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Sima is known in her office in Jerusalem as the life of the party. She always has a smile on her face, and is the first to greet a newcomer warmly. Some would even say her cheeriness is infectious. That makes it all the more remarkable that no one had any idea how hard she had fought to keep that smile.

Sima’s parents died when she was little and she was sent from foster family to foster family throughout her life. Tragically, her foster parents were exploiting the system for support, and she never had a loving family.

And so now she makes it by working at the local print shop, sharing a room in a small apartment with other young girls on their own. Recently she came home ecstatic to tell her roommates the news: She’s engaged! They danced and sang and though she had no family to call to discuss the engagement, her friends were enough.

As she lay in bed that night however she began to cry, realizing that she had no idea how to pay for a simple wedding, sheva brachos, or an apartment to live in with her husband-to-be. Whatever they could rent would be without even a chair to furnish it. And so she did what anyone who’s been on her own her whole life does: She decided to make it work.

Sima started working the graveyard shift cleaning in the local yeshiva. With all of her strength she mopped the floors, and at one point staff were so alarmed by the sight of a young woman on the security cameras at night they thought they had an intruder. Each time she met with her chassan she looked tired, weak.

That’s when she came home to find a piece of paper on the table with the note. The paper was an application for Vaad HaRabbanim’s monthly orphan wedding campaign. By filling out her details, she and her chassan could qualify to get money to help them get started. The note on top of the application said, “All your life you’ve worked so hard. Please. Let someone else help you. Your roommates”

There is a large group of orphaned grooms and brides like Simah getting married this month who are relying on the success of the Vaad’s Tammuz wedding campaign to get the help they need to get started in life. The campaign’s page has a letter & blessing from Rav Boruch Mordechai Ezrachi, Rav Mordechai Gross, Rav Avraham Elimech Biderman, and Rav Binyamin Finkel shlita. (CLICK HERE READ FULL BLESSING & LETTER TO THE PUBLIC HERE).

The rabbanim stress the urgency of the situation and bless all donors that they should merit, midah k’neged midah, to marry off their own children in health & prosperity.