By Nathalie Cohen Sheffer
Pikesville resident Robert Chertkof wants to help promote coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Israel. That’s why he has supported the renovation of Lake Monfort and the new Waterfall Street project in the Arab-Jewish city of Ma’alot-Tarshina in northern Israel.
The two projects are part of the “Go North” strategy undertaken by Jewish National Fund-USA to develop the northern region of Israel and promote the tourism industry there.
“Israel has such a significant security budget, and often the social projects they want to do fall to the wayside … and this is where JNF-USA comes in,” said Chertkof, president of the Fallstaff Search recruitment firm in Cockeysville and marketing and missions chair for JNF Maryland.
Founded in 1963, Ma’alot-Tarshiha is considered a model of coexistence. Home to approximately 20,000 Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze, the town has benefited from the support of JNF-USA and its “Go North” campaign to encourage 300,000 people to move to northern Israel through infrastructural, economic and social developments.
“Millions of shekels have been invested in Lake Monfort, the largest tourist site in the Western Galilee, as well as in building an ecological waterfall axis in the city’s Waterfall Street,” said Elina Passov, assistant to Mayor Arkady Pomerantz.
The lake site was deteriorating and needed a steward to understand its full potential. Chertkof came along with the new Waterfall Street Project and a vision for Lake Monfort as a bustling economic center.
“Bob truly loves the north,” said Deborah Lust Zaluda, chair of the Go North task force. “He really pushed JNF-USA CEO Russell Robinson on it, and he put his money where his mouth is and was the first to invest. Bob was truly a catalyst in making this project happen. Russell and JNF-USA understood that ‘If you build it, they will come,’ and Bob’s investment made them understand that people were willing to build it.”
The project’s sustainable model includes the construction of thousands of new apartments; Waterfall Street, a series of descending ponds and pools from the new neighborhood built along the hills of the city; and the creation of economic hubs all centered around Lake Monfort.
“Though it sounds cliché, I think one look at Lake Monfort and Waterfall Street today as compared to when it first started tells you what you need to know,” Zaluda said. “Bob understands the beauty of the north and knows that JNF-USA has all the tools to bring the pieces together to achieve the dream of truly growing the north and getting people to relocate there.”
JNF-USA has also helped build a fire station back in 2019 that serves both Ma’alot-Tarshiha as well as the Ma’ale Yosef Regional Council.
“We are a very special city and a model of coexistence,” said Passov. “Our Jewish population is also extremely diverse, made up of immigrants from the Soviet Union who came in the 1990s, Moroccans, ultra-orthodox, as well as Anglos from the U.S. and England. It is important to strengthen such cities in the periphery in order to strengthen their economic resilience, both in terms of tourism and employment.”
For information, visit jnf.org/menu-2/our-work/community-building/go-north-strategy.
This article was provided by JNF-USA.
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