Dear Friends,
26 of your Ansche Chesed friends began our Israel trip Sunday night and Monday, with a full day of challenging programming.
Some people arrived before Shabbat, but most of us flew overnight on Saturday and arrived Sunday afternoon. We began Sunday night with a kick-off dinner at the excellent Montefiore restaurant in Yemin Moshe, speaking with Aryeh Meyers, a staffer at Magen David Adom – Israel’s “Red Star of David.” His presentation included numerous eye-opening details, including the MDA’s stock of “bullet-proof ambulances” – not a concept anyone wants to think of. He explained why Magen David Adom was so successful at being the first responders at so many of the stricken sites in the “Azza Envelope” on October 7: Because the number of MDA volunteers is so high, trained people were already on the ground in their own home communities in the South. Before the Army reached victims of the Hamas assault, their neighbors were already there. He described the outpouring of blood donations after the attack: Israelis donated dozens of times more blood than usual, so much so that the MDA turned away prospective donors, rather than accept blood that would only expire before it could be used. This is the living example of Moses’ leadership [Exodus 36] during the building of the tabernacle, when he stopped the people from offering more than was necessary.
I write to you at the end of a long and wrenching Monday, in which we visited one of the hardest hit kibbutzim on October 7, Kfar Azza, Re’im, the site of the Nova music festival and Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, where we did bikkur holim for wounded soldiers.
At Kfar Azza, we went into homes destroyed by Hamas hand grenades, learned about the lives of the murdered and their devastated families. More than 60 kibbutz members were murdered that day, and the community is still scattered. Only one Kfar Azza couple has returned, and they spend their days cooking for soldiers now stationed on the kibbutz. In a particularly poignant detail, there is still a sukkah standing on the kibbutz; its owners have been unable to return to dismantle it since the war began. We learned about the four-day battle between the IDF and the invaders, who came in on gliders and knew exactly where the kibbutz armory was, enabling them to wreak havoc from the early morning of October 7. The Hamas invaders dug in, even after the residents were rescued, before the IDF subdued them. Our hope is that Ansche Chesed and Kfar Azza will develop an ongoing relationship, as the old residents decide how (perhaps whether) to return. But that return is unlikely to happen for at least 2 more years.
Most of us have heard about – or even seen the footage – of the Nova festival, but visiting the site is altogether different. Led by a professional tour guide who was also a survivor of the massacre and is struggling to cope with the murders of his closest friends, we could see how the invaders trapped the partiers, ultimately mowing down 364 people and kidnapping dozens more. The site is now covered in eucalyptus trees, one for each victim, as well as flags and memorials for each victim. Imagine: 364 murdered (and that’s not even accounting for some Nova hostages, who may never come home). Put that into perspective in the litany of Jewish suffering: the infamous Kishinev pogrom of 1903 killed 49 Jews. The 2014 Israeli pop hit by Omer Adam Mahapekha shel Simcha [“Joy Revolution”] contains a once totally fun and funny lyric, but now barely hearable: “Oh God, please just protect the dancers.”
Finally, today we visited wounded soldiers in Beersheva’s Soroka hospital. There was “good news and bad news” we heard upon arrival. The macro good news was that the population in their rehab center had fallen to the lowest levels in months. So the “bad news” was that we had fewer young men to visit. But it turns out to have been a perfect circumstance, because our group was able to spend more quality time with each person, hear some of their stories, and give them small gifts. The patients we saw were not the most grievously wounded, but no battlefield injuries are pretty. From burns to shootings, we saw young people suffering, who will work hard to heal. The Sages say that each visit to a sick person takes away 1/60th of their pain. I hope we did.
In Jerusalem tonight there were large protests at the Knesset and in the streets against the Netanyahu government. Some of our members chose to attend, as did I. But I will save that report for another day. In the meantime,
Wishes for besorot tovot, good tidings, from Jerusalem,
Jeremy
