Our young people off to Madrid

August 9 is the feast of Saint Edith Stein, the German Jewish philosopher who became a Carmelite nun and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942. Perhaps it is appropriate that on her feast day our young people are flying to Spain in order to participate in the World Youth Days and the meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

This is not the first time that the Hebrew speaking kehillot are sending a group to the World Youth Days. Groups participated in the meetings in Rome and in Cologne in past years but this is certainly the biggest group we have ever sent.

Who are the young people who are representing the Hebrew speaking Catholic kehillot in Israel? Their diversity of origins should not obscure the unity of their destiny as Hebrew speaking Catholics in Israel.

Five of the participants are young men and twelve are young women. The ages range from 15 to 24. All are Israeli citizens except one.

Four of them are from the Jerusalem kehilla, five are from the Jaffa kehilla, four are from the Haifa kehilla, three are from the Tiberias kehilla and one is from Nazareth.

Seven are from families that immigrated to Israel from the ex-Soviet Union, four from families that speak Hebrew at home, three from families of Lebanese refugees in Israel, two from a mixed Arab-Latin American family and one from a Filipino family.

With them are Franciscan Father Apolinary, responsible for the kehilla in Jaffa, and Italian Benedetto, lay music director in Jerusalem and Jaffa.

We would like to heartily thank the Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande from Cologne who made this trip possible by a generous donation.

Our Hebrew speaking youth will attend this great meeting with over 80 Arabic speaking Catholics from Israel sent by the Vicariate in Nazareth and other youth attending from the different ecclesial movements in Israel.

As they fly to Spain, our prayers accompany them and we will be praying for them until they return to us. Saint Edith Stein pray for them!