Monday's visit was just one of many that the Israel Center's Meir Schwartz launched after the first week of war. 
Schwartz now commands a legion of 400 volunteers who are divided into 150 teams. Each team visits two or three bomb shelters per day, bringing smiles, singing, support, entertainment kits, and Judaism to the residents of the north who have been holed up in the cement underground rooms for weeks.
The volunteers leave behind an entertainment kit in each shelter which includes children's games, a fan, an electric kettle, Hebrew books introducing non-observant Jews to Torah, as well as similar Torah lectures on CD. They are also distributing thousands of copies of Psalms.
"We have buses leaving from all parts of Israel to bring people to the north," says Schwartz, adding, "It's not enough. We need more volunteers to formulate teams, as well as drivers with cars to move them around." To volunteer for two or three days, contact Yehuda Amar: 052-607-1753.
Schwartz notes that people can drop off crates of toys, closed dry foods, diapers (no clothes), infant feed formula, new books in Hebrew (not used) at the Jerusalem Israel Center at Keren Hayesod 22. If a synagogue or group organizes 15 or more crates, Schwartz will arrange to pick up the packages.
"Rabbis, psychologists, and social workers are also invited to join us to speak to the residents. Many of them are really broken and in bad shape," says the project Chairman Shwartz. In addition, musicians, puppet show performers, and other entertainers are invited to contact Meir Schwartz at 050-794-8613.
Starting Sunday, August 6th, a Judaism hotline for northern Israel residents will be opened by Schwartz. Anyone who has any Jewish-related need or interest, can call and Schwartz's team will respond. The hotline number will be: 1800-300-613.
Musician Aaron Razel accompanied Monday's group, performing in the underground parking garage of one of Haifa's shopping malls, which has been converted into a day-camp for local children. The OU Israel Director Rabbi Avi Berman lead the Monday mission.
“This shelter is used by many in the neighborhood who do not have bomb shelters in or beneath their homes,” explained Aliza Goldstein, of Haifa’s municipality. “It is also available for all of Haifa’s residents as an answer to the very real issue of entertaining children in a stuffy bomb shelter all day while the news is reporting missiles and everyone is very tense.”
Goldstein says that in addition to the volunteers deployed by the OU, the municipality has fielded hundreds of calls from people all over the country volunteering an array of services to the residents of Haifa. “People come here from all over – magicians, clowns and performers, as well as artists who engage the kids in projects.”
Razel, a redemption rocker whose songs yearn for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple and the ultimate rebuilding of Jerusalem, took the “stage” and began singing traditional Israeli songs the kids would recognize. Many of the children were Arabs from Haifa and surrounding villages – but all were captivated.
Even though Jewish Law prohibits musical performances during the first nine days of the Hebrew month of Av in commemoration of the Destruction of the Two Temples, Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan Yaakov Ariel ruled that in the case of the battle-beleaguered civilians of northern Israel it is permissible.
“We came here from Jerusalem to be with the happiest kids in the world,” Razel told the children. He whipped out a candy-bar, saying it was made specially against sadness and depression and offering it to whoever would sing along loudest with a song based on Rabbi Nachman of Breslav’s exhortation that “It is a great mitzvah (Jewish obligation) to always be happy.”
The boy who won was already smiling and cheerful, so he quietly wandered over to a young girl who was looking morose and dropped it in her lap. She smiled and blushed.
Another boy got up and asked if he could sing a song. He proceeded to belt out the words of an anti-Hizbullah song threatening to send Hassan Nasrallah back to Allah. Razel followed it with his hit, “Redemption Time Has Arrived.”
The volunteers then visited another public shelter in one of Haifa’s residential neighborhoods. “Seventy people slept in here last night,” said resident Itzik El-Ezra, who remained in the neighborhood to help out and coordinate the community’s needs even after his wife and children took refuge in Tel Aviv.
In addition to coordinating the delivery of food, El-Ezra leads several patrols each night ensuring that residents’ homes are safe. He says he caught a thief the other night and turned him over to the police. “The hardest thing is to keep everyone’s morale up,” he said. “A fourteen-year-old girl who was here had to be brought to the hospital when she went into deep shock after a missile fell nearby last week."
The shelter is clean and made to feel as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Rows of mattresses lie alongside a comfortable couch. Everything faces a television in the center of each of the two rooms. On the side of one room is a small kitchen area, where a pile of tins of food, which arrive each morning, await consumption by the inhabitants.
The shelter is home to a wide array of Haifa natives. “Arabs, Russians, Israelis – we all eat from the same plate and sleep on the same mattress,” El-Ezra said. “Some are relatives from neighborhoods like Yad L’Banim, where they don’t have shelters.
Monday, some residents, after hearing of a 48-hour one-sided cease-fire, went back to work for the first time. “I don’t buy it,” said El-Ezra, “but to each his own.”
In Nahariya, the streets were also not as empty as they had been, and City Hall was bustling with volunteers and municipal aid workers. “In the past 20 days, 384 Katyusha rockets and missiles fell in Nahariya, hitting 64 homes and killing two,” Mayor Jackie Sabag told the volunteers. “We are suffering, but we hope the government won’t rush to reach a cease-fire before it has obtained the goals that it set for itself. Our residents will be extremely disappointed.”
Nahariya’s municipality has become a headquarters of volunteer activity in the region. Elya Tzur runs an organization called Lev Echad (One Heart), which aided those expelled from Gaza. It operated up until the Chanukah holiday, and was revived with the start of the war. Now, Tzur organizes groups of volunteers to help out in northern towns.
“We have a group of 50 young people from Gush Katif who have been working non-stop in Tzfat,” Tzur says. “They are really giving people here the sense that they are loved and are making the shelters a fun place to be.”
The group has sent 140 volunteers to Tzfat and another 80 to Kiryat Shmona. “Anyone can call us up and we will deploy them to a specific place that needs them and take care of all the details,” Tzur added. The number to call is: 052 347 8789
(Photos: Josh Shamsi, Arutz-7 Photojournalist)
Meir Schwartz, Director of OU's Kehillot Yisrael Outreach Program
The volunteers leave behind an entertainment kit in each shelter which includes children's games, a fan, an electric kettle, Hebrew books introducing non-observant Jews to Torah, as well as similar Torah lectures on CD. They are also distributing thousands of copies of Psalms.
"We have buses leaving from all parts of Israel to bring people to the north," says Schwartz, adding, "It's not enough. We need more volunteers to formulate teams, as well as drivers with cars to move them around." To volunteer for two or three days, contact Yehuda Amar: 052-607-1753.
Schwartz notes that people can drop off crates of toys, closed dry foods, diapers (no clothes), infant feed formula, new books in Hebrew (not used) at the Jerusalem Israel Center at Keren Hayesod 22. If a synagogue or group organizes 15 or more crates, Schwartz will arrange to pick up the packages.
"Rabbis, psychologists, and social workers are also invited to join us to speak to the residents. Many of them are really broken and in bad shape," says the project Chairman Shwartz. In addition, musicians, puppet show performers, and other entertainers are invited to contact Meir Schwartz at 050-794-8613.
Starting Sunday, August 6th, a Judaism hotline for northern Israel residents will be opened by Schwartz. Anyone who has any Jewish-related need or interest, can call and Schwartz's team will respond. The hotline number will be: 1800-300-613.
Musician Aaron Razel accompanied Monday's group, performing in the underground parking garage of one of Haifa's shopping malls, which has been converted into a day-camp for local children. The OU Israel Director Rabbi Avi Berman lead the Monday mission.
The Israel Center's Rabbi Avi Berman and Nachi Peretz speaking with Itzik El-Ezra outside his bomb shelter.
“This shelter is used by many in the neighborhood who do not have bomb shelters in or beneath their homes,” explained Aliza Goldstein, of Haifa’s municipality. “It is also available for all of Haifa’s residents as an answer to the very real issue of entertaining children in a stuffy bomb shelter all day while the news is reporting missiles and everyone is very tense.”
Aliza Goldstein, who is coordinating the Haifa municipality's efforts to care for the city's children in the shelters.
Many of the stores in the mall above the shelter opened Monday, for the first time in weeks, though customers were nowhere to be found.
A pick-up soccer game on the other end of the parking garage.
Goldstein says that in addition to the volunteers deployed by the OU, the municipality has fielded hundreds of calls from people all over the country volunteering an array of services to the residents of Haifa. “People come here from all over – magicians, clowns and performers, as well as artists who engage the kids in projects.”
Razel, a redemption rocker whose songs yearn for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple and the ultimate rebuilding of Jerusalem, took the “stage” and began singing traditional Israeli songs the kids would recognize. Many of the children were Arabs from Haifa and surrounding villages – but all were captivated.
Even though Jewish Law prohibits musical performances during the first nine days of the Hebrew month of Av in commemoration of the Destruction of the Two Temples, Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan Yaakov Ariel ruled that in the case of the battle-beleaguered civilians of northern Israel it is permissible.
“We came here from Jerusalem to be with the happiest kids in the world,” Razel told the children. He whipped out a candy-bar, saying it was made specially against sadness and depression and offering it to whoever would sing along loudest with a song based on Rabbi Nachman of Breslav’s exhortation that “It is a great mitzvah (Jewish obligation) to always be happy.”
The boy who won was already smiling and cheerful, so he quietly wandered over to a young girl who was looking morose and dropped it in her lap. She smiled and blushed.
The girl in pink received the anti-sadness candy-bar from the winner.
Another boy got up and asked if he could sing a song. He proceeded to belt out the words of an anti-Hizbullah song threatening to send Hassan Nasrallah back to Allah. Razel followed it with his hit, “Redemption Time Has Arrived.”
"Yalla Ya Nasrallah, Nidfok Otkha Inshallah.."
Dancing breaks out as Razel sings Israeli folk tune Kan Noladeti (I was born here).
The volunteers then visited another public shelter in one of Haifa’s residential neighborhoods. “Seventy people slept in here last night,” said resident Itzik El-Ezra, who remained in the neighborhood to help out and coordinate the community’s needs even after his wife and children took refuge in Tel Aviv.
In addition to coordinating the delivery of food, El-Ezra leads several patrols each night ensuring that residents’ homes are safe. He says he caught a thief the other night and turned him over to the police. “The hardest thing is to keep everyone’s morale up,” he said. “A fourteen-year-old girl who was here had to be brought to the hospital when she went into deep shock after a missile fell nearby last week."
The shelter is clean and made to feel as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Rows of mattresses lie alongside a comfortable couch. Everything faces a television in the center of each of the two rooms. On the side of one room is a small kitchen area, where a pile of tins of food, which arrive each morning, await consumption by the inhabitants.
The shelter is home to a wide array of Haifa natives. “Arabs, Russians, Israelis – we all eat from the same plate and sleep on the same mattress,” El-Ezra said. “Some are relatives from neighborhoods like Yad L’Banim, where they don’t have shelters.
Monday, some residents, after hearing of a 48-hour one-sided cease-fire, went back to work for the first time. “I don’t buy it,” said El-Ezra, “but to each his own.”
In Nahariya, the streets were also not as empty as they had been, and City Hall was bustling with volunteers and municipal aid workers. “In the past 20 days, 384 Katyusha rockets and missiles fell in Nahariya, hitting 64 homes and killing two,” Mayor Jackie Sabag told the volunteers. “We are suffering, but we hope the government won’t rush to reach a cease-fire before it has obtained the goals that it set for itself. Our residents will be extremely disappointed.”
Nahariya Mayor Jackie Sabag meets with the OU Israel Center's volunteer organizers.
Nahariya’s municipality has become a headquarters of volunteer activity in the region. Elya Tzur runs an organization called Lev Echad (One Heart), which aided those expelled from Gaza. It operated up until the Chanukah holiday, and was revived with the start of the war. Now, Tzur organizes groups of volunteers to help out in northern towns.
Sign-up charts in Nahariya's City Hall offer residents free trips around the country and list families from central and southern Israel who have offered to host northern residents.
“We have a group of 50 young people from Gush Katif who have been working non-stop in Tzfat,” Tzur says. “They are really giving people here the sense that they are loved and are making the shelters a fun place to be.”
The group has sent 140 volunteers to Tzfat and another 80 to Kiryat Shmona. “Anyone can call us up and we will deploy them to a specific place that needs them and take care of all the details,” Tzur added. The number to call is: 052 347 8789
(Photos: Josh Shamsi, Arutz-7 Photojournalist)