We’re twins! Elstree and Borehamwood formalises ties with Israeli town of Shoham

The central Israeli town of Shoham has been twinned with Hertfordshire’s Elstree & Borehamwood at an official signing ceremony. 

The event, at the civic offices of Hertsmere borough council, was the culmination of seven years of efforts to forge friendship links across education, sport, culture and business between the two communities.

Signing the historic document were Shoham mayor Eitan Petigro and Conservative mayor Sandra Parnell, who alongside Labour Cllr Jeremy Newmark, originally proposed the idea.

The two currently serve as the chair and vice chair of Elstree & Borehamwood town council’s international affairs committee and the formal proposal to twin was approved on September 7 2022.

Describing the ceremony as “an emotional and very happy occasion”, Parnell told Jewish News: “It means to me more than anything I can tell you. We’ve got a lot to give each other. Shoham is a town with 26,000 people; a beautiful town. We are very happy to be sharing our friendship, culture and sport. We will encourage student exchange education holidays and share schools activities. I am happy to say it was a cross party agreement.”

Much was made of the prospective football tournament between teams from the two towns, with Elstree and Borehamwood football club (formed in 1948) manager Luke Garrard and chairman Danny Hunter both in attendance.

In the UK for what he described as a “very intense three days” of meetings, Nimrod Galante, CEO, municipal corporation of Shoham told Jewish News: “Of course you British are talking much about football but we would like to see aspects of culture and music and robotics and economics to widen the relationship. We have had very good meetings here, with school principals and would like to see good relationships in terms of education.”

Peleg Greshef, council member for Shoham and head of its international relations committee, said: “It means that we will have a mutual bond, people of Shoham will be educated about other cultures, about other people and places. I think that we can learn a lot and I think we have a lot to offer to the people of Borehamwood and Elstree.”

Jeremy Newmark described the twinning as a “natural partnership”, telling Jewish News: “Two very similar towns with very similar aspirations and during these times in particular, when we see trouble and turmoil in relationships at government level, we think that by building a relationship between people, communities and schools at a local level, we can transcend all of that and strengthen the bilateral ties between Britain and Israel.

“We’re very excited about the football and robotics – football has the power to unite and bring people together – and there will be some nice friendly rivalry. Shoham is a world leader in robotics and what we are very much hoping is we will be able to tie up the Shoham youth robotics team, which has won international championships, with some of the schools in the areas of deprivation in Borehamwood and provide council funding to build robotics teams and facilities over here. Beyond that, we hope to focus on youth engagement, school exchanges and possibly, a year or two down the line, a tennis tournament.”

Elstree & Borehamwood is currently twinned with Offenburg in Germany and Fontenay-aux-Roses in France.

Elsewhere across the UK, Bournemouth is twinned with Netanya, Hackney, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Portsmouth are twinned with Haifa and Barnet is twinned with Tel Aviv suburb Ramat Gan.