegian Friends
1st Evening in Haifa, Clubmeeting at Lea Galor

Our excursions included the old and the new! Around the Sea of Galilee they visited historical and religious sites, learned about the problems of water in Israel and the Middle East.
In the south, with the assistance of Sorop sisters in Beersheva and the Adviser to the Mayor on the Status of Women, we visited three Bedouin towns. Marit and Gro saw and heard how Bedouin women are trying to break through the fetters of tradition, opening income-generating activities, organizing themselves in support groups, learning about modern child-rearing practices and more.
At the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev- School of Social Work, we met the Director of the Department for Nutrition and Health of Women that is very much focused on the large Bedouin population of the Negev.

Going North from Haifa, we visited the Museum at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, whose founding members were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in World War II.
They established the Museum in memory of their friends who did not realize their dream of settling in Israel.

Lohamei Hagetaot,
The Museum

Members of the Naharya Sorops that include Past and Present President of the SI/Israel were our guides. We visited the Grottoes of Rosh Hanikrah, from on high we enjoyed the breathtaking view of the coast meeting the Mediterranean Sea. To the North, we could even look over the wire fence separating Israel from Lebanon.

While planning the program, Gro had a special request and that was to visit Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek where she had spent a summer as part of an Oslo university program in 1966. No problem! Gro admitted that the kibbutz had changed, but nevertheless her emotions took over as memories came back.

The program included a visit to Nazareth and the impressive Basilica of Annunciation, a drive through a Druze village, supper at the homes of Sorops on their return from a day's excursion.
The traditional Friday night meal with its blessings for the Shabbat at the home of one of our younger Sorop sisters gave them an insight into modern Jewish family life.

What to visit in Jerusalem in one day was perhaps the biggest planning challenge. But, we did it!
Beginning with the panorama from the Sherover Promenade/(British) Governor's Mansion, viewing Jerusalem from the South, we proceeded to the Jaffa Gate.
Most of the time was spent in the Old City, going from the Armenian Quarter through the Jewish Quarter and the Christian and Moslem Quarter.
Our guests visited churches, bazaars, coffee houses, heard the Muezzins call to prayer and in general took in the unique atmosphere of Jerusalem.
The day ended with a view from the Mount of Olives, a snapshot of the sunset and a visit to the Room of the Last Supper guided by a Sorop brother, on hand that day! What more could we ask?

We parted from our guests leaving them on their own overnight to take for an excursion to the Dead Sea the next day.

The moment was approaching to say "good-bye and au revoir".
We all met again- guests and Haifa-Neve Shaanan Sorops - to exchange impressions. How proud we were to hear Gro say, "No tourist has ever visited Israel the way we did it and it is thanks to you all!"

Indeed, these were eight wonderful days in which each of us, Haifa-Neve Shaanan Sorops lived one of the Soroptimist motos 'friendship among women in the world'. We became good friends with two members of our Tonsberg Friendship Link. And, in retrospect, it left us with an appetite for more!

Mira Ron and Fannette Modek