By Carl Zebrowski
Editor
If you left Pennsylvania to fly to the opposite side of the globe, you’d get halfway there before your plane passed over Yoav, Israel. Taking off from Newark on a direct flight to Israel, you’d be in the air about 10 hours before touching down in Tel Aviv. But what does a half a day in transit really matter, anyway?
“Although the Jewish community of the Lehigh Valley and the Yoav Regional Council are nearly 6,000 miles apart, distance has never stood in the way of friendship, connection, and a shared sense of purpose,” writes Israeli photographer Erez Kaganovitz in the introduction to “Humans of P2G,” his new photo exhibit now on display in the JCC.
For more than two decades, the Jewish communities of the Lehigh Valley and of Yoav, each with 7,000-8,000 people, have become close friends and family, through the Partnership2Gether program administered locally by the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley. With regular visits back and forth, virtual gatherings and shared programming throughout the year, and various other spontaneous or planned connections, P2G has touched the lives of thousands of people here and there—lives touched one at a time, person talking with person, hugging, laughing, working together toward solutions for each other’s particular challenges and supporting each other’s growth.
The “Humans of P2G” exhibit features photos of some 20 Yoav and Lehigh Valley community members. Accompanying each are words from each person about their own lived experience with P2G, collected by Kaganovitz in interviews.
Lehigh Valley community members may remember Kaganovitz’s “Humans of October 7th” exhibit. That was exhibit No. 4 in his “Humans” series of themed photograph collections that began in 2012 with “Humans of Tel Aviv.” Kaganovitz came to the JCC in 2025 to unveil his portraits of Israelis with painfully close ties to the Hamas attacks. His visit included a presentation in the JCC’s Kline Auditorium about the people depicted in his photos, their personal stories of loss and hope. After the event, his exhibit was put on display in the same hallway where the current one now hangs.
What Kaganovitz didn’t anticipate back then was stumbling onto the theme for what became his current “Humans” project. “When I first visited Allentown a year ago,” he shared with Hakol, “I learned about the partnership with the Yoav municipality. I found myself wondering, What is the human story behind this partnership? What truly makes it work, and what keeps it alive?”
Kaganovitz continued to wonder about the Partnership2Gether and set to work on “Humans of P2G.” “I wanted to understand what makes the Jewish community of the Lehigh Valley so deeply committed to this partnership,” he says. “And I came to realize that, at its heart, this partnership is about people. It is the human connection between the two communities that gives it its strength and meaning.”
It’s a true partnership, he says, built on friendship, trust, shared values, and a similar vision for the future. “But what allows them to grow and flourish is the human connection that inspires people to go the extra mile,” he says, “to reach out, to care, and to turn a partnership into something deeply personal.”
You can now experience Kaganovitz’s take on the partnership and the trust, values, and vision that make it so powerful and inspiring. Come inside the JCC to the front desk, check in, and head down the hallway to the right. Look left.
“My hope is that those who experience this exhibition will come away with a sense of this precious human connection,” Kaganovitz says. “I hope it will spark their curiosity to learn more about Israeli society and the people who live there, and to discover the stories, hopes, and dreams that connect us all.
“Because sometimes, by taking the time to truly get to know one another, we discover friendships that can last for a lifetime.”