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February 8, 2002
Vancouverites reach out to Israelis
Schara Tzedeck members visit with terror victims and families
in the Holy Land.
KYLE BERGER REPORTER
Moti and Lili Haftzadi and their family have been through a lot.
Moti and his son Moshe both suffer from serious kidney disease.
Moshe is waiting for a transplant while Moti has already had one
but has been very ill since the operation. Lili has dedicated her
life to taking care of her family in the meantime.
While life had thrown the Haftzadi family plenty of lemons, they
found strength by living through the dreams of their one healthy
son, Nir, 19, who was a sergeant in the Israel Defence Force and
had been known to perform many brave and heroic acts. That strength,
however, was to be taken from them, as well.
At about 11:30 p.m., Dec. 1, while on leave from his military duties,
Nir joined some of his friends to take in Jerusalem's popular Ben
Yehuda Street night life. Around the same time, two suicide bombers
detonated explosive devices and 188 people were injured. Ten people,
including Nir, were killed.
The broken Haftzadi family was one of seven families who have suffered
great loss at the hands of terrorism that members of Schara Tzedek
Synagogue visited and helped on a recent mission to Israel.
Inspired by a visit to the Holy Land last winter, Rabbi Avi Baumol
spearheaded the five-day mission, Dec. 27-31, with the dual goal
of visiting the land that they love and showing solidarity with
its people by helping victims of terrorism.
The group, comprised of 16 congregation members, talked with the
seven families, learned of their trying times and offered their
support and condolences. They also left behind a total of $30,000
in relief funds, money that had been raised by their congregation
during last fall's High Holy Day appeal.
"I stood up on Yom Kippur and I said that we Jews have two
homes," Baumol said of his Kol Nidre speech aimed at raising
money for the mission. "One home is where we reside and the
other home is where our hearts are and that is in Israel. We reap
the benefits of our two homes and, as such, we also have to feel
the responsibility of those two homes."
And so the 16 synagogue members met up with 14 other Vancouverites
who were already in Israel and the mission began.
The president of Schara Tzedek, Julius Steinberg, who participated
in the trip, said the meetings with the families were very difficult
moments that he will never forget.
"We saw people with absolutely raw emotions," he said.
"We were talking to a mother, who had lost a son in an explosion,
who had begged him not to go to Ben Yehuda Street. Or a mother who
had lost daughters burned in a bus. I don't think anyone from the
tour walked away easily from any of the meetings."
One of their stops was with the family of Yaakov Danino, who was
17 years old when he was killed in the Dec. 1 suicide attack on
the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall.
Danino was making plans to upgrade the gravestone of his brother,
a toddler who had died 10 years earlier after falling down a flight
of stairs. He was going to pay for the upgrade with his first paycheque
from the army, which he was scheduled to enter in four months. The
Schara Tzedeck delegates offered the Danino family one month's living
expenses.
The group also met with a single mom whose 15-year-old son had to
undergo more than 10 operations to remove nails and bolts as a result
of the same explosive attack. The mother had to leave her job to
be with her son and, while they were in the hospital, the roof of
their apartment collapsed from a heavy rain storm. Her new friends
from Vancouver, along with the city of Jerusalem, offered to help
pay for a new roof, as well as a place for her to live in the meantime.
"We walked away with a remarkable feeling of the strength and
resilience of our people," said Baumol. "There was one
man who, in the midst of all the sadness and the terror, said, 'But
there's no place like home, there's no place like Israel and this
is the safest place.' It gave us strength and it's just unbelievable."
Ellen Freedman, Schara Tzedeck's program director, who also participated
in the mission, said she finds it very difficult to be back in Canada
when there are still people suffering in Israel.
"I know that there's not necessarily anything I could do if
I were there right now except just to be there," she said.
"Much like when you would go on a shivah visit. There's nothing
you can do for the person but just be there."
Steinberg, who had visited Israel many times in the past, said the
mood was very different than what he was used to.
"I think you see it in the faces," he said of the hardened
hearts of the Israelis. "They are living under constant stress
and they show it economically and emotionally."
"They're trying to live normal lives," added Freedman,
referring to the Israelis they visited living in Jewish enclaves
in Hebron who get terrorized on a regular basis.
"When you see a family that lives in one and a half caravans
and there are bullet holes going through their walls, you can't
help but have such tremendous admiration for these people when they
say, 'Yes, it's dangerous. Yes, they shoot at us. But this is where
we live.' "
The Schara Tzedeck group worked closely with the recently established
One Family Fund, which helped them plan their visits with the seven
families. The One Family Fund, in partnership with the Israel Solidarity
Emergency Fund of New York, is committed to raising funds for and
helping Israelis and their families who have suffered from terrorism.
It was established by Mark and Chantal Belzberg after their daughter
Michal cancelled her bat mitzvah party in order to donate the funds
to Israeli orphans, widows and wounded.
Besides Baumol, Steinberg and Freedman, the delegates from Schara
Tzedeck included Freedman's husband and Schara Tzedeck vice-president
David Freedman and their three sons, as well as Arthur Toft, Myer
Grinshpan, Harold Ship, Michele Sandler, Mauricio and Adriana Schlam
and their three daughters.
Once in Israel, they met up with Les and Tracey Ames and their three
children along with Ryan Nadel, Richard Rabkin, Anders Nerman, Mike
Hershfield, Shuli and Judy Boxer, and Gail and Richard Wenner and
their son Aaron.
Information on the One Family Fund can be found online at www.onefamily.org.il
or by calling toll free 1-866-432-ONEF (6633).
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