33B_The Unity of a Nation_Assorted Authors_Jewish Action by Jewish Action

THE UNITY

OF A NATION As we go to press in late October, three weeks into Israel’s war, the outpouring of chesed, ahavat Yisrael and achdut from Jews across the spectrum in Israel, in the US and across the world over is staggering. Working against a tight deadline, our editors were concerned: how can we capture the endless and ongoing stream of chesed—the Chassidic-owned real estate company that housed evacuees from the South for free; the army of volunteers, secular and religious, providing everything from baby formula to mental health counseling; the singers and musicians providing entertainment to soldiers and evacuees, and on and on? We concluded that while we cannot convey even a fraction of the enormous ahavat Yisrael we are witnessing every hour of every day, we can focus on individuals—each individual story representing hundreds and perhaps thousands of others. Mi K’amcha Yisrael!

Above: Young Jewish men dance and sing as they wave the Israeli flag near Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, during the Israeli war with Gaza. Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90

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On the Frontlines of Chesed: A Diary By Tania Hammer “For I desire chesed, not sacrifice; devotion to G-d, rather than burnt offerings” (Hoshea 6:6). Shabbat/Simchat Torah | October 7, 2023 At 6:30 am a siren goes off. I’ve heard only one siren in my seven years in Jerusalem. Another siren at 8:30. I am alone. I knock on a neighbor’s door. She who knows everything. She has tears in her eyes. Hamas has infiltrated the South. Billion-dollar fences to protect our fifty communities on the Gaza border are in smithereens. More sirens. Mutilations, Be’eri, Nachal Oz, rave, ashen homes, Alumim, decapitations, government, murders, Hamas. Words and sirens swirling in my head as I hide in the mamad, the secure room. Another siren. Another. Another. Twelve in all. By Motzaei Shabbat we are facing another Jewish catastrophe. 300,000 are mobilized, and we are at war.

Tania Hammer became a community activist in New York. When she made aliyah seven years ago, she got involved in helping olim chadashim, as evidenced by her extra-large Shabbat tables filled with single men and women from all over the world.

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Sunday, October 8 Day 1:

It’s an effort to absorb the shock. I tell my best friend that I want to do something. I like to focus on the living. The IDF is mobilizing soldiers. My best friend and I are mobilizing chesed! We decide to pack essentials to start the soldiers off. We go to a pharmacy warehouse and think fifty soaps, shampoos, toothbrushes and toothpaste, wet wipes and protein bars will do the trick. “Let’s get a hundred and see how it goes,” my friend says. We unload everything into my sukkah that I bid farewell to just the day before, and I tell a couple of online groups that I am collecting essentials for our soldiers. If they want to help, they should come. Within an hour, I receive contributions worth $1,200 from people who want to be part of our “Packages of Love.” 8 pm: We have over 1,000 Packages of Love. One hundred bags have turned into 1,000, with hundreds of volunteers coming in and out of my house, my garden, the sukkah. Coming together to help in any capacity. People spend over $5,000 replenishing supplies. Toilet paper, BandAids, hairbands and more wet wipes. A new idea: Rami Levi, the large chain store, has bright pink shopping bags. We are going to use them for packages for the women soldiers. Israel is the only country that conscripts women. They need special items, and they’re going to have them in pink. People tell me I “saved them” today; they were in crisis looking at the terrible footage, and I provided them with something positive. We deliver the packages to the lone soldier stations for them to distribute.

Monday, October 9 | Day 2: Supplies arrive at my doorstep late at night and early morning. Volunteers come and contribute their time and money; people I haven’t seen in a decade are here to help. Some of them bring their children, who have no school; so we give them paper and colored pens, and they write notes to our men and women in uniform. We are more organized; we have a system going. And then it starts raining. So we move to the building foyer. In this building, they’re always making a fuss about respecting public places; no one complains this time. We crank up the music. The volunteers are having a great time— men, women and children happy to be helping, doing, feeling like they have a purpose.

Two volunteers ask if I want my sukkah taken down; well, they don’t have to ask twice! Someone sends me a picture of soldiers holding my packages. My heart sings. I consider taking a day off the following day, but morale is low so I’m redoubling efforts to continue making volunteers and soldiers happy. I am in Rami Levi again; Arabs are joking around with Jews, workers and

customers alike. This is one of the few Rami Levis with enough workers, because at this location most of the workers are Arabs. I tell everyone my shopping cart is for the soldiers. Even the Arabs bless me. “My son is fighting for Israel in Gaza now, pray for him too.” I show the Arab cashier the packages we made, and she tears up. “Your son will get a package too,” I tell her. She gives me a hug. 1,000 Packages of Love.

Just when I thought not an extra person could fit in my home, more people come to volunteer. People feel good doing good.

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Tuesday, October 10 | Day 3: We are setting up tables, preparing for the volunteers to begin. Even when it’s quiet, our thoughts are with our soldiers. British “blokes” come with thirty bagels for lunch—coincidentally, Holy Bagel arrives with meals for all of us from a volunteer who came yesterday and wants to treat us! I go outside to see how things are doing and find men of all ages bagging items—some are doctors and lawyers visiting for the yamim tovim from New York, “stuck” here till they can get a flight out. A neighbor from an adjacent building arrives. She sees what is happening from her porch and wants to volunteer. Amazed at my production line, two women who were visiting their grandmother upstairs make donations. An old crotchety neighbor also donates to the cause; her aide comes along. Volunteers come and go between funerals and shivah houses and blood drives. One is going to an “emergency” wedding. The couple was supposed to get married next month, but the groom was told he has to draft unless he gets married now. So he is. His wedding was supposed to be celebrated with more

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than 300 people in a fabulous venue. Instead there were fifty people who were served challah rolls and dips. We have a steady flow of shoppers going out to stores and spending profusely on supplies; people from all over the world are donating. But what makes me happiest is pictures of soldiers with our packages. May they all come home safely. Wednesday, October 11 | Day 4: Just when I thought not an extra person could fit in my home, more people come to volunteer. People feel good doing good. We are having a debriefing with my volunteer leaders about why this was such a huge success, but I think I’ve had enough for now. I want my house back! A day of over 2,000 packages. The exhaustion I feel is unlike any I have experienced. This project was for the soldiers, for their families, for our people and for the world. It was as much about the 500+ volunteers who came with tears and left with joy as it was about our soldiers who needed things. Whether people came with toiletries or a huge donation, whether they stayed

for half an hour or came every day, this project grew wings. Four days. Over 5,000 Packages of Love, over $25,000 donated, over 500 volunteers in my house. On Thursday, October 12, I reclaim my house and tidy and clean while listening to music. On Friday, I allow myself to cry. I go shopping on my local street. I go to every shop and spend money there because I want to support my local businesses. I go to my newspaper shop, and the proprietor’s son who helps him on Fridays is there, and I tear up. He might be drafted next week, but for now he gets another Shabbat with his family. What a gift. Shabbat shalom to all of Jerusalem. We will light another candle for the precious kidnapped souls in Gaza. We are at war, but these first five days on the front lines of chesed fill me with a bit of peace. 1,400 dead, more than 5,000 wounded, more than 200 hostages in Gaza. “Be strong and resolute; do not be terrified or dismayed, for Hashem, your G-d, is with you wherever you go” (Yehoshua 1:9).

2 A Shield for the Soldiers By Haddie (Hadassah) Davidov As told to Carol Ungar

hen we first heard about the massacre, my roommates and I went to the Lone Soldier Center (established in memory of Michael Levine) in downtown Jerusalem, responding to a message they had sent out asking for supplies. We brought over shampoo bottles, granola bars and containers of instant soup. It seemed like they already had a lot of these items. “Is there anything else you need?” we asked. “We don’t know what you have access to,” they said, “but our men are asking for tzitzit.” We started fundraising. We connected with Lt. Colonel Rabbi Yedidya Atlas of the IDF Central Command who manufactures specially prepared tzitzit for the IDF; soldiers going into combat need to wear olivegreen undershirt tzitzit to match their uniform camouflage in the

field. We raise the money, and Rabbi Atlas sends the tzitzit to soldiers on the front line. Every day, we get messages from soldiers who thank us. The tzitzit, they say, gives them a lot of chizuk. One soldier told us that his tzitzit reminds him that Hashem is in all four corners of the world protecting him. The soldiers see their tzitziyot as their shields and as a tangible demonstration of their trust in Hashem. What is especially moving is that some of the requests we have been getting are from men with tattoos up their arms, men who don’t wear a kippah or put on tefillin—but they want tzitzit. This project has taken over our lives. When we got this off the ground, we were sleeping four hours a night. We’ve allocated all of our free time to this. It’s what needs to be done right now.

. . . some of the requests we get are from men with tattoos up their arms, men who don’t wear a kippah or put on tefillin—but they want tzitzit. Carol Ungar is a frequent contributor to Jewish Action. She leads memoir workshops and is the author of several biographies for Jewish children.

Haddie (Hadassah) Davidov is a twenty-eight-year-old former Torontonian. A kindergarten teacher, she lives in an apartment in Jerusalem with three roommates. Together they are the force behind The Tzitzit Fund, a grassroots organization that supplies tzitzit to IDF soldiers.

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3 This Is Unity By Batsheva Moskowitz

t’s half an hour after Shabbat has ended—a week after the war in Israel began. It’s raining outside as I walk into a busy Terminal 4 at JFK Airport. I’ve never been to the airport without having a plane to catch, but I am here now to help load hundreds of supplies for soldiers onto a flight to Israel. In the center of the terminal, over fifty cardboard boxes are stacked on top of each other, creating a wall in the heart of the commotion. Next to them are piles and piles of duffel bags and a diverse group of Jews. I spot my father among a sprinkling of kippahwearing men. Parents and teens—some of whom are my neighbors from my hometown of West Hempstead, New York—stand around dozens of black and bright blue duffel bags stuffed with toothpaste, T-shirts, underwear, duct tape, headlamps and socks. The boxes, filled with $50,000 worth of tourniquets, restrict my view. Bearded Israelis exchange instructions in Hebrew. A heavyset

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man with reddish hair speaks with airport security as if he’s in charge. I remember how different things were a week ago. ******* It’s Motzaei Chag. I turn on my phone. I heard about the war during Simchat Torah, but I don’t know too many details. We know things are bad, but we don’t know how bad. My friend from London has come for Sukkot. Her friend, who lives on a kibbutz in the South, has been taken hostage by Hamas. A girl from my hometown who was home from the IDF for Sukkot is told to stay in the US. Her entire unit has been killed. Don’t come back, they tell her. There’s nothing for you here. Another friend’s classmate, a chayal, has been killed. I find out on an Instagram post. I read every news site possible. I cry. I feel numb. I must do something.

On Tuesday, I see a Facebook post: friends from West Hempstead are collecting supplies for Israeli soldiers. On Wednesday, I plan a donation drive with friends from my community on the Upper West Side. I post a flyer advertising the drive on Instagram and send it to other accounts to spread the word. A few hours later, we are ready, but we don’t know what to expect. A young woman arrives at our Upper West Side apartment. She tells us she came from Brooklyn as she unloads a backpack and a large shopping bag full of men’s socks and deodorant. Watching her, I am reminded of Mary Poppins’ bag—the more items she takes out of the bag, the more there seem to be. A short man with a kippah and a shy smile enters. Friends from the neighborhood come in and out, donating T-shirts, chargers and headlamps. Some stay to talk. Photo: Dave Sanders/New York Times/Redux

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A non-religious graduate school student peeks his head through the door; like many others, he’s heard about the donation drive through Instagram. He empties a large backpack full of T-shirts and towels. He’s disturbed by his fellow students’ responses to the war. “They don’t realize,” he says. “Hamas would kill them all if they got near them.” By the end of the evening, we’ve collected hundreds of dollars’ worth of supplies, enough to fill four-anda-half large duffel bags. Some duffels are shuttled off to JFK that very night. Together with a friend, I lug the rest to West Hempstead, where we will spend Shabbat. On Friday afternoon before Shabbat, Rabbi Elon Soniker of Congregation Anshei Shalom in West

Hempstead sends out an alert: fifty soldiers need homes for Shabbat— their flight has been canceled. Within half an hour, enough places are arranged to house a hundred soldiers. The owner of the local kosher Chinese restaurant runs back to the restaurant to begin preparing Shabbat food for the soldiers. Soon we find out it was all a miscommunication. But we know what the community is capable of. Shabbat ends. We are ready to send supplies on the next flight to Tel Aviv leaving in a few hours. My family and I arrive at our neighbor’s house to pick up bags for the flight. Inside, the house is a flurry of motion. Someone sits on the floor with duct tape and a Sharpie marker, labeling duffel bags. Havdalah is made for those who haven’t heard it. A CEO of a marketing company from West Orange introduces himself before disappearing off to JFK. His pickup truck is loaded with duffel bags. A man he’s just met from Silver Spring accompanies him. At the airport, my father buys luggage carts until his credit card declines the payment, assuming it is fraud. A group of heavily geared police officers appear in the terminal lobby. We are here for you; they tell my father. They have come to help guard the dozens of duffel bags. Chassidic yeshivah students on their way to Israel approach us, speaking in rapid-fire Hebrew. Are these for the chayalim? We want to help! Chiloni Israelis, Modern Orthodox Americans wearing knit kippot, traditional Sephardim—Jews of all kinds run in and out of the terminal, as more cars filled with duffel bags

arrive. We are told there may not be room on the plane. Late that evening, I catch a ride back to West Hempstead with a neighbor. The next morning, pictures and videos of the soldiers unloading our black and bright blue duffel bags prove they have received it all. As I write these words, two weeks into the war, no one knows when this will end. But we do know these efforts will not stop until it does. This is unity.

...fifty soldiers need homes for Shabbat—their flight has been canceled. Within half an hour, enough places are arranged to house a hundred soldiers.

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Batsheva Moskowitz is an associate editor at Jewish Action.

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4 The Blessings of Zoom School By Merri Ukraincik

zi Cutter of Modi’in describes the current atmosphere in Israel as “a combination of the Corona pandemic and the aftermath of 9/11.” The isolation. The fear and uncertainty. “We’re scared,” he says. “We sleep either in our safe rooms or near them in case there are sirens. And we all have family and friends on active army duty. It’s impossible for our children not to overhear adult conversations

Merri Ukraincik has written for Tablet, the Lehrhaus, the Forward and other publications, including Jewish Action. She is the author of I Live. Send Help, a history of the Joint Distribution Committee.

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about what’s happening. They are traumatized.” With schools closed, Israeli children also have very little to do. When Jews in the States began asking how they could help, Cutter saw a chance to fill some of that free time while providing a sense of normalcy for them. He and his wife Jessica and their four children made aliyah from Long Beach, New York, in 2018, but still have a connection with Hebrew

Academy of Long Beach (HALB). So Azi contacted Richard Altabe, the school’s Lower Division principal, about setting up a Zoom class for English-speaking kids in Modi’in. Within hours, HALB was ready to go. Altabe recalls, “Our teachers were on board. We were primed because of Covid. We just had to dust off the equipment.” Jessica partnered with the family’s shul in Modi’in—Kehillat Shaarei

Midway through their first session, the girls disappeared from the screen . . . Hearing sirens, the girls had raced to their shelters.

Yonah Menachem (KSYM)—to reach out to local parents. She now manages the logistics with the school for the approximately thirty-five community students in second to fifth grade taking part (as of this writing). Afternoon timing in Israel gives them access to HALB’s daily morning limudei kodesh classes. From the first Zoom session, the two groups of students bonded. As Azi envisioned, “They can be mechazek

one another” at such a difficult time. Rabbi Moshe Steinberg, who teaches a fifth grade Mishnah class, agrees. “It’s like we are with them in Israel, learning together. The boys are getting to know one another. It’s having a really meaningful impact on all of us.” “HALB kids now have a better sense of what life is like for their peers in Israel, while the kids in Modi’in can experience being back in a regular yeshivah classroom,” Altabe reflects.

The point hit home when midway through their first session on October 16, the girls disappeared from the screen. The morot wondered what happened, concerned that their new students had perhaps lost interest. But that wasn’t the reason. Hearing sirens, the girls had raced to their shelters.

Approximately thirty-five Modi’in students in second to fifth grade have been taking limudei kodesh classes virtually with students at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach in New York. From the first Zoom session, the two groups of students bonded. Courtesy of the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach

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5 Women Bridging the Gap By Toby Klein Greenwald

Toby Klein Greenwald, a regular contributor to Jewish Action, is a journalist, playwright, poet and teacher and the artistic director of a number of theater companies. She is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from Atara—the Association for Torah and the Arts.

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fter the destruction of Gush Katif in 2005, most of the residents of Atzmona were relocated by the Israeli government to what used to be Kibbutz Shomria, located in the northeast Negev. There had been only eleven families left in the original kibbutz, and they were compensated and relocated. Technically, Shomria is still called a “kibbutz.” They have a cowshed, olive grove, vineyard and fields in which they grow other things, but daily life is more similar to a yishuv kehilati, a community village. Our daughter Naama’s family, who had lived in Atzmona, was among those who relocated to Shomria. Shomria is a deeply religious community. The families who settle there, just as in the original Atzmona, agree that there will be no televisions or secular newspapers in their homes. Most of the men are graduates of yeshivot; they also go to the army, and many of them, including Naama’s husband, are officers. Their neighbor, Col. Jonathan Steinberg, forty-two, commander of the Nahal Brigade, was one of the first soldiers to fall in battle on the black Shabbat of Simchat Torah. In the week the war began, soldiers were stationed at Kibbutz Dvir, about a ten-minute drive from Shomria. The women of the kibbutz, which is a member of the secular Hashomer Hatzair movement, contacted the women of Shomria and asked for their help in preparing meals for the soldiers, as some of their kitchens aren’t kosher. Together the women created a WhatsApp group to help organize the project. Naama describes how supportive they were of each other, with total collaboration for the benefit of the soldiers. She shared with me what one of the women of Dvir wrote to her in the midst of things:

In the place the soldiers are sleeping in, there is a safe room, and we took care of [providing] mattresses, sheets, pillows and blankets and are helping with the laundry. The building also has a house of prayer [shul] and we made the connection with the person in Dvir who is responsible for it, and he opened it so the soldiers could use it. We are not happy that these are the circumstances, but we are happy to be able to work together in friendship.

There is no doubt that this war gave birth to a new level of love and connection and a feeling of shared responsibility between all parts of our people. To which Naama replied:

And later, in the wake of the successful partnership, she wrote: Dear women and men in this group, I want to say a personal thank you to each and every one of you, from all of us. I also draw great strength from doing something active, something good that is under our control. In my mind’s eye, I imagine a great and festive evening when we will meet, after this cursed war ends, and we will further actualize this good neighborliness and shared humanity. It gives me hope. A personal thank you for an island of sanity during these difficult days. Hagar

What you wrote is so moving, Hagar. There is no doubt that this war gave birth to a new level of love and connection and a feeling of shared responsibility between all parts of our people. May we know how to continue to grow from this, with G-d’s help, and may we only hear good tidings from now on! Naama

“Dvir” is one of the names of the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. May this sisterly love be a foreshadowing of the love in Am Yisrael that will herald the rebuilding of the Temple, speedily in our day.

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6 Delivering Chizuk By Bentzi Goldman As told to Carol Ungar

Soldiers receiving deliveries of much-needed supplies.

Most nights I only get to bed at 2 am, but if a call comes in at 3 am, I’ll wake up and get whatever is needed.

Bentzi Goldman, twenty years old, lives in Kiryat Yearim.

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own a delivery company. When the war broke out, I asked my friends in the army what they needed—because of the war, I wasn’t working much. My friends and I loaded up my minivans with supplies and drove out to the bases. Meanwhile, the requests kept pouring in from soldiers and parents of soldiers. We began driving to bases all over the country. You can’t imagine what we feel like when the soldiers smile and thank us for the supplies. I still run the delivery company, but most of my time is dedicated to the soldiers right now. Some days I leave my home at 8 am and return at 6 am the next morning. Most nights I only get to bed at 2 am, but if a call comes in at 3 am, I’ll wake up and get whatever is needed. Here in Jerusalem, you can sometimes forget that we are in the middle of a war, but when you travel the country as I do and see cars flipped over and riddled with bullets, you realize what is going on. I do this with missiles flying over my head . . . It’s wild.

7 From Toothbrushes to Tourniquets By Batsheva Moskowitz

ever in their “wildest dreams” did Shelley and Ariel Serber expect their living room to be converted into a distribution center for the IDF. Since the start of the Iron Swords War, the Serbers’ home in West Hempstead, New York—now referred to as the “machal or war room” among the team of Israelis Ariel assembled— has been bustling with neighbors, friends and men and women from communities nearby donating, organizing and packing supplies for the IDF. The floor of their living room is covered with piles of duffel bags and supplies: hundreds of men’s socks and packages of black T-shirts piled high on the couch, bath towels stuffed in bins, paper bags filled with batteries and chargers, boxes of wipes, dozens of snack bags and on and on. Two weeks into the war, the family of three has facilitated the donation and delivery of some 250 duffel bags carrying tens of thousands of pounds of supplies. But the operation was born on a much smaller scale: a trip to Costco. “On the Monday after Simchat Torah, Shelley and I felt helpless, upset, emotional,” says Ariel, a financial advisor who works with Israeli startups. “I reached out to friends in the Israeli tech and venture capital industries to see how we could support them.” Ariel’s friend, a reservist flying back to Israel later that day, requested a ride to Costco to buy supplies for his unit. Ariel mentioned to Shelley what his friend was doing, and she hit the ground running. “What does he need? For how many people? He doesn’t need to buy this for his unit himself. I can raise the money. How many duffel bags?” Ariel recalls Shelley telling him. “It just truly exploded in the best possible way from there,” says Shelley.

On that first day, Shelley and Ariel began posting on Facebook and WhatsApp groups, requesting items ranging from protein bars to socks. “Word [got] out quickly”; supplies began streaming in from Jews residing in neighboring communities, including Oceanside, Roslyn and the

Hamptons, as well as Manhattan and West Orange, New Jersey. That first Monday night, Shelley pulled into JFK Airport with a car packed with twelve duffel bags of supplies. As she walked into the terminal, Shelley said she found “chayalim sitting on the floor of the terminal waiting for their flights. She said, ‘Hey guys, I need some help.’ And they jumped up. There were probably five or six of them. They just pulled everything out of the car.” The young men, wearing sweatshirts and jeans, were Israelis traveling in America who had been called back to the army. One of the men had arrived in the US three days prior, only to turn right back around. “They were saying, ‘What is this stuff? Where is it from?’ I told them, ‘Everything has been donated,’” says Shelley. “The duffel bags are the community kids’ camp duffel bags that their parents pulled out of their basements and attics. The chayalim were completely blown away . . . They looked at me and asked, ‘Can we take it?’ I said, ‘Can you take it? It’s for you!’” The chayalim, who would be traveling “directly from Ben Gurion to the front lines” opened the bags and “handpicked what they wanted for themselves and their units.” They returned to their bases equipped with the bags of supplies. “I worry about them,” says Shelley, “and my heart skips a beat when I see an ‘in memory of ’ post.” Since then, Shelley and Ariel have created an efficient system and established distinct roles for themselves. Shelley acts as the community liaison, collecting and organizing supplies. Knowledge of the Serbers’ initiative has spread to communities across Long Island, and Jews from neighboring towns

6.1 OpenDor’s Subbrands

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Open

Hi, I noticed your name on one of the duffle bags we received. What a great feeling it filled us to know that the whole Jewish nation is standing behind us. We, on our side, promise to do our best. On behalf of my platoon, I thank you and your great community for doing your best. Please share [with] your community.

06:13

Tani Feldman, a seventeen-year-old from West Hempstead, New York, gave his camp duffel bag to the Serbers’ community-wide effort to ship supplies to the IDF. The next day on a base in Israel, a chayal, noticing a phone number on the bag, sent Feldman a text thanking him and the community for their efforts. The text was received at 6:13 pm. Courtesy of Shelley Serber

We’ve gone from toothbrushes and toothpaste to life-saving equipment. consistently come in and out of their home with donations. Several of their friends and neighbors have offered their garages to store duffel bags or supplies. Ariel is tasked with ensuring the constant inflow of supplies gets to the right place. A few hours before a flight, he is informed which supplies are needed on each flight. A group of volunteer drivers from the community take duffel bags from one garage, fill them with supplies stored in another garage and deliver them to the airport. “The supplies are all organized in different crates so the packers can take what they need from the crates and fill the bags,” says Ariel. “Once it gets 38

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to Israel, we have people there who go back and forth between the airport and the various units.” Ariel works with El Al Airlines and his Israeli contacts to ensure that the items are getting to the bases. There has been incredible support for the Serbers; the entire community has come together to help the chayalim and in the process, are making sure the Serbers have what they need. “We’ve had people beg to come and help,” says Shelley. One family is on garbage duty; they come to the Serbers’ house every few days to flatten and dispose of all the empty cardboard boxes that once contained supplies. “I have a friend who messages me at four or five o’clock

every day to make sure we have some sort of plan for dinner,” says Shelley. While the idea for the operation began small, “we’ve gone from toothbrushes and toothpaste to lifesaving equipment,” says Shelley. As of this writing in late October, the Serbers have facilitated the shipment of 6,500 tourniquets, worth tens of thousands of dollars. “I admit we are exhausted to the bone,” says Shelley. “We haven’t slept much. But when we get the photos of chayalim holding the items that were on our living room floor two days earlier, it feels incredible. We have a saying: ‘can’t stop, won’t stop . . . We just keep pushing.’”

8 Making Aliyah in a Time of War By Steve Lipman

A Ben Katz and his wife Michele joined twentythree other Americans who made aliyah during the second week of the war. Courtesy of Nefesh B’Nefesh/Yonit Schiller

Steve Lipman is a frequent contributor to Jewish Action.

Steve Lipman is a frequent contributor to Jewish Action. JEWISH ACTION Winter 5784/2023

s soon as Simchat Torah ended in Cleveland and Ben Katz turned on his computer, he read a series of email messages and texts. One addressed an immediate concern of his—his aliyah scheduled for the following week. The longtime Cleveland resident, who had been planning the move for more than a year, discovered his flight was still on— despite the war in Gaza. Katz thought, time to finish packing. A few other email messages would change his packing plans. Notes from a nephew and a soonto-be-son-in-law who serve in the Israeli army listed items soldiers needed; many of them had left home on short notice the day after the war broke out. If he and his wife were still planning to come, could they help? Immediately, Katz said yes. He and his wife Michele ended up filling two large duffel bags stuffed with supplies the soldiers needed. With headlines describing the increasingly dire situation in Israel, Hamas rockets raining down on southern Israel from Gaza, and Hezbollah missiles from southern Lebanon falling on northern Israel, did Katz have second thoughts about going forward with his aliyah plans? Yes, he says— “second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts. Many times.”

But he and Michele went anyway. While there have been postponements of current aliyah plans among North Americans, according to Nefesh B’Nefesh, as of this writing in mid-October, there have been no cancellations. Many potential olim are waiting to see how things develop further in order to gauge when to come. Nefesh B’Nefesh is “grateful that El Al is flying and enabling anyone who has booked on their flights to continue with their aliyah plans.” “It is incredibly moving to welcome olim who, despite the extremely tragic times, are continuing to fulfill their dreams of moving to Israel, sending an unmistakable message: Am Yisrael Chai,” says Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, co-founder and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh. Katz says he had never considered making aliyah until he found himself in Israel during the Covid pandemic for a two-week trip—for a daughter’s wedding in Netanya—that stretched into three-and-a-half months. “I realized I could live there,” Katz says. He and his wife made new friends in Netanya and fell in love with the country, especially with coastal Netanya, where they will live in a rental until the apartment they bought there will be ready. Katz, who sold his business a few years ago and has worked as

We have been in and out of Israel many times, and it was never the right time or the right circumstances to make aliyah. Now is the right time.

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WHATSAPP GROUP Join the exclusive Tzurba Hilchot Shabbat WhatsApp group for program updates, special video content, and more an insurance consultant since, says he will continue doing that for a while in Israel, before finding some meaningful volunteer work. Michele, who worked as an English teacher in Cleveland, will keep teaching in Netanya as a volunteer at an orphanage. The couple joined twenty-three other olim who made aliyah on Wednesday, October 19, during the second week of the war. El Al flights from New York, Los Angeles, and Miami landed at Ben Gurion Airport bringing the olim to their new home. “You don’t just go when it’s safe and pretty,” Katz asserts. “We have been in and out of Israel many times, and it was never the right time or the right circumstances to make aliyah. Now is the right time.”

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Winter 5784/2023 JEWISH ACTION