The home of civil rights where diversity thrives, Atlanta, with 404,000 residents, is the economic and political capital of Georgia, renowned for its sports, arts, education and high-tech.

The idea to twin the cities of Raanana and Atlanta was borne out of a successful visit by a delegation of students from the North Atlanta High School International Business Program to the Ostrovsky Senior High School in Raanana in November 1998. The students were guests of students in the “Young Entrepreneurs” program at Ostrovsky High School.

Heading that delegation was Dr. Arnold Heller, who, in his capacity as a member of the Atlanta Sister Cities Commission, saw many similarities between Atlanta and Raanana – despite the evident difference in size – and initiated the idea of twinning the two cities.

An impressive exhibition tracing the development of Raanana from agricultural settlement to modern city, featuring collages, text and cultural artifacts, was displayed in the Atlanta International Airport from August-October 2000.

The sister city treaty was signed in Raanana in May 2001 by City Council member
Mrs. Cleta Winslow who represented the Mayor of Atlanta and the reciprocal signing by
Mayor Zeev Bielski took place in July 2001 at the 2001 Sister City International Convention hosted by Atlanta, Georgia.

Sporting exchanges have included the visit of students from the Rimon Junior High School to a basketball training camp in Atlanta in 2003 and the visit of Atlanta resident and ex-Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball player LaVon Mercer to Raanana in 2004. Penpal exchanges between schools have included the Shaked Elementary School and Davis Academy School, the Bilu Elementary School and the Epstein School and Gan Tziporen and the Greenfield Hebrew Academy. The Raanana Masorti Synagogue is twinned with the Shearith Yisrael Synagogue in Atlanta.

There has been close cooperation in the field of commerce, with many business delegations from the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce South East (AICCSE), based in Atlanta. As a result, several Raanana companies have opened offices in Atlanta with the help of the AICCSE. In 2005,
Governor Sonny Perdue and a 40-strong delegation of Atlanta business executives visited Raanana at the start of a week long mission aimed at promoting bilateral trade.

In October 2006, Mayor Nahum Hofree visited Atlanta with a delegation from City Hall as a guest of the Mayor of Atlanta, Mrs. Shirley Franklin to attend a Conference on Economic Development for Atlanta's Sister Cities. The visit included meetings with the Israel Consul General in Atlanta, Ambassador Reda Mansour, members of the business community and the Jewish community, schools etc with a view to identifying projects for joint cooperation.