Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski and Easton Mayor Sal Panto Jr. took a trip to the country as part of the International Mayor's Conference.
Clik here to view.
View full sizeAllentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, left, and Easton Mayor Sal Panto Jr.Panto and Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski traveled to Israel as part of the International Mayors Conference, a yearly event that draws mayors from around the world. There, Panto met Hilberto Campos, the mayor of Corozal, Belize, and learned Easton-based architects Jeff Gilbert and Oliver Andes have done projects in Belize.
“It becomes a very small world,” Panto said.
The connection allowed Panto and Campos to develop a strong relationship during the conference. Belize may seem far from Easton, but Panto said the mayors had plenty to learn from each other, and from Israel.
Despite Israel’s focus on homeland security and defense spending, Panto said he found the average citizen of Israel to be friendly and free of bigotry. The Israeli city of Nazareth, for example, has a Greek Orthodox Christian of Arabic descent as mayor, yet the city is bordered by a growing Jewish suburban community.
“It’s incredibly diverse,” Panto said. “It’s a country that is not only young, but it is making the curve.”
Pawlowski and Panto arrived in Israel on May 6. Panto returned to the United States on Saturday and Pawlowski returned the next day.
The event was sponsored by the American Jewish Congress. The association paid for hotel and convention costs, according to Panto. While the association didn’t pay for plane tickets, local Jewish organizations raised the funds for them, and the mayors paid for smaller expenses out of pocket, Panto said. No city funding was used on the trip, according to Panto and Pawlowski.
Five mayors were selected from across the United States. They met key members of Israeli government, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to municipal officials and managers of hospitals in Tel Aviv.
Pawlowski said he particularly was impressed with the technology, the development and the infrastructure of the cities they toured.
"It's hard to believe it's only been 60-plus years since the survivors of the Holocaust settled to build a new country," he said.
The mayors visited Haifa, a city in northern Israel which was attacked with rockets by Hezbollah in 2006, causing much of the population to flee.
Now, Pawlowski said, there is a great deal of new construction, buildings are tall as 50 stories and a university there has graduated 90,000 engineers and helped develop several new companies.
"This is a city that was literally bombed and shelled six years ago," Pawlowski said. "It's hard to describe the amazing progress and ingenuity that's occurred here."
Technology is shrinking the world, Panto said. Even while at the conference, he participated in Easton’s regular Wednesday night city council meeting by telephone, though it was 1 in the morning in Israel. He tried to keep up with city business by regularly checking emails and making phone calls, he said.
But Israel's intense devotion to technology and education could make them one of our biggest competitors in the future, he said.