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Ilene Bloch-Levy made Aliyah in 1986 with her late husband and five children. Four years and one child later, the family made Aliyah again from the Sharon to the Shomron and has been living there ever since. She is a partner in Impressions, a marketing communications company which provides high-quality promotion and marketing materials for non-profit and for-profit organizations and companies, and does freelance writing from her office overlooking the olive-laden Samarian mountains.
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By Ilene Bloch-Levy
April 9, 2003
This story is like a circle. There is neither a point at which it begins nor a point at which it ends, and that is its inherent beauty.
We can begin here. One hundred students from New York's Yeshiva University (YU) and the Stern College for Girls landed in Israel as the Iraq War erupted. They arrived equipped with mobile phones, overwhelming good will and an enthusiastic desire to show their solidarity with the Israeli people as part of "Operation Torah Shield."
This was the third such trip by YU students. These trips are designed to strengthen the bonds between Jewish youth and a land and people they feel viscerally close to, but are far removed geographically. The bonds were indeed strengthened. Following the first trip, when 400 students spent a week learning in yeshivas around Israel at the height of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, many returned with ideas for chesed (charity/kindness) projects they wanted to launch to help them continue their contact with Israel, and continue to contribute to the Jewish nation.
Or, we can begin here. "Even when we're not in Israel, Israel is always on our minds," Yami Schechter, de facto organizer of this latest trip explained, as he elaborated on the many different chesed projects operating across the United States as a result of these missions. With one project, volunteers regularly take out full page ads in U.S. newspapers featuring profiles of Jewish victims of Arab terrorism. Another project has students from 75 Jewish high schools learning mishnayot in memory of victims of Arab terrorism. Recently, this culminated in a siyum (finale) with more than 2,000 students connecting to thousands more via live video and internet hook ups.
Last year, in the midst of the Intifada, 200 YU students came to Israel to visit army bases and hospitals, and meet with terror victims and their families.
This third trip, with its last-minute planning on the eve of the "War to Liberate Iraq," was designed to integrate both learning and chesed. Just as President Bush issued his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein more than 300 applicants signed up within the first two hours of the website going up. It was a first-come, first-serve basis. The list whittled down to 100, because that was the budget allocated by the anonymous Florida donor. Another circle takes shape.
During their whirlwind week-plus mission in Israel, the 100 college students integrated learning with volunteer work at an army base, assisting in hospitals, distributing Purim baskets to families of terror victims, renovating houses for the needy, working at a food bank, conducting a blood drive and meeting with families victimized by terror. They covered the length and breadth of the country, sharing their experiences with bus drivers and cabbies, store owners, passers-by, government officials and local press.
"Last year we brought gifts of clothing, toys, cosmetics, and care packages, but this year we came last minute and were only able to bring ourselves. We did, however, receive gifts at the airport... IDF gas masks," another participant, Efraim, relates.
Israelis embraced them, many wondering why this "crazy group of university students" would rather be spending their time in Israel with gas masks hanging over their beds, than sitting cozily at home in New York or Los Angeles. Anywhere else but here. And that was the irony, for it was here they felt most comfortable, most needed and most secure.
As one circle flows, another opens. Meet businessman Robert (Bobby) Rechnitz. The Rechnitz family departed Los Angeles just a few days after the YU and Stern College students, his daughter Jacqueline among them. Unlike his younger counterparts from New York, Bobby had carefully planned his family's 48-hour expedition to Israel. This trip was in celebration of his son Jared's Bar Mitzvah.
"It is our feeling that we should couple a simcha (joyous occasion) with a mitzvah (good deed). Initially, we were looking to couple my son's Bar Mitzvah with that of a young Israeli boy who had lost a family member to terrorism," Bobby explained.
Another circle links with a phone call to Chantal Belzberg. Chantal, her husband Marc and young daughter Michal, who originated the idea, are the founders of the Emergency Solidarity Fund, which assists terror victims and their families. Chantal helped the Rechnitz family realize their wish to make Jared's Bar Mitzvah celebration more meaningful in every way. Instead of a celebration with one boy, the Rechnitz's became one of the sponsors of a Purim seudah (meal) for terror victims families.
The mailing went out to the Fund's accumulated list and the responses began to pour in -- when they reached 300, Chantal contacted Bobby, who told her, "Don't stop." And, she didn't!
The Rechnitz family met with more than 600 of their guests, all of whom had gathered for a day of Purim festivities and celebration just outside Beer Sheva. There were camel rides, archery, paint ball and music and food. The atmosphere was redolent with sounds of joy and laughter. None of the guests knew the Bar Mitzvah boy -- but many knew each other. And, they all shared a thread of commonality -- they had experienced terror -- having buried a child or a parent, a sibling or a spouse.
At about 2:00, the New York college students arrived, circulating among the crowd and feeling warmth and love wherever they went. They tried to match faces with the heart-rending stories they had heard or read about. "I was affected in a way that I have never been affected before," Efraim reported, "These people came to life for us. There is a quietness that has befallen Israeli society, yet I felt that the people here are fearless."
Jacqueline Rechnitz introduced herself to the Apter Family from Shiloh, whose son Noam was killed in the Hesder Yeshiva in Otniel. Before succumbing to his wounds, Noam managed to close the door to the Yeshiva dining room saving the lives of dozens of other young Yeshiva boys. Another circle opens, closes and opens again.
While Jacqueline was playing with a young girl who had lost both parents, Bobby met Miri who lost both her husband and later, her son, but who had still managed, before boarding the bus to Beer Sheva, to deliver baskets of food to other grieving families. Yet, one more circle.
Even Shlomo, who had been hired to bring a bus load of guests for the day, ended up joining in the activities. Admitting that he had never met anyone who had directly been affected by terrorism, here he encountered hundreds. He found himself hugging and embracing just about everyone he met. Perhaps this is another circle?
It was during Mincha (afternoon prayers), when hundreds rose in unison to say Kaddish, that Bobby realized the enormity of the day. Religious and irreligious -- fathers, brothers, sons and husbands. "It was an emotional roller-coaster for us. I had never witnessed, felt or seen anything like that in my life."
For Jared Rechnitz, whose Los Angeles friends will most probably entertain a different kind of Bar Mitzvah celebration, he could only say, "This is the most beautiful party I've ever seen in my life." So, Jared can begin his own circle of giving.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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