by Pamela Deutsch

“I have decided to change my personal narrative.  Most Ethiopians including myself usually start by saying…I was born in a small village, I trekked to Sudan, spent a year in Sudan…what I believe Israelis hear that the Ethiopian community is a deprived community.”

Michal is 38 years old, married and mother of two children ages 6 and 3.  She has a master’s degree in educational counseling from the Univeristy of Haifa, was born in Ethiopia,  and made aliyah at the age of 9.

Michal’s family lives in Kfar Saba and Michal attended Ulpanat Tsfira. As a national service volunteer, she worked in the caravan settlement for Ethiopians at Hatzrat Yasaf, where she led parent groups and worked with young children.  Her motivation for doing so, was that she might be able to prevent these parents and children from making the same mistakes she and her family made during the absorption process.

After completing national service, Michal attended the University of Haifa where she studied education.

During her master’s degree, Michal continued working with children and youth, but also held another er position simultaneously;  through the Israel Institute for Democracy, she worked as a research assistant for the Knesset immigrant and absorption committee under the direction of MK Naomi Blumenthal.  After completing her master’s degree, Michal was chosen by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the staff of the Disney Corporation to work in the Israeli Pavilion at Disney World Orlando for a year.  “ I really enjoyed the experience and was very proud to represent Israel, as a black Jewish Israel woman.”

Upon returning to Israel, Michal was looking for an opportunity to work with the Ethiopian community and at the same time to lead change.  She talked with all kinds of Ethiopian organizations.  At Fidel she was challenged to present her ideas and explain how she would implement them. Michal understood that Fidel was an organization that empowered people to grow.

Fidel has two goals to train Ethiopians to be mediators and to empower them so that they will be able to provide good and professional services to the Ethiopian community.  But, more than that, the training provides the employees with skills and opportunities for life.  And this is what turned Michal on!

Michal began working at Fidel in 2000 as the Professional Training Director and over the years her job description expanded.  From 2006 to 2011 she served as deputy CEO of Fidel before assuming the position of CEO in 2011.

Since Michal began working at Fidel, the Ethiopian community has changed – particularly in terms of leadership.  Today, the young people, particularly those in there early thirties, who completed the majority of their education in Israel, and who have made Israeli culture their own, are now the leaders, and they are well able to express themselves on topics such as absorption, education, where resources are needed and where they should be going.  And they are not afraid to ask hard questions. There is no question that the new leadership at times challenges those who became for them.

Just as Michal has changed her personal narrative, she believes that it is time for the organizations working with Ethiopians to change their narrative as well.  Michal has already begun to take a good hard look with her staff and board, at Fidel’s strategy, whether their programs continue to be effective, whether their resources being used in the most effective manner, and how can they as an organization improve and learn in order to achieve the goals they feel are important for the Ethiopian community.

“Fidel since its establishment, has created very strong infrastructures in the communities where it works; our next step is to figure out how to mobilize the children and youth of these communities to become leaders within their own localities.”

Voice of the Child is the only organization in Israel that specializes in the development and implementation of programs preventing sexual harassment amongst children.

I asked Ayelet, how she became involved with this issue?

“While studying for my Master’s Degree in Educational Sociology, I took a seminar on gender and sexuality, and for my seminar paper I wrote about sexual harassment between hotel guests and employees.  During my research I discovered that there was lots of reading material about sexual harassment of adults, but there was a significant gap in information about sexual harassment among young children from a sociological point of view.”

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Ayelet is an 18^th generation Jerusalemite on her mother’s side and her father was from Afghanistan.  She attended the Rene Cassin High School in Jerusalem and served as a teacher-soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.  Ayelet obtained a  BA in Education from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Masters in Educational Sociology from the same institution.

“At that point I decided to drop everything else I was doing, I had been working in at the Hebrew University Research Institute for Innovation in Education, and pursue a doctorate on the this topic.  My next discovery was that there were no sociologists in Israel who specialized in sexual harassment among young children.”  Hebrew University made a few suggestions about institutions where she might pursue a doctorate, but in the end, with three young children in home, she chose the closest option.  In 2004, after 4 years of research and writing, Ayelet received her PhD in Educational Sociology, from Anglia Polytechnic University (APU), England.

After finishing her doctorate, Ayelet did not want her work just to be theoretical but to have practical application, so she approached the Ministry of Education.  In parallel, she formed a nonprofit organization , Kol Hayeled, and developed two educational programs for children from ages 5-8 and 10 -12, that focused on identifying, preventing and coping with bullying and sexual harassment between children and learning to behave with mutual respect towards one another.

The Ministry sent Ayelet to the Department for Gender Equality, where she applied for and won a tender to provide educational programs in secular elementary schools.  This was a four-year contract, and Voice of the Child recently won a second tender for the provision of similar services.

In the meanwhile Kol Hayeled has gone on to develop new programs for children and youth from ages 5-17, which alongside classroom programs that address issues such as safe behavior over the internet, include a play for teenagers that addresses sexual harassment, and which was presented in the Supreme Court last week.

Evaluation of Voice of the Child programs has shown that they reduce the level of violence in the classroom, and raise gender awareness.

I asked Ayelet, what comes next?

“Our next move will include the adaptation of our programs and materials for Arabic speakers and possibly religious populations, and to steadily increase awareness to these issues amongst educators and parents.”

Ayelet is married with 3 children and lives in Mevasseret Zion.

“Serious Jewish education should demand doing and learning, that changing lives is much more difficult than writing a lecture.”

Levi grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in a very committed Jewish home; committed to Israel, and committed to Jewish tradition. He attended public schools, and simultaneously a rigorous daily Jewish/Hebrew education program, which met 10 hours a week. Levi’s parents in his own words were “profoundly Jewishly undereducated”.  However, their commitment to Jewish education was unshakeable and they overcompensated in how they educated their child.  Attendance at his Jewish education program was not up for discussion and as far as his parents were concerned being Jewish was the most important part of his identity and it was important that he know all about it. According to Levi, Cleveland’s eastern suburbs were a good place to grow up Jewish, because there is little else to do.  The Jewish community is very organized and they put the wealth to good use.

Levi’s parents were leftist in their politics and humanistic in their understanding of the world.  His mother taught for many years in a school where almost everyone was African-American, and Levi grew up understanding that while life is be lived, paying attention to those who are disadvantaged is just as important. His household was one that took civil rights very seriously, but being a Jew was the most important part of your identity.

“I always knew I wanted to be a Rabbi,” says Levi, as modeled by the rabbi in his synagogue, someone who was powerful and influential, who stood on the pulpit and gave sermons, but was not necessarily very learned.  Levi attended the University of Cincinnati, studying political science and simultaneously studied for a rabbinical degree at Hebrew Union College.  Spending his junior year at Hebrew University in Jerusalem was the most decisive year of his life for several reasons.  Being out of reach of his very protective parents taught him he could make it on his own.  Falling in love with Chaya, his wife of 44 years, made living in Israel crucial, as she was already committed to making aliyah.

Levi went back to the US, completed his degrees, and worked for 4 years as Hillel Director at the University of Missouri.  The post included teaching at the University and serving as the rabbi of the synagogue in Columbia, Missouri.

In 1976, the Lauer family made aliyah.   Chaya found work nearly immediately as a social worker at Hadassah Hospital.  Levi struggled to find work until after applying to be a student at Pardes, he was offered the job of director..

Levi served as Director of Pardes for 17 years, taking an organization with 20 students and an overdrawn bank account to an organization with 85 students and money in the bank.  At the time, Pardes was the only co-ed, post-university, halachic institution of learning.  It was a place for seriously searching adult Jews who wanted an environment committed to halacha, but without insistence on any particular standard of halachic commitment and practice.  The young people who attended were among the best and the brightest; people who wanted to synthesize humanism and devotion, lishma – for its own sake, not for professional training.

During these years, Levi describes two formative experiences.  One was serving in the Israel Defense Forces in a combat artillery unit.  His service taught him a lot about the implications of power, and what it is like to agree to a democratically made decision that you disagree with in political principle.  He also learned about his own capacities and tolerance that he never knew he had and also came into contact with all kinds of people to whom he would never had a chance to be exposed.

The second was working for 6 summers at the Brandeis-Bardin Camp Institute in Simi Valley, California.  At the Institute, Levi had the opportunity to work with Alvin Mars and Danny Gordis, who helped him far better understand what good teaching was and his own capacities as teacher.

After leaving Pardes, Levi spent time working at both Melitz and the Shalom Hartman Institute.  However, at a certain point he realized that doing is more important than learning for the sake of learning.  Serious Jewish education should demand doing and learning, that changing lives is much more difficult than writing a lecture. “It would be good if I were to be able to make a little difference dealing with urgent needs in Israel; affect younger people by giving them work and make it possible for them to be infected with an appetite for social activism.  Demand creates a kind of adrenalin – they will be so addicted to making a change in people’s lives that they will be addicted to it forever,” says Levi.

ATZUM was established in 2002 with one of its goals exploring moving the beit midrash to the street.   It is an organization that addresses the needs of people too little attended or ignored and avoids duplicating the efforts of other organizations. Levi was inspired by Paul Farmer who believes that among the essential ingredients to being a serious agent of social change are the courage to fail (humility) and believing that you do not have the right to be tired.  This was particularly good for Levi as he has endless energy.  With the help of a devoted staff, ATZUM has grown from an organization that worked with 18 terror victims and their families to working with more than 450 families.  Its other projects include, working with Righteous Among the Nations, a task force against human trafficking, and an oral history project for Ethiopian teens and Ethiopian Prisoners of Zion.

As I talked to Levi, I understood that ATZUM works because Levi juggles.  He is constantly on the phone, excels at putting people together,  and making 1+1 equal 3.

Levy and Chaya live in Jerusalem.  They have 2 daughters and 2  grandchildren.

by Pamela Deutsch

Eli Bareket was born inTel Aviv-Jaffa and raised in Bat Yam.  He attended elementary school in Bat Yam, and then continued his education at Boyer in Jerusalem as a boarding student.  He served in the IDF in the Golani Brigade later becoming an officer.

After his military service Eli worked, and eventually began studying Islam and Near Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University.  As a student, he was active in a number of social justice frameworks.  As a member of Students for Social Justice, Eli was involved in efforts to raise awareness develop consciousness to social justice issues.  As a member of the International (Sephardic) Educational Front, he was involved in the creation of a national program called Bridge to College, which worked to assist students not enrolled in academic tracks to improve their matriculation scores and increase their awareness to higher education and the opportunities it could give them. Bridge to College also tried to assist the students in understanding why they were not in academic tracks; exploring issues such as the students’ expectations of themselves and the expectations of those surrounding them. One of the issues that arose from their work is that children are unaware that they are not in academic tracks; they are part of a big push to take and pass matriculation exams but the exams they are taking are not necessarily at the levels that will later allow them to attend university.

Having attained his BA, Eli then continued studying for a Masters, in an individually designed program on Muslim minorities – e.g. Muslims in the Philippine sand Ethiopia.  In parallel, he worked at Beit Hillel at theHebrewUniversity.  During his ten-year tenure at Beit Hillel, he was involved in the evolvement of the organization from an organization that worked almost exclusively with foreign students, to one whose main goal and strategies was to work with mainly Israeli students.  Eli created a working model and was promoted to program director.  Today, Hillel has expanded to 10 campuses in Israel.

At the same time,  Eli was active in Mayan Hachinuch Hademocrati.  This organization, founded in response to the Shas initiative to bring religious education to Jerusalem’s weaker neighborhoods, provided informal education and tutoring in weak neighborhoods in Jerusalemfor both Arab and Jewish populations.  In addition, Mayan Hachinuch Hademocrati, worked to empower children, youth, and their parents.

In 2005 Eli became the director of Memizrach Shemesh.  Founded in 2000, by the Avi Chai Foundation andAlliance“Kol Yisrael Chaverim,  Memizrach Shemesh, is a Beit Midrash (House of Study) and a Center for Jewish Social Activism and Leadership inIsrael. Dedicated to the values of communal responsibility and social action rooted in all Jewish traditions including those of the Sephardi and Mizrachi heritage, the organization cultivates and trains leadership in Israel’s geographic and social periphery, with hundreds of participants every year working towards improvement and change in their communities. Before directing the organization, Eli was part of a group that met to discuss what the Sephardic tradition has to give to Israeli society and its issues and was in that sense one of the founders of the organization.  He participated in one of the first learning groups run by the newly founded organization.

During his tenure, Memizrach Shemesh has grown from working annually with 170 participants to more than600 ayear.  The organization runs programs from Kiryat Shmona toArad, for different age groups from post high school students to parents.  In addition, Memizrach Shemesh works with the Border Patrol.  In this program, officers participate regularly in a Beit Midrash.  Their participation assists the officers in being able to see themselves as educators, aids their ability to deal with issues such as social responsibility within their units, and helps them understand that as officers they can empower their soldiers to dream of greater things when they finish their service such as an academic education.

In addition, Memizrach Shemesh is working with Keren Rashi to open Darka, a new network of junior high and high schools in the periphery, designed to educate for excellence – both academic and social, as currently there is no network whose goal is academic achievement. Finally, the organization has expanded its international reach working with communities in bothNew York City and Budapest.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Eli, continues to be active beyond his role as CEO.  He served, as a member of the Kedma committee for the “poel tedek behinuch” (an education prize), is a member of the international council of the New Israel Fund, and served for two years as the chair of the Association for Batei Midrash inIsrael.   Today, Eli chairs the board of Panim, which is now a federated organization, with each member organization having a vote on the board.

In his spare time, Eli has begun to write poetry.  He recently wrote a poem for his son to help him understand when you were a kipa and when you do not; something which is clear for someone who is either religious or not, but less clear when you are traditional.

Eli is divorced and the father of 3 children and lives in Jerusalem.

by Pamela Deutsch

Ido was born in 1968 inTel-Aviv-Jaffa and grew up in Bat Yam.  It was only at the age of two and a half, that it was discovered that he was hard of hearing.  As he was a premature baby, the doctors and nurses kept telling his parents, who already had twin girls, that he wasn’t talking because his development was delayed.   Ido was close to three when he received his first hearing aids.  He was sent to a nursery program run by Micha where the first goal was to teach him how to read.  By the age of three and a half he was reading fluently and soon after learned to speak.  Ido was mainstreamed into theBat Yam school system from the beginning.  However, hearing aids then were not what they are today.  The hearing aids themselves, which were large and drew attention were connected to a box that rested on his chest in a special undershirt.  He was the only hard of hearing child in his elementary and high school and he was not acquainted with others who were hard of hearing.

As a teenager, Shema invited him to activities, however most of the kids were deaf and spoke sign language which Ido did not.  His high school years were particularly isolating, as he was not one of the hearing and not one of the deaf.  Having attained a full matriculation certificate, Ido volunteered for the army, because as someone with a disability he was not drafted, and served in the intelligence corp.  The army opened up new worlds for Ido and was a wonderful place to meet new people.  Having grown up in a very homogenous atmosphere, this was Ido’s first opportunity to meet a greater variety of people; people from different places, backgrounds, levels of religious observance, etc.

After he finished his service, Ido began to explore what to study.  Ido’s father, after having met Prof Jerry Reichstein, who was then the head of the program for special education for hearing impaired children at TelAvivUniversity, suggested that Ido meet with him.  It was Prof. Reichstein who sent Ido to talk with an organization called Keshev, an Israeli organization for the hard of hearing which existed for 10 years between 1982 and 1992. It was at Keshev, where Ido met for the first time, other people who were like him.  But not right away of course.  Ido, having remembered what it was like to go to Shema activities was reluctant to attend social activities at Keshev.   However, one day he received an invitation for folk dancing which was something he really liked and for the first time he met people like himself… people who are hard of hearing, who use hearing aids, and speak orally.  Ido was sure he was going to meet and marry someone who was hard of hearing.

At Keshev, Ido learned that he was eligible for all kinds of services from the National Insurance Institute.  The NII’s first suggestion was that he undergo vocational testing. The testing agency made two suggestions, accounting or warehouse logistics, both of which require very little interpersonal communication.  Ido’s stab at learning bookkeeping lasted for all of three months and his study of architecture, met a similar fate.  However, private career counseling was more successful and through that process he decided to study cinema and television atTelHaiCollege.  It was at Tel Hai when Ido asked the head of the department about whether as someone who was hard of hearing he could study cinema – he was told that this was not the air force and his medical condition was not a basis for acceptance or rejection.  In fact, the head of the department used to send students to Ido saying that he could be there sound man – he did not relate to Ido as being disabled at all.

Ido completed his degree program and began working for the Israel Association of Community Centers as a coordinator for community television in Kohav Yair and Ramat Eliyahu. It was during this period that the Beit Berl College opened a Bachelors in Education program in Informal Education particularly for community center workers.  Ido attended the program and attained his BEd.

During this time Ido was busy not only with work and school.  When he returned from Tel Hai, Keshev had folded and Ido decided there was a need to provide information for the hard of hearing.  Ido began producing a newspaper the “Faxiton” which was distributed by a number of organizations for the deaf and hard of hearing.  This was in the years before the internet became popular and the paper was often passed from hand to hand.  Ido would receive feedback and responses to the articles from all over the country.

In 1997, Ido joined Prof. Reichstein, Avi Blau, Dr. Becky Shocken and Ahiya Kamara in the founding of Bekol – a membership organization for the hard of hearing.  Ido was active as a volunteer in promoting accessibility, and in 2002 began to work for the organization. Three years ago he became the CEO.  Being CEO has been a learning experience and Ido is always learning how to better fulfill this role.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ido is married to a women who is fully hearing whom he met through a mutual friend.  Today they live in Tel Aviv with their daughter and son.

by Pamela Deutsch

Talia was born in Switzerland and made aliyah with her family at the age of five.  At the age of seven, the family moved to Nigeria, where her father worked for the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva.  At the time, there were quite a few Israeli families living in the area, and there was even an Israeli school with two grades per class.  Later Talia attended a boarding school in Nigeria; however when the Nigera-Biafra war broke out, in 1967, Talia and her family realized that she would not be able to go back to school in Nigeria and so she attended the Kfar Yarok boarding school in Israel.  When her parents moved back to Israel, Talia still had two more years of school and she then finished her high school education in Ramat Gan, graduating from Ohel Shem.

As an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, Talia served in the Intelligence Corp, and during the 1973 war as a casualty officer in her unit.  Upon finishing her service, she began to study English and French at Hebrew University, but her studies were interrupted by the needs of her growing family.

While raising her family, Talia held a wide variety of positions including serving as an officer in the Israeli Police Force, a teacher for natural childbirth and breast feeding counselor, directing the track for front desk personnel at a hotel school, and working as a tour guide at Hadassah Hospital.   When Talia was pregnant with her third child, she began studying social work at Hebrew University.

Having completed her BSW Talia began working at the National Insurance Institute with widows, widowers and terror victims. Over the next few years, Talia attained a MSW from Bar Ilan University in clinical social work, studied psychotherapy and bibliotherapy, and attained the credentials necessary to become a qualified social work supervisor.

In 1994, she left NII and opened her own private practice specializing in bereavement and family counseling.  During those years, she volunteered as an ambulance driver. In 2001 in response to the Versaille disaster, when an events hall collapsed during a wedding, Talia voluntarily created a support group for the bereaved families under the umbrella of the Jerusalem municipality.  Other professionals in the field recognized the work Talia did, and she was invited to join a new initiative – the Israel Trauma Coalition.

Initiated at the height of the second  intifada, the Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC), started with the support and through the auspices of the UJA Federation of New York, in partnership Dr, Danny Brom from the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psycho Trauma,  had the express goal of bringing together service providers in order to improve services for terror victims.

What began as a small initiative of seven organizations and two projects has turned into a partnership between 40 organizations that together aim to create a continuum of care for victims of trauma and their families.  The Coalition concentrates it efforts in three areas – direct care, team training and support, and emergency preparedness for local councils and teams.

To mention just a few important milestones for the ITC – commitment to those living in the Gaza region including the development and implementation of 5 resilience centers;  involvement before, during, and after the Gush Katif evacuation; creation in the last two years of regional training centers in order to provide more effective training and services to local councils, as well as the establishment of a regional network of care givers.  Overseas, the ITC has been involved in providing solutions, for example, after 9/11 involvement in the bi – national project on early childhood, provision of training for local trainers in Sri Lanka, Beslan and Checnia at the request of UNICEF, post Katrina in Louisiana, and partnering with the JDC in Haiti, Mumbai and Japan.

Talia was invited to the UN to participate in a small group of professionals who are experts in treating victims of terror.   The professionals focused on the need to acknowledge the experience of those exposed and the need for long-term treatment.

Today the ITC works with 12 government ministries in Israel and the Home Front Command.

Talia has served as Director of the Israel Trauma Coalition since 2006. “Given the Israeli reality, creating and maintaining such a partnership should not be taken for granted, it is very unique but the results are worth it!” says Talia.

The ITC supports itself through providing services to the government and from donations mainly from federations.

Talia lives with her husband in Jerusalem and is the proud parent of four daughters and the grandparent of two.

“How long are we going to stay?” asked Sari.  “Till we win,” replied her father.

by Pamela Deutsch

Sari was born and raised in Brooklyn, attending an all girls yeshiva through 8^th grade, followed by attending the first Solomon Schecter High School ever established.  Her father was a lithograph operator, who was very active in the union and her mother taught in NYC public schools.  Sari’s father was an activist; active in the protest movement and in the civil rights movement.  Once of Sari’s earliest memories is attending regular Friday protests at a local ballpark where they would not allow Afro- American ball players to participate in the game.  Sari would always ask, “How long are we going to stay?”  To which her father would reply, “Till we win.”

It is this kind of devotion to a cause that has driven Sari for the rest of her life.  After 10^th grade, Sari attended camp Ramah in the Berkshires and while there volunteered at a hospital for the mentally ill – it was after that experience she decided to study social work.   The elementary school Sari had attended was very Zionist; it felt that it was the role of the school to instill the Zionist dream in each of its students. As a young child, Sari often dreamed that there was bridge leading right from Brooklyn to Jerusalem.  As a graduation present from 8^th grade in 1968, her parents’ gift was a trip to Israel. This was a very big deal for her family and Sari and her parents (her two older brothers did not accompany them) saw Israel in its most glorified moments. All Sari wanted to do was comeback to Israel.  After 11^th grade, she spent summer on kibbutz and did not want to come home.  Her parents promised her that if she came home and finished high school, they would send her back to Israel for college.  However, Sari’s college experience in Israel did not turn out as expected.  At the time, there was a rule that you had to be 22 in order to study social work, so after a year studying English, Sari returned to the states.  In 1976, she came back to volunteer on a kibbutz , and ended up  practicing her novice skills in psychology  with a kibbutz member suffering  from PTS from the Yom Kippur war.  The intensity of that visit made her believe she had had enough of Israel.

Sari chose to study social work and psychology at UMBC Baltimore County.  Her field placement was in a community mental health clinic in south Baltimore where she worked as a clinical social worker, providing psychotherapy for anxiety and depression.  Through her work, it became clear to her that underlying these conditions was the urban removal/renewal that was going on in south Baltimore in order to build the new Orioles stadium.  These were not personal issues, but rather community issues, and their impact had Sari turning her career towards community organizing and attaining a masters from the University of Maryland at Baltimore.  This time her field placement was at the Baltimore Welfare Rights Organization, where she was mentored by Bob Cheeks, a seasoned civil rights leader in the Baltimore/DC area, and whose picture Sari still has on her office wall.  Sari continued to work at this organization for a number of years after graduation, organizing the first rent strike in public housing and training welfare mothers to represent themselves in appeals  processes

It was during graduate school that Sari met her ex-husband, who, from the beginning was very clear that after graduate school he really wanted to move to Israel.   When they decided to marry, they made a deal; they would spend – 2-5 years in the US, followed by 2-5 years in Israel, and then would decide where to live.

They moved to Israel in 1983; first to kibbutz, and a year later to Jerusalem.  At that point, having only been in the country for a year, but with tremendous experience in grass roots organization, Sari was hired by the New Israel Fund to begin Shatil – Capacity Building for Social Change organizations.  Sari was the CEO of Shatil for fourteen years.  During that time, the organization was able to seed a strong nonprofit sector, ensuring that activists understood that there are professional needs in running nonprofit organizations, and that skills need to be acquired in order to run these organizations. Shatil offered opportunities for those who needed to acquire these skills working both by skill and by sector.

By 1997, Sari was ready to take her experience and skills to a new level.  Most of the Jewish Israeli organizations Shatil was working with were from major cities, and Sari felt that those living in the periphery were lacked the ability to take their life into their own hands.  Yedid was founded in order to empower people living in the periphery and to help low income people understand what is in their  interest and have the ability to apply that interest when they vote or when they put their support  by behind a particular group or particular people – to get people civically involved.

Today, fourteen year later, Yedid’s mandate is threefold:

One, to this day people do not understand how to access their rights vis a vis, the government, municipality and as consumers.   Often, people give up because of the difficulties in pursuing their rights and this is where Yedid is there to assist them.  Two, there is a growing phenomena of increasing individual /family debt in Israel; debt that begins at a young age.  Cell phone bills that run up while young people serve in the army, easy access to lines of credit through credit cards , increasing number of young people taking upon themselves their parents debt – co-signing on loans, parents putting liabilities in their children name, etc.  Many of these people lack economic literacy, have few budget management skills, and are either unemployed or underemployed.  Yedid often sees young people who because of economic distress lose their ability and motivation to cope.  Along these same lines are women who drop out of the workforce when they raise children, and then not only have to deal with the loss of income, but find it difficult to re-enter the work force.  For these populations, Yedid provides assistance in terms of both empowerment and skills for re-entering the job force, in budget management and much more.  The third area were Yedid is active is in Housing.  Yedid focuses on  economic empowerment for those in public housing and those who want public housing.  For those who are unable to pay their mortgages due to sickness or other catastrophe, Yedid provides budgeting skills and negotiates with the bank and for those with no other choice, assists them to come to the realization that if they need to sell they should do it rather than let the bank repossess their property.  Furthermore, on a policy level, Yedid addresses the lack of available affordable housing and works towards instituting reforms that address issues such as what the banks and financial institutions can demand from those whose homes they repossess.

Yedid, which began with one branch in Haifa, today has 16 branches spread throughout the country from Safed/Hatzor in the north to Rahat in the south.  Two of these branches are located in Arab communities – Rahat and Nazareth.  Each center is staffed by volunteers and a paid director who supervises and trains the volunteers.  Volunteers are a mix of ex-clients, professionals – lawyers, accountants, hi tech professionals, social workers, social work and law students, and students on scholarship that require community service. The centers work on three levels – individual assistance,   policy change, a unique response to issues raised by the client base, which includes developing legislation, lobbying and empowering activists, and community based projects – economic empowerment, financial literacy for high school students and adults, helping women rejoin the work force and more.

Yedid’s Legal department is directly involved in cases that determine people’s fate.  For example, the employment practices of temporary employment agencies and their  affects on workers’ pension and severance pay, and a class action for home health care workers, mostly women who are afraid to come forth because they fear losing their jobs.  In the latter, Yedid is the plaintiff being represented by a private lawyer against the nonprofits and for profits which employ the health care workers.  These workers are not compensated for their travel time between clients, yet are expected to travel between multiple clients each day.  Ultimately,  Bituach Leumi (the National Insurance Institute) is responsible for this lack of pay.

Needless to say, Sari’s life is kept very busy, supervising the operation of this organization and ensuring continued funding.  Sari lives in Jerusalem and has two sons.  The oldest, 24 is finishing a degree in Business Management, and the younger is in 12^th grade at the Jerusalem Democratic School.

“For me, receiving the 2011 award for Contribution to the Community at the Sderot Conference for Community service was completing the circle.”

By Pamela Deutsch

Born in 1975, Daniel lived in Jerusalem through 8^th grade, and then moved with his family to Shdemot Meholah in the Jordan Valley.  Daniel attended high school at Hispin on the Golan Heights.

Following graduation, Daniel participated in the inaugural class of the Integrated Army Program sponsored by the Kibbutz Hadatai Movement.  Daniel spent 8 months at Yeshivat Ma’ale Hagilboa followed by a year in half  in army intelligence, a second 8 months at the Yeshiva and then served as a tutor at the Or Etzion Military Academy located at Mercaz Shapira for another year and a half.

Having completed his army service, Daniel spent a year traveling in the Far East, Europe, and Egypt.

In 2000, Daniel began studying film at Sapir College in Sderot.  He completed his BA with high grades and even gave the student address at graduation.   During his college years, Daniel won a competition in still photography,  and volunteered for Ma’apach – a Jewish Arab student organization  which works towards reducing the economic, educational and social gaps of underprivileged populations.

Daniel lived in Sderot itself, and made many friends in the community.  During his last year of studies, Daniel began working in the Sderot community computer center, with at risk youth.  The program he developed and initiated built upon skills that the youth already had and involved the youth teaching computers to a range of population groups; children who needed help with their homework, adults who needed to be able to use computers for their work, and even the elderly.  The highlight of this project was that the youth taught computer skills to their teachers, to Alon Schuster who was then head of the Sha’ar Hangeev Regional Council and to the local director of Project Renewal – who quickly realized that the youth were excellent at building him the PowerPoint presentations he needed for his work.

In 2003, Daniel began to study for a Masters Degree in Culture at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and began working as a research assistant for Dan Porat, an education professor, on the topic of creating national memory.  It was during this time that Daniel met Astorre Modena, a Jewish Italian venture capitalist, who lives in Israel.

Astorre was very interested in finding a way to contribute to the community.  Astorre who was living in the Arnona neighborhood, was very well aware that those living across from him in Talpiot, were far less well off.  Upon hearing about the work Daniel had been doing in Sderot, Astorre was immediately enthusiastic about founding a similar program in Jerusalem.

Machsava Tova was founded in 2004 in the Talpiot neighborhood in Jerusalem.  It began as one center, and ran mostly programs for youth at risk.  The demand for activities by children of other ages grew quickly; they were literally banging on the door.  Beginning with small groups of children Machshav Tova  worked to find appropriate content for younger children and the youth who were already involved became tutors for these children.  The demand continued to grow with parents also wanting to learn more about computer use, in order to improve their ability to find work or advance in their current positions.

Today Machshava Tova has five centers in west Jerusalem, three centers in East Jerusalem, one in Lod, and are in the process of developing two new centers one in the north in Afula and one in the south, most likely in Beersheva.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In 2007, Machshava Tova initiated the first MCU – a mobile computer unit, which brings equipment and teachers to kindergartens, community centers, schools and other facilities and provides computer training to populations that would otherwise not have this opportunity.    For example, the three MCUs work in Charedi communities, reach out to the disabled and provide opportunities for job seekers at job fairs to prepare and submit resumes on the spot.

In addition, Machshava Tova runs an exciting recycling project.  Initiated by Daniel and Astorre, the program takes used computers and computing components and recycles them, and then donates them to underprivileged populations; individuals, organizations or students.  All of the work on the computers is performed by youth at risk and IT volunteers, who rebuild the computers and load them with software.  Machshava Tova is the only Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher in the country.

Daniel has grown the organization for one person to 60 and now has both managerial and administrative assistance.  Furthermore, he has put together a range of partners who include municipalities, government agencies, businesses, foundation, private donors and fee for service clients.

Daniel is a permanent member of the Knesset Committee for Science and participated in the Ministry of Finance Committee for Reducing the Digital Divide.

Daniel loves to hike, is still a photographer, and spends much of his free time with his family and in his carpentry workshop.  He built a deck and pergola for his new home, a composter, and is now in the middle of planning bookshelves and media center for his living room.  His newest interest is in being a mentor for new social entrepreneurs; already he has worked on a project for social entrepreneurs at the Ein Gedi Pre-Army Mechina, and participated in ROI.

Machashava Tova was recently awarded the 2011 award for Contribution to the Community at the Sderot Conference for Community Service.  For Daniel, accepting the award in Sderot was the completion of a circle started 9 years ago.

Daniel is married and the father of two children and lives in the Dead Sea area.

“I want to be able to give back to the community the way my parents do.”

Ben is no stranger to starting new ventures.  In fact, if you look at his Linked In profile Ben bills himself as someone who “helps to create new companies, business ventures and transactions that are “win-win” and generate value.”

But I think that what makes Ben even more proud are the projects that he has started that help others, such as Tees at Risk which markets t-shirts featuring innovative and thought-provoking designs by current and former teens at risk and Ten Partners.

Ten Partners is an innovative, community-driven, sustainable non-profit partnership that creates new and unique programs to enrich local Jewish life and community.

A TEN partnership is a local, non-profit venture managed and funded by ten members of a Jewish community who create, run or co-sponsor great programs for their local Jewish community. The goal is to make Jewish community service more grass-roots, “by the people for the people”, collaborative and accessible to a new generation of young lay leaders. TEN partnership’s programs should be financially sustainable by somehow returning their cost to the local TEN partnership, so that the partnership continues to operate and run programs without needing further funding after inception.

Since Ten Partners launched a few weeks ago, partnerships already are forming in six communities.  Ben is now in the process of creating the infrastructure needed to support the initiative, including raising the funds necessary to create the procedures and materials which will guide the partnerships around the world.

Ben was recently named one of the two winners of the 2011 Jewish Futures Competition, sponsored by the Jewish Education Project and JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute.  As part of the competition, his winning video was shown at the Jewish Futures Conference held at the GA in Denver last month and his remarks at the GA were published by eJewish Philanthropy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Ben comes from a family where giving back to the community has always been important.  Both of his parents have been very involved in Jewish education, both locally and nationally.  Ben attended Yeshiva University and Columbia Law School. Upon completion of his law degree, Ben clerked for Justice Yitzchak Zamir on the Israel Supreme Court, but decided he was headed for a business rather that a law career.

After making aliyah in 1998 Ben worked briefly as a corporate lawyer before starting a number of software companies. He was then an executive at IDT Corp., mainly managing international business development and corporate acquisition projects, and then in 2006 formed his own private equity and venture management firm, Portofino Equity Advisors, which he runs today.

Ben and his wife Shafrira live in Jerusalem with their seven children.

photo by: Mona Ostby Beck

Born in Kharkov, Ukraine, Ariel was involved in the Bnei Akiva Youth Movement after the fall of the “Iron Curtain”.  For Ariel, the emissaries who came to the Ukraine from Israel and the US were his earliest role models and a source of inspiration. It was clear to him that he would follow in their footsteps – working in Jewish Zionist education both in Israel and in Diaspora Jewish communities.

Ariel made aliya in 1992 at the age of 16 with his family.  The family first lived in Kfar Adumim and a few years later moved to Jerusalem.  Ariel finished high school in Jerusalem, and then continued his studies in the Hesder program of Birkat Moshe Yeshiva in Ma’ale Adumim, serving in the paratroopers in the IDF in the framework of the program.

From the age of 17, Ariel began serving as an emissary and continued to do so for years to come.  His first trip back to the FSU was to work in a Jewish summer camp.  This was followed by participating in the interview committee for Na’ale for the Israeli Ministry of Education, taking part in Zionist Seminars through the Jewish Agency, working for Bnei Akiva, serving as summer camps coordinator in the Ukraine and finally serving as the central Bnei Akiva “shaliach” in Argentina.

Ariel studied Education and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University and continued to serve as an emissary.  During his studies, he traveled for a variety of Jewish organizations such as the Lauder Foundation, Bnei Akiva and the Jewish Agency to many different communities worldwide – Spain, Germany, Costa Rica, Mexico, etc. in diverse roles and capacities.

In 2002, Ariel met Rachel, a nurse who had made aliyah from the United States in 2000.  They were introduced by a common friend, and already on the very first date, Ariel mentioned to Rachel that as soon as he finished his degree he was planning to take a position as a “long term shaliach”. From 2005, the couple spent 3 years in Uruguay where Ariel was the rabbi of the local Sephardic congregation and the coordinator of Jewish studies in a local Jewish school.

Upon Ariel’s return from Uruguay, he began to work as the CEO of Machanaim, a veteran Russian Jewish Education Network. Machanaim works to promote Russian Jewish education in both Israel and the Diaspora.  Its wide range of programs includes formal and informal education for all ages as well as distributing educational materials, both on and off line.

While serving in Uruguay, as the rabbi of a non-observant community, but one that is deeply connected to its culture and tradition, Ariel realized that the “community” in Uruguay had a lot in common with Russian-speaking Jews in Israel and worldwide. Just as the “community”, in its wide meaning (not only a synagogue), is a framework for maintaining Jewish life for the Jews in the Diaspora, in Israel it can be a supportive framework and a link to the Israeli society, its tradition, culture and actuality.

Due to their historical background, many of Russian-speaking Israelis lack a clear Jewish identity; they have little if any Jewish education and feel little connection to Jewish values and Israel. The result is that many of them have had serious hardships integrating into Israeli society and that they have difficulty identifying themselves as Israelis and even as Jews. Tens of thousands of these immigrants have left Israel – either to the US, Canada or Germany or back to the FSU.  According to research conducted by the Israeli Institute of Democracy in 2009, only 28 percent among FSU immigrants gave a positive answer to the question “Would you want your children and grandchildren to live in Israel?”.

Through the Supportive Communities Project, Machanaim proposes to build on and create new community centers for Russian-speaking Israelis – both new and veteran immigrants and their families. Members will have the opportunity for learning and experiencing Israeli and Jewish values and Israeli culture, which will be the base from which they can grow and develop as full and committed citizens of the State of Israel. The project  supports Russian-speaking Israelis in a manner which helps them to form a strong sense of identity as Jews and Israelis and develop a sense of belonging and shared values.

Activities offered include:

Formal and informal classes on Jewish subjects, Israeli history and current events, as well as in music, theater, cooking, etc.; preparation for Bar-/Bat-Mitzva classes; preparation to wedding for young couples; experiential and learning workshops; preparation to the army service for youth; festival celebrations, including preparatory workshops for every Holiday; Kabbalat Shabbat with families, once a month; educational tours; Shabbat seminars; cultural events (concerts, performances, etc.); and more.

The project was initiated in September 2010 thanks to the generous support of Cyril Stein z”l, whose family and friends are continuing to carry on the project and its vision. Since then, the program has expanded from one community center to four, and now involves thousands of people.  Plans are currently underway to expand to additional communities.  The project has been successful in involving new partners including the Ministry of Absorption, municipalities and local and foreign-based foundations.

Ariel believes that the Community Project can serve as a model for creating a more inclusive Israeli society, not just for Russian speakers, but for people of all backgrounds as well.