Yavne, Israel And East Brunswick To Become Sister Cities

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — The East Brunswick Council on Monday passed a resolution approving a sister city relationship with Yavne in Israel.

Located 15 miles from Tel Aviv, Yavne dates back to at least the 13th century B.C.E. With a population of over 55,000, around 65 percent of Yavne's population is younger than 39 and 36 percent of the population is under the age of 21.

“Our goal like with all the other sister cities is to develop a dialogue among our children,” Mayor Bard Cohen told the Council and community during the meeting. “There's a lot of areas of technology and expertise, that both of us have core strengths.”

The Mayor said both cities have a lot of room to share dialogue and benefit from it.

Israel has not had such an agreement in many years. Only recently, Jersey City signed a sister city agreement with Beit Shemesh, Israel's youngest city.

“And that was the first one I think in over a decade. We're going to be the second. And so, I'm pretty excited about that,” Cohen said.

The Mayor noted that most foreign policy starts at a very “granular level” and sister city agreements help develop bonds with people of similar interests living in a different places.

“I'm happy and proud of all the relationships that you are forging with these different cities around the world,” Council President James Wendell told Cohen.

East Brunswick already has two sister city agreements – one with Rivne, Ukraine established earlier this year when the war had just begun and another with China that was signed before the pandemic.

“It actually proved to be a beneficial sister city arrangement because during the COVID lockdown it was pretty difficult to get PPE. But our friends in China were sending it to us pretty regularly,” Cohen said. “Our first responders in the police department were never without PPE. And a good portion of that was from some of the efforts with our sister city in China.”

However, with US-China relations strained right now, the Township hasn’t been pursuing that relationship of late, Cohen said.

The sister city agreement with Yavne is expected to be officially signed next week. You can find the Council resolution here.

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