Travel Journal - Mission to Israel - June 2024

Another long day filled with lending a helping hand, bearing witness, and giving hugs. The stories of resiliency, and hope continued. This time, in Tel Aviv, where we spent the day. 

After a delicious Israeli breakfast, we had the privilege of starting our day at the rehab ward at the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. It’s an amazing unit that hasn’t merely stepped up to help injured soldiers with their initial rehab but actually helps them, through a holistic and comprehensive approach, well after they have been released from the hospital. We had the privilege to meet two injured Israeli soldiers, Matan (33 years old) and Yonatan (22 years old).  Yonatan was doing his service time as paratrooper, but was injured by shrapnel in his arm, chest, and back while in Gaza.  He was in the rehab center for several months and is now doing outpatient rehab.  Matan, meanwhile, was in the reserves and after October 7 felt like he needed to do something to help.  So he showed up at army base and persisted until they agreed to have him join the unit. While serving in Gaza he broke his leg.  He was in the hospital and rehab for more than five months and since then has been doing outpatient rehab.  As our time with Matan and Yonatan ended, the hugs began, a major theme of our day.

Next, we went to volunteer at Citrus and Salt’s Citizen’s Kitchen.  Citrus and Salt is a business that does Israeli cooking lessons and demonstrations, yet since October 7th they have pivoted and now also prepare delicious meals for soldiers a few days per week (they told us that they have made about 65,000 meals for soldiers since October 8.  As the owner said: “our plan is to keep cooking as long as the soldiers are still fighting.  

We made hundreds of gourmet chicken sandwiches which we were told would be served to an army base full of soldiers later in the same day.

After lunch at Levinsky Market in Tel Aviv - a fun spot to stop and enjoy the delicious Israeli food staples - we went to the location where Kibbutz Re’eim has been relocated since they were evacuated from the south. They now live all together in two large apartment buildings - very different from their beautiful kibbutz in the Gaza envelope.  We heard about Bubu, a longtime kibbutznik, shared his experiences from 10/7. They lost several members of their kibbutz as terrorists invaded their homes and four people were taken hostage, all of whom have since been released. BuBu was incredibly brave as he quickly swung into action to protect his home and his kibbutz family against nearly 70 terrorists who invaded his kibbutz. Over the course for 24 hours, over 14 people were hiding out in his safe house, including some of the Nova attendees who ran away from the site of the massacre. 

After hearing Bubu’s story, we heard from Daniel who created Project 24  in response to the war. This organization supports 24 Kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope and other Israelis who need help as they have been heavily impacted by the events of 10/7.  They have done some remarkable work already to try and bring back some normalcy into people’s lives, but doing so in a way that impacts not only the receiver, but the giver too. You may remember that Daniel and Bubu were at TBS this past March.  I am also excited that as part of a partnership between our Jewish Federation and Project 24, 10 Israeli children, from 8 families will be coming to spend two weeks at the JCC Camps of Medford in July.  We will also welcome the families for Shabbat on Saturday, July 13th. More information to come!  Check out their website for more information and for other ways you can help support this incredibly impactful work!

Next, we went to the Hostage Family Forum and Hostage Square. Hostage Family Forum which serves as the Hostage Headquarters; is a place for families of hostages to congregate together, to do advocacy work, and to create some sense of community together. The space itself is in a large office building which was donated to them for the year by a cybersecurity company. There we met with Dani Miran, the father of Omri Miran. Who has remained a hostage in Gaza for the past 266 days.   Dan welcomed us with open arms, shared Omri and his family’s story with us.  Look up Ormi’s story, and internalize it.  Feel the pain of his father Dani and wife Lishay, the uncertainty and concern of his two young daughters It is a heartbreaking and gut-wrenching story.  Yet, when he saw us crying, he told us not to cry.  Why? Because “we, as Jews, must be proud and strong so that the next generation will keep marching forward and will keep building the land and our people.

Dani also told us about the amazing to hear from him (and others) how much the Hostage Family Forum, is doing. They are getting tremendous donations and doing a myriad of media campaigns. They have a diplomacy team and are working with former ambassadors, so they can use their connections to keep the hostages front of mind. They have gotten volunteer therapists to offer therapy to families of hostages. They have a dining hall where they feed over 300 people every meal. They have about 800-1,000 people working in the building (all volunteers) and many thousands of volunteers all over Israel and the world. Our time at the Forum ended with huge hugs for Dani.

We finished our time in Tel Aviv by visiting Hostage Square where we were met with the large display reminding us that it’s been 265 long and unbearable days since 10/7. There’s now a model tunnel on site to walk through depicting what the underground tunnel system may be like in Gaza - and what it must be like for the hostages to live in this unimaginable situation. The table set for Shabbat has changed since I have been there.  No longer white and pristine, it is now gray, dirtied, and ragged, likely representing the state of the hostages in captivity for so long.  Moreover, certain chairs and place settings have been removed, likely to memorize the hostages that have been murdered in Gaza.

After an intense and heavy afternoon, we ended our day on a high note.  We traveled to an army base known as Atarot, outside of Jerusalem where we joined the soldiers at the base for a BBQ dinner that we sponsored to say thank you.  It was deeply inspiring to hear their stories of courage and dedication to the state of Israel. True heroes through and through.  The time together ended with signing, dancing around the Israeli flag, photos, and of course hugs.

So many hugs today and that is something that I am going to hold onto.  And the hugs are reciprocal. Obviously, they are for our Israeli brothers and sisters, but they are for us as well,.