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October 17, 2003
Israel faces challenges
Selah helps new immigrants hit by crisis or tragedy.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
After more than three years of violence and terrorism, Israel's
social services network is deteriorating and communities are in
distress. Peace seems a distant hope. How does a country cope with
such challenges? Ruth Bar-On, executive director of Selah –
The Israel Crisis Management Centre, will address this question
when she visits Richmond next week.
"I'll be talking about what we've been through here,"
said Bar-On, "the trauma, the difficulties and the hope."
Funded in part by Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA), Selah was founded
by Bar-On in 1993 to help new immigrants hit by crisis, terror or
another life-altering tragedy. A mobile network of some 600 volunteers,
the centre has aided more than 10,000 new immigrants since it opened.
Selah provides emotional and financial support. This includes home
and hospital visits; local transportation and travel funding to
bring relatives from abroad; burial costs and shivah expenses; shelter,
household items and furnishings for fire and flood victims; emergency
cash grants; legal and psychological support; and advocacy aimed
at ensuring the protection of immigrant rights with regard to crisis.
In the area of long-term care, Selah offers ongoing healing programs,
workshops, seminars and retreats that build on shared personal experiences,
help develop coping skills and provide comfort. Examples of these
activities are parenting seminars for grandparents raising orphaned
grandchildren and intensive summer camp programs for children in
the aftermath of tragedy.
"I find it very meaningful," said Bar-On of the work Selah
does. "To think that people would be there, all alone, isolated
in their pain is the worst thought in the world. In many ways, you
see the coping, you see how people are coping in very difficult
circumstances.... I would call it, with the pain, also very reassuring,
very strengthening, very human."
Selah is notified of cases through a 24-hour hotline, as well as
by local police, hospital trauma units, social workers and through
news broadcasts. In cases of large-scale disaster, such as a terror
attack, emergency volunteer teams are immediately dispatched. Volunteers
include psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, specialists
in trauma work, lawyers, physicians, those from the business community
and others. In some cases, volunteers are survivors of terror attacks
or other traumas.
Selah also has a number of specialized outreach initiatives, such
as Partners in Healing, long-term individual and group assistance
to immigrant youth affected by tragedy, and the Ethiopian Outreach
Project, intensive assistance to those facing personal tragedy within
the Ethiopian community.
Ninety-five per cent of Selah's funding comes from philanthropic
organizations, such as CJA, said Bar-On; only five per cent comes
from the Israeli government.
"Canada has been absolutely wonderful," she said. "I
don't think we would have been able to cope without the Canadian
effort.... We are very grateful for this. It was a very generous
outburst of support and I just want to explain that I don't think
we could have done the emergency work and I don't think we could
do the long-term work with the people, and the long-term is just
as important because the needs don't go away, they change, but they
don't away."
Bar-On, 62, is a native of Tel-Aviv. Following her army service,
she studied at London University, and lived in England for nine
years. Upon her return to Israel in 1970, she became active in the
struggle of Soviet Jewry to immigrate to Israel. From 1984-1986,
Bar-On lived in South Africa, where she was involved in the education
of Black African leaders in community and human resource development.
She founded Selah when she returned to Israel.
Bar-On's talk takes place Wednesday, Oct. 22, 7:30 p.m., at Richmond
Jewish Day School (RJDS). The event is co-hosted by CJA, the Israel
Action Committee, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, the
Kehila Society of Richmond and RJDS. Admission is free. RSVP to
604-275-3393.
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