Over the past years, haredi volunteers have begun joining Israel's National Civil Service in a number of career paths that offer industry experience along with meaningful service to the community. The Civil Service has developed the Ma’alot program to absorb and train new volunteers, which has met with sufficient success to justify opening new service paths.
Among these paths has been the fire protection department, now in its fourth course of recruits and in significant demand in the private sector. After training, the recruits enter service with the Northern District’s firefighting service in the roles for which they had been trained.
Yeshiva students’ familiarity with the security and rescue services creates connections and ideas for donations and added value for the community, sometimes to the benefit of the volunteers themselves.
Among these ideas has been having a firetruck visit a volunteer’s community and speak with children about fire safety. The idea was connected with learning the Hebrew letters in the local school, such that when the children reached the letter 'feh', which makes the F sound, the children were surprised with the arrival of the firetruck and an exhibition of its equipment, in an educational event lasting more than an hour.
Reuven Pinkasi, the director of the Civil Service network, welcomed the idea as original and of significant importance to the networks intent to connect volunteers to their communities through their positions in security services: “Combining a professional position and meaningful service contributes to wonderful connections and ideas for those in service and the community. We are responsible for preventing damage from fires, and I am happy to see members of the Civil Service taking action to save lives daily and taking the significant responsibility to continue their work in their community.”