Israel Active

The mathematics faculty at Israel’s Technion is helping Israel’s war effort. Many are in the IDF reserves and on the home front. Others are harvesting vegetables, preparing shelters, delivering food & clothing to the IDF, and assisting evacuees from border towns.

Many foreign farm workers left Israel at the start of the war. Charities Hashomer HaHadash, Achim Lemeshek, and Zav 8 have been recruiting Israeli volunteers to replace them.  30 volunteers are currently working at the Ben Saadon farm and packing plant in Be’er Ganim, near Ashkelon.

Nearly 4,000 of the 5,700 young Jewish adults (aged 18-30) from abroad on the Masa Israel Journey program ended up staying in Israel during the war and many who left are returning. This article features one participant who came to teach English and is now a volunteer chef for the IDF.

Western Galilee Now’s Support Package initiative enables people to send gift boxes to evacuees, soldiers or any loved one in Israel. The boxes are filled with premium products sold by small Galilee and Negev-based businesses who are suffering loss of income due to the war. Backed by JNF-USA.

US-based Varonis converted its Herzliya office’s open space into a huge camp for 250 evacuees from the southern cities of Netivot, Ofakim, and Ashkelon and the northern city Kiryat Shmona. After one week, it moved them to a hotel that its employees paid for by redeeming their vacation days.

The Israel R&D Center of AT&T has a 6-point plan for looking after its staff during the war. 1. Staying in contact; 2. Discreet mental support; 3. Employee relief fund and charity donation facility; 4. Kids programs; 5. Support for employees in IDF; 6. Volunteering initiatives.

Israeli Yoni Kahana, an ex-member of Chabad, is now owner of the Secret Forest retreat center in Paphos, Cyprus. He has assembled a team of trauma experts to provide free 5-day therapeutic retreats for groups of Supernova music party survivors. He is crowdfunding for more groups.

Some 80 children who have been evacuated from their homes near the Gaza border are keeping up with their studies. They follow the Sprint EdTech platform from Israel’s MindCET innovation center at its Yeruham HQ in south-east Israel (see previously).

So many couples continue to hold marriage ceremonies despite the war.  In many cases, the chupah takes place on army bases with the groom and many wedding guests in combat uniform. Sometimes (TY Leonie) both the bride and groom are wed in IDF uniform .

For the first time in decades, Israeli soldiers prayed at a 6th Century CE synagogue in the Rimal suburb of Gaza City.  Amazingly the building, built in 508 CE, is still standing. A mosaic of King David with a lyre and his name in Hebrew was moved to Jerusalem’s Israel Museum in 1967. Plus, Hatikvah on Gaza beach.