Four Jewish San Diegans Reflect on Their Mission to Israel

Editor’s Note: This week, a small group of local community members – including Federation Board members, organizational partners and major donors – are in Israel as part of Jewish Federation of San Diego’s second Solidarity Mission to Israel.  Here are the reflections of Carole Yellen, Zvi Weiss, Rabbi Ron Schulman, and David Bark.

Carole Yellen, Senior Director of the Center for Jewish Care of Jewish Family Service of San Diego:

 

My first trip to Israel was in May 2023 on Jewish Federation of San Diego’s CommUNITY Trip. I had previously declined opportunities to travel to Israel out of fear. My narrow understanding of Israel was based only on news of terrorist attacks and the conflict. When my children were younger, visiting Israel had felt like too big a risk to take. However, the CommUNITY Trip opportunity came at the perfect time as I had just become an empty nester. I was also reassured to be traveling with 220 San Diegans, and especially with Federation’s planning with an eye toward security. I spent months coordinating with 10 of my Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS) colleagues to get ready. I was excited, and yes, still a bit trepidatious.

Within the first days of our arrival, my worst fear came true, as we were faced with the news that rockets were being fired from Gaza. Even as we were instructed on what to do if we heard the sirens, our tour guides and security team continuously adjusted our schedule so that luckily, I never had to seek shelter. And during our trip, I came to see that life in Israel goes on. The streets of Tel Aviv were filled with nightlife just hours after sirens had sounded. Interestingly, I had the tables turned on me when an Israeli server stated she could never live in the U.S because she would be too scared to go to school, the grocery store, movie theaters, or synagogue due to gun violence. As I explained that, yes, gun violence does occur, but that life goes on, I understood how she came to her conclusions based on a headline view of my country.

One of our most memorable days on that CommUNITY trip was the visit to Sha’ar HaNegev, San Diego’s sister city which lies on the Gaza border. We received such a warm welcome as we disembarked the train in Sderot. Their community had been preparing for our visit for years. We toured the kibbutzim, planted trees, opened a new community center, and were even welcomed into their homes for lunch. They described that life was “5% hell and 95% heaven.” Mayor Ofir Libstein shared their plans to build a factory that would employ thousands of Gazans, working side by side with Sha’ar HaNegev kibbutzniks as a path toward peace and prosperity for all.

Those two weeks in Israel were truly the “Trip of a Lifetime.” While I enjoyed visiting all the major tourist attractions (Old City, Kotel, Dead Sea, Masada, Yad Vashem, and more), more importantly, I came to see Israel beyond the headlines, experiencing the beauty of the land and people, its rich history and traditions. I was inspired by visits to organizations that were working on many of the same challenges that we face in America, like ensuring democracy, reducing food insecurity and poverty, and how to welcome refugees with dignity. And we didn’t shy away from hard conversations. At the Shalom Hartman Institute, we engaged in dialogue that considered multiple perspectives, humanized the conflict, and gave me hope for future peace.

On the morning of October 7, I began reading the news from Israel and quickly understood this time was different. They were not merely reports of rockets, but also a coordinated attack, murder and taking of hostages. This time it felt personal as I considered my new friends in Sha’ar HaNegev. Fortunately, the family who had welcomed me into their home for lunch was safe and quickly evacuated, but Ofir Libstein z’l” died defending his community among many others. It was devastating for Sha’ar HaNegev, Israel and the worldwide Jewish community. I recalled the idyllic night we had spent together in May dancing under the stars to celebrate Lag B’Omer, not that different from the community shared at the Nova Festival. In a moment that should have been pure joy, the 5% hell invaded like never before.

So when the opportunity came to return to Israel more than five months after 10/7, I felt compelled to return and show up for our friends in Sha’ar HaNegev. I felt compelled to bear witness as many in the United States and world began denying the atrocities that occurred. I felt compelled to go and learn about how the people of Israel are coping with this trauma and learn how to support. I also knew that learning about their coping and resilience would offer me with professional insight to bring to our work at the Center for Jewish Care at JFS, where we support our Jewish individuals, families, and our community in San Diego during their most difficult times.

On our first full day in Israel, we visited the Hydrotherapy Center in Sha’ar HaNegev, which our local Federation has helped support. The facility had just reopened, and we saw adults and children using the gym and pool. Our guide, Tzachi, mentioned that reopening was not a financial decision but rather a community decision recognizing the need for physical and emotional healing at this time. He shared that one of their biggest struggles in reopening has been a lack of staff as many in the community have not yet returned to the SHN region. But they know they have to move forward. There is not time to wait. As much as physical healing is important, reconnecting with community has proven a powerful salve for emotional healing as well.

While at the Hydrotherapy Center, we also met with Mandy, mother of Emily Tehila Damari who is still being held hostage in Gaza. Mandy and three of her adult children live in Kfar Aza in separate homes. Mandy described Emily, age 27, as charismatic, everyone’s friend, and a lover of soccer and baking. On 10/6 she had been celebrating a neighbor’s birthday and stopped by her mom’s house that night while a little tipsy. On the morning of 10/7, they each awoke to the notifications of rockets and headed to their safe rooms, assuming it would end within minutes as usual. But hundreds of WhatsApp messages came in from family, friends and neighbors, it soon became clear that this time would be different. Over hours, Mandy could hear shooting and people speaking Arabic outside. Terrorists actually shot her door to try to break in, but the bullet jammed the lock instead. The electricity eventually shut off. Mandy messaged Emily to say, “I love you even when you’re drunk.” She never heard back from her daughter, but hoped it was just because Emily’s phone had died as Mandy’s own cell power was diminishing.

When the immediate threat was over, Mandy discovered that Emily was missing. It took days before it could be confirmed that her daughter had been taken hostage into Gaza. Other hostages who have been released reported they saw Emily and how, even in captivity, she was friendly toward the other hostages. Mandy holds these reports as evidence her daughter is still alive. This belief gives her the hope to continue each day. She meets with every and any official or leader in the world who can possibly help her free her daughter. However, she calls most of those meetings “tea and sympathy.” She is frustrated by the lack of progress in negotiations. Mandy admitted it can take time each morning to will herself out of bed, but when she does, every part of her day is looking for a way to keep Emily and the hostages on everyone’s minds. When Mandy feels sad, sick, hungry, or has trouble breathing, her thoughts immediately turn to Emily who she believes may be experiencing the same, if not worse. She has heard the reports of sexual abuse from hostages who have returned. She also knows the longer the war goes on, the worse the conditions for all those in Gaza, including the hostages. She does not have the answer to resolve this conflict, she only wants the hostages released. When our group asked Mandy what we can do to support her and the families of other hostages, she said to pray if you are religious, join rallies to raise awareness, and to keep her daughter’s story alive.

From there, we met with the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council and representatives of the Resilience Center. They reported that 1 out of every 3 community members are experiencing PTSD, leading to a 700% increase in requests for support. Many children are experiencing developmental regression. This crisis has had a multidimensional impact on individuals, families, community, and the region. Since 11 out of the 12 Sha’ar HaNegev communities were evacuated and displaced throughout Israel, Sha’ar HaNegev mental health professionals are often traveling hours to provide service and support. And of course, many of the therapists themselves are struggling with the impact of 10/7. Some have taken a step back while others find purpose in helping during this difficult time. In addition to making sure immediate needs are met, the Resilience Center is also focused on increasing connections across those internally displaced. They know that the two essential ingredients to resilience are hope and community. Five months since the tragic events that took the lives of many Sha’ar HaNegev residents, their hope is evident in the plans they described for the future, including the building of a Resilience Village to centralize all services and provide overnight accommodations for those who need intense therapy.

Next, we headed to Kibbutz Erez on the Northern border with Gaza for a briefing from Bar who is part of their security team. As we overlooked the Gaza border less than a mile away, they talked about the terrorists who attempted to infiltrate the kibbutz through gunfire, grenades, and RPG. After hours of fighting, they mostly warded them off but not without injury and death. When asked if their previous training had prepared them for 10/7, Bar said, “We prepared to fight off a few terrorists for a few minutes until the Army arrived.” They never dreamed of hundreds of terrorists invading at once nor that the Army would not come for hours or even days to aid in the response. We were told our group was visiting when it was relatively quiet, but we heard a couple of loud booms, apparently shelling. When I asked Bar what the noise was, he admittedly hadn’t even heard it as he has grown so accustomed to it.

Our next stop was SouthUp, an incubator in Sha’ar HaNegev that is expanding Israel’s start-up nation footprint in the region. We met with Growee’s founder who shared how powerful it has been to be part of a start-up community to build her business. She talked about the impact of 10/7, but said she is largely still in denial that it happened. None of the SouthUp businesses have been able to return to the space to resume operations. In the days immediately following 10/7, Growee sent a message to all their customers asking for patience in fulfilling orders as a result of the war. Not one customer cancelled their order.

Finally, we closed out our day with a dinner at Kibbutz Bror Hayil at the Barbosa restaurant where we were joined by past San Diego Shinshinim, Sha’ar HaNegev Community Captains, and our Gesher partners. I was fortunate to reconnect with the couple, Amy and Yotan, who hosted me in their home during our May CommUNITY Trip. They returned to their home in Kibbutz Gevim with their 9-year-old twin boys just two weeks ago. As they recounted their journey since 10/7 over dinner, they described their family as doing “fine.” Not great, but fine. Amy shared that the boys were happy to be home, but they also weren’t shying away from hard conversations. As a described peacenik, Amy is still trying to reconcile 10/7 with her commitment to living in the region to build bridges. One of her boys had asked her, “What if the terrorists had come into our home?” Amy struggled with whether to be truthful or to dismiss the concern. Ultimately, she felt honesty is necessary for them all to process. They talked about how the children may have hid in the closet, not just the saferoom in hopes that they wouldn’t be found. She said she may have called an Arabic-speaking friend to dissuade the terrorists from killing or taking them. As our evening program was running a bit late, I could feel worry building as the parents were overdue to pick up their children from the friend’s house where they were staying. When I asked if the children are more fearful, Amy said, “Not really, but I am.”

On our first day in Israel, we bore witness to extraordinary pain and shared tears as the trauma of October 7 has not, and will not, ever totally disappear. And simultaneously, we saw a community starting to make plans for the future. Many helpers have stepped up to inspire hope and strengthen community connections, and yet those helpers are experiencing pain too. They are living with the duality of grief and hope which is not likely to ease until all the hostages are returned and the war in Gaza ends.

As Heidi Gantwerk [The Federation’s President and CEO] quoted from Shalom Hartman at the beginning of our trip: “Sometimes the community holds you and sometimes you hold the community.” In this moment, we are here because we must hold our Sha’ar HaNegev community!
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Zvi Weiss, Head of School, San Diego Jewish Academy:

I just completed my first day of a Jewish Federation-sponsored Solidarity Mission to Israel and I am thoroughly exhausted. My body is telling me to go to sleep, but I know that if I don’t write something tonight I’ll never be able to catch up. Tomorrow’s itinerary and the following days are just as packed. My exhaustion actually began before the formal trip began, after I attended a Saturday night rally in Netanya in support of the release of hostages. The featured speaker at the rally was Hagit Chen, mother of hostage Itay Chen. Hagit had been notified last week that her son was dead. As she clutched her dog, she told us that she had to keep going for the sake of her other sons. When I approached her after the rally, I saw the pain and despair in her eyes as she shared with me that last week she was worried about how her boy would re-enter society after the trauma of captivity, and this week she is worried about finding a burial place for her son now that the cemetery in Netanya is full.

The next day, our program began with a walk to the Kotel from our hotel. My first visit was in 1968, right after the small alley in front of the wall was replaced with the big plaza that we know today. There were huge throngs of people at that time, and at many of my visits over the years. Yesterday was marked by few people, and a new installation at the rear of the plaza listing the names of over two thousand civilians, soldiers and first responders, over an enormous display of yahrtzeit candles. As I approached the wall, looking at the many notes tucked into its crevices, I could feel the power of the prayers of peace that I imagined they contain. At dinner, we sat with reporters from Ma’ariv newspaper and the New York Times. The Ma’ariv reporter shared that while she typically tries to be detached from the stories she reports, in this situation it is impossible to not see yourself as part of the story.

And today began with a drive down to Sha’ar HaNegev where we were greeted at Kibbutz Mefalsim by Alon Shuster, former mayor of the region and current Knesset member. This was the first of two kibbutzim that we visited that were successful in warding off the terrorists on October 7th. From there we continued to the Hydrotherapy Center on Sha’ar HaNegev’s central campus where we were greeted by the center’s director, Tzachi Levy, a resident of Kibbutz Erez, who is one of very few families who have moved back to the Kibbutz. He has visited SDJA many times, including as a chaperone for differently abled athletes at the San Diego LFJCC-hosted Maccabi games.

While at the Center we met with Mandy Damari, whose 27-year-old daughter Emily is being held hostage. She talked about the nightmare of waking up each morning to face another day of her daughter’s captivity, knowing very little about her fate other than a couple of reports from released hostages who encountered her in captivity. Emily is “the life of the party,” with an amazing attitude toward life. Two nights before her capture, she was at a party and got tipsy. Later that evening, visiting her mother she shared that she felt that her mother was upset she was drunk. The morning before her capture, while sharing her fear of the invading terrorists with her brothers, Emily did not want to worry her mother. Mandy, sensing her daughter’s fear, sent her the text “I love you even when you’re drunk”. This was her last communication with Emily. Expressing her frustration over the attempts to advocate for her daughter’s release, she shared that most conversations with politicians were nothing more than “tea and sympathy” sessions. President Biden was one of the few who gave them hope. Feeling like they were getting close to release, the U.S. refusal to veto the last UN vote broke her spirit and delayed the prospect of release even further.

Following lunch we visited the Sha’ar HaNegev regional Council building, where we were greeted by a large poster memorializing Ofir Libstein, my friend and mayor who was murdered in the first hours of the October 7th massacre. They had just finished rebuilding the council building according to Ofir’s dream, making the structure itself a shelter from rocket attacks. At the council building, both the acting mayor, Yossi, and the council’s CEO Lior shared that despite their initial skepticism, the visit by their students to SDJA has been one of the most significant projects since the war, one that has impacted their entire community and one that the students themselves will carry with them for the rest of their lives, sharing their gratitude for our hospitality and support.

Next, we visited Ibim, a community that includes a large absorption Center, which is where San Diego’s partnership with Sha’ar Hanegev began some 25 years ago. There I ran into former SDJA Head Larry Achaetel, who began the original student exchange programs between the two schools some twenty years ago. It’s really Larry’s strong and lasting relationship with a former head of school in Sha’ar HaNegev that built the foundation for our relationship today. While at the Absorption Center we built benches and were helped by eager young Ethiopian immigrant children, happy to have left Ethiopia for Israel, and happy to have survived the attacks of October 7th.

Leaving Ibim, we stopped at Tzachi’s kibbutz, Kibbutz Erez, where we stood on the same outlook that I visited with the late mayor only two years ago. From that point, you could see the crossing into Gaza where Ofir had begun building an industrial park and medical center that would service residents of Gaza, as an attempt to build peace between the regions. Today, with the murder at the hands of the very people that he was planning to help, it is clear that the dream is no longer. Meeting with Bar, the kibbutz’s security head, we heard another story of an incursion avoided. Bar was a true hero. When he heard the terrorists were headed his way he left his 2 daughters, 5 and 8 years old at home alone and recruited about 20 to defend the kibbutz. His words were: “I had no other choice but to go out there and make sure the terrorists wouldn’t enter, to keep my daughters safe.”

Fighting off about 40 terrorists, they lost one of their security details as they protected their gates and fences for five hours straight until the terrorists finally left to try another village.

Next, we visited SouthUp, Sha’ar HaNegev’s Tech incubator, where I met with Keren, whose startup, Growee, allows smartphones to control home-based hydroponic projects. I had met Keren on two previous trips, and it is exciting to see how much the startup has grown. She shared stories of the emotional challenges of reopening post October 7th as she and her employees lost so many friends and loved ones, and the logistical challenges of shipping products, as postal service had been suspended to the region. She shared how the incubator’s other startups really became a supportive family.

Finally, we were joined by many colleagues and friends for dinner. I ate with Michal and Martin, a couple who hosted me at their beautiful home overlooking the Gaza border, on Kibbutz Mefalsim last May. Martin shared that he was overseeing a camping trip for 80 of the kibbutz children at the edge of the kibbutz when the attack began. He had to scramble to get everyone to their homes, being shot at as he drove a vehicle transporting the children, his own son grazed by a bullet. In a previous visit I saw the safe room where they spent the next hours, until eventually they were evacuated to a hotel in Caesaria, where they are living until today. Michal, a busy architect, shared that she is more busy than ever helping families who plan to rebuild their homes. The one challenge that she expects is finding the construction workers to execute the plans, as most of them had come from Gaza.

Yes, the start of this program has been emotionally exhausting, yet I feel that it is necessary, as I represent SDJA to show our family in Sha’ar HaNegev that we are there for them and to bear witness to our community of what our family in Israel is living through. As I write these words, the hour approaches 2AM, I will try to catch a few hours of sleep before embarking on another meaningful day in a few hours.

Am Yisrael Chai!

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Rabbi Ron Shulman, Senior Rabbi, Congregation Beth El

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David Bark, Board Chair, Jewish Federation of San Diego:

Today was another full day of listening and learning, as well as sharing many emotional moments with our Sha’ar HaNegev family.

The more time we spend together, the more we realize how much we have in common and how much we need each other. It is so clear to everyone on this Mission that only by working together do we come out of this darkness in a better, more peaceful place.

Our day started at the Shamir Medical Center where we learned about the incredible work being done in hyperbaric medicine and research. Most of us are familiar with hyperbaric chambers and their use in the diving world. Here at Shamir, they have taken this technology to the next level: treating a variety of biological and brain injuries. We saw a severely wounded soldier who would otherwise have died if not for these revolutionary treatments. Also, Shamir’s research and treatment around PTSD is world renowned! Shamir is leading the way in helping patients with a variety of brain injuries that have previously been ignored and left untreated, leading to lifelong difficulties for many people.

Our next stop was Schneider Medical Center. This is the facility where the hostages were brought immediately after their release from Gaza. They were treated (and many continue to receive treatment) for both their physical and emotional wounds. We saw photos and videos of many happy reunions of the hostages with their families, which brought tears of joy to us all. At the very same moment, we have tears of sadness looking at the reminders of the many more hostages that are still in Gaza and MUST come home! With these tears of joy and sadness flowing together, we made our way to deliver presents and smiles to some of the young patients in the hospital. This is what Israel looks like today.

That afternoon we walked around hostage square in Tel Aviv. Everywhere you look there are various forms of art, paintings, drawings, empty chairs and photos (of hostages), with the same theme: Bring them home now! It’s so difficult to describe the feeling because of the many emotions surfacing all at the same time. Sadness, loneliness, helplessness, anger… and then we take all those feelings on the bus and head to visit Shfayim, the venue where the residents of Kfar Aza are staying “temporarily.”

We met with Vered Libstein (whose husband Ofir was murdered on October 7) and listened to her story, some of us for the first time. Regardless, we need to hear Vered’s story many more times and tell her story even more. The world must never forget, and it is our responsibility to ensure that happens. It is one of many reasons we are here. We will return to our home in San Diego with dozens of stories that need to be told.

The day ended with a long moment of joy and hope for the future. There is a bar/pub at Shfayim that was remodeled to look like one that is in Kfar Aza. After dinner, the bar was opened for our group and quite a few Kfar Aza residents, including Vered. We spent the next hour joking, smiling, laughing and telling stories of how good life can be and what we see for the future. Not only am I optimistic and hopeful for the future for our San Diego and Sha’ar HaNegev family, I am certain we will come out of this darkness, brighter and with an even greater zest for life. It will not happen soon, nor will it be easy. But it will happen because we will make it happen.

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Preceding provided by the Jewish Federation of San Diego