SPECIAL ISSUE:

• AN APPEAL FOR SUPPORT OF THE ISRAEL MOVEMENT’S EMERGENCY EFFORTS

AN APPEAL FOR SUPPORT OF THE ISRAEL MOVEMENT’S EMERGENCY EFFORTS

Dear Friends:

Following is an update from Iri Kassel, executive director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, describing the immediate response of our congregations and institutions in Israel to the emergency needs resulting from the crisis in Israel.

Even as we pray and hope for peace, we must also realize the urgent need for immediate support to ease the horrific emotional pain and cash drain inflicted on the people in the northern region of Israel and the areas in proximity to Gaza. This is the time to show our solidarity with our brothers and sisters with financial assistance to see them through this perilous time.

Some of our constituents have already organized support for these efforts. Now, we are calling on all our members around the world to respond to this call for additional emergency assistance. This is the time to demonstrate our arvut hadadit (mutual responsibility)

Steven M. Bauman                 Rabbi Uri Regev

Chair                                      President

Here’s how:

Online, from around the world:

Go to www.wupj.org, click on “How You Can Help,” then click the “Make a Donation” button. On the donation form, fill in “Israel Emergency Fund” and provide the requested credit card information.

By check:

Note “Israel Emergency Fund” in the memo portion, and mail as follows:

In the U.S.:

World Union for Progressive Judaism

Israel Emergency Fund

633 Third Avenue

New York, NY 10017-6778

USA

You may also donate through the Union for Reform Judaism’s special Israel Emergency Fund at www.urj.org/give

In Canada:

Canadian Friends of the WUPJ

3845 Bathurst Street, Suite 301

Toronto, ON M3H 3N2

Canada

In the U.K.:

WUPJ/ European Region
80 East End Road
London N3 2SY
United Kingdom

In the rest of Europe:

Contact your national World Union affilated office, or contact Linda Kann, Project Development Manager at lindakann@europeanregion.org or Tel:  020 8349 5651.

In Latin America, Australia, Asia, South Africa, FSU:

Contact your national World Union affilated office.

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During this difficult time, as Israel is at war with Hezbollah, the country’s Reform movement has mobilized quickly and efficiently to assist families from northern Israel, both Jewish and Arab, who have been devastated by the trauma and destruction wreaked on their towns. It is no less a part of our mission to serve Klal Yisrael (all Jews) and fulfill the Biblical injunction to protect all the residents of our land (Leviticus 25:35).

We receive calls for assistance daily. Therefore, the bodies of the Israeli Reform movement – the IMPJ’s congregational division, the Israel Religious Action Center, “Kehilat Tzedek” (a joint social action program of Reform and Conservative movements in Israel), and “B’kavod” (the social justice fund of the Israeli Reform movement) –  have come together in a collective effort. Activities include transportation to the center of the country, assistance in finding temporary residences and psychological and spiritual support.

Members of the professional staff at IMPJ and IRAC are working throughout the day, every day, to find host families for refugees from the north – a large number of whom are not affiliated with the Reform movement, but nevertheless need to be brought to safety in the center of the country. Many of these refugees are referred to us by the Israeli government’s welfare services and in some areas we have become the main address to which local welfare departments turn for assistance in placing those in need.

In addition, we have been especially recruited to assist in about 60 special needs situations, such as a handicapped child in a wheelchair and a 90-year-old woman, a new immigrant from the FSU who doesn’t speak Hebrew. We have witnessed the impressive commitment of our members, who have opened their homes to strangers and are caring for them.

We are providing humanitarian aid to residents of the north, including parcels delivered to bomb shelters. These packages contain baby food, dried and fresh food, hygienic products for the elderly and handicapped as well as toys and games. We have also delivered packages of snacks for soldiers serving on the border. 

Our rabbis in the north are staying with their congregations, conducting Shabbat services and providing spiritual guidance. Congregation Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv broadcast Shabbat services by phone for those who could not venture outside to attend communal prayer. Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion has organized a “traveling Beit Midrash” through which rabbinical students and professors from HUC-JIR are leading study groups in bomb shelters.

Last week we provided refuge for some 100 people from the north at Kfar Silver which, until then, had served as the Israeli Reform movement’s summer camp. There was a family from Nahariya that had spent 12 days in a bomb shelter without seeing the light of day. The father has a heart condition and now his 16-year-old son has also developed one. Three-year-old Avraham has suffered such a shock that he has been unable to speak.  

A young Druse woman, from a family that holds Israeli citizenship because it volunteered to help Israel fight Hezbollah in the 1990s, gave birth in Nahariya just days  after the rockets began to fall. Their home had been destroyed by a katyusha rocket so she, her child and her family went straight from the hospital to the bomb shelter. At Kfar Silver, they were given supplies to care for their newborn and their two other children.

Joining the staff at Kfar Silver were Rabbi Adi Cohen and his wife Gila, a rabbinical student and social worker, who together are providing spiritual support to the refugees, as well as conducting services and activities on Shabbat.

A telephone hotline was created by a joint staff of rabbis and social workers (together with Israel’s Masorti (Conservative) movement) when the conflict began. The hotline provides rabbinic, communal and social support to people in spiritual distress on the front lines. Many of those calling the hotline are new immigrants from the former Soviet Union or South America. They are not only experiencing the difficulties of wartime reality, but are doing so in what is still for them a new and foreign environment. The hotline provides support in four languages: Hebrew, English, Russian, and Spanish.

All these activities require funding. Providing shelter and activities at Kfar Silver, for example, cost about $5,000 per day. As of July 31, however, Kfar Silver is not longer available to house to refugees, and we are transporting them to a hostel further south at Mitzpe Ramon. The daily costs remains the same, but there are now additional expenses to transport and provide for these families.

With no clear end to the conflict in sight, we anticipate that these needs will grow. In order to continue providing services to our brothers and sisters who need our help, we require the financial support of our friends abroad.

You can help!

For additional ways to help, or for more information, please contact us at impj@impj.org.il.

Sincerely,

Iri Kassel

Executive Director

Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism

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