In honor of the Arutz Sheva and Charidy Week of Solidarity, we spoke with Eliana Mandell Braner of the Koby Mandell Foundation.
“My parents founded the Koby Mandell Foundation in 2002, after my brother Koby Mandell was murdered with his friend Yosef Ishran, when they were just 13," she tells us.
“My parents realized that we really didn’t have anybody to help us … people didn’t understand us, and we didn’t want to be weird – we didn’t want to be treated differently. So my parents decided to start a camp for kids who were bereaved due to terror attacks, so that we would have a place where we felt that everybody was like us. A place where therapy happens all the time, not just in the groups and activities, but also in the regular conversations between the kids."
This essential work - giving kids the sense that they're part of something bigger than themselves - "creating meaning out of suffering," as the Mandell family would say, carries on even today. Especially today, when all the coronavirus regulations are keeping us apart, Camp Koby counselors are doing whatever they can to keep us together, "meeting" with their campers, checking in and making sure that they're doing okay, "keeping them smiling."
“But unfortunately," Braner tells us, "the funds we usually receive for the camp are nonexistent this year. Every single dollar that comes into the fund goes straight into the camp, so please, do whatever you can to help us.”
