Giving back to Israel

Rabbinical couple chooses volunteerism over tourism

DR. R. ZEV WELLINS

Rabbi R. Zev Wellins, right, visits with a resident of the Tzahalon Geriatric Center, where he volunteered as part of the Sherut LeYisrael, "Service to Israel" program last summer. Photo courtesy of Sun Lakes Jewish Congregation

The rabbi and rebbetzin spent two weeks this summer in Israel. It was not for the purpose of relaxation and recreation, but rather for "reaching out" and "reconnecting." My wife Judy and I went to Tel Aviv and Jaffa in order to participate in the Jewish Agency for Israel's program of Sherut LeYisrael, "Service to Israel."

An appeal had gone out to Jews all over the world for volunteers to assist the Jewish State at a time of great need. We were among the very few who heard the call. We were assigned to the Tzahalon Geriatric Center in downtown Jaffa.

Israel has been suffering greatly from the downturn in tourism since the beginning of the current Arab intifada. More than one third of its economy is based on revenue from foreign tourism, and as a result of the outbreak of violent conflict, visitors to Israel from the United States and other nations have been reduced by 93 percent.

Add to this the need to spend millions of shekels on military deployment, along with calling up Israeli citizens from reserve to active military duty, and you can understand that Israel is suffering financially.

The means to replenish the equivalent of millions of dollars in financial and social capital remains unclear. The "Service to Israel" program provides part of the solution. The goal is for these volunteers to fill the void left by civilian community service and medical workers who had become soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces, called into duty in response to the Palestinian insurgency.

In the United States, the plea to spend two weeks or more in Israel as an unpaid helper went, for the most part, unanswered.

But Judy and I were determined to make this commitment, even as many advised us that, "this is really not a good time to go, what with everything going on over there," and despite their warnings that, "you're putting your lives in jeopardy ... you might get blown up."

It seems that some of our fellow Americans had missed the point of our going in the summer of 2002. It is all too easy to make commitments and stand up for what you believe when everything is going fine; but as President Richard M. Nixon used to say, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Should we turn away, pretending not to hear the cry? Should we distance ourselves, making up and rehearsing all of the practical reasons and comfortable excuses to avoid personal involvement?

We decided instead to take a different path. We issued a challenge, which was published in the Tucson community's Jewish newspapers and Web sites, to our rabbinical colleagues, the lay leadership, and the Tucson Jewish community to join us in volunteering.

In addition, many Israeli leaders had appealed for those Jewish organizations who canceled summer programs in Israel this year to reconsider their decision.

Medical base experience exceeds expectations

My thinking on this subject is that people's fears about going to Israel demonstrated three points: that they had little faith in the protection of the Almighty; that by stating it was for the safety of their children they had passed on their own fear to these very same children; and that they had handed the terrorists a great victory by choosing not to go.

During our travels in Israel this summer, we met many Israelis who asked curiously what we were doing there. When we told them that we had come to volunteer at the Tzahalon Geri-atric Center in Jaffa, they all generously gave us a similar response: Kol hakavod lachem, "well done."

We had reconnected ourselves to our Israeli brothers and sisters. Even though it was only the two of us, we had made a difference by breaking in some measure the "disconnect" between our two different brands of Jewish culture.

At the Geriatric Center, we were assigned to the fourth floor, where a group of approximately 40 residents were cared for by a staff of nurses, aides, social workers and other helpers. We were welcomed with enthusiasm to serve as a combination of aide, social worker and helper.

Our charges were men and women at least 70 years old who were confined to wheelchairs. Their levels of consciousness spanned from those who were conscious most of the time to those who spent their waking hours in a dimension of sight, sound and mind that was entirely their own.

Their mother tongue language also varied and included Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, French, Romanian and Yiddish.

Immediately immersed into their daily routine, Judy and I soon became part of the fourth-floor family. We fed breakfast and lunch to those who could not feed themselves and helped to clean up after meals and snacks. We took them downstairs for excursions in their wheelchairs in the gardens and pathways of the walled center, which once had been the British Military Headquarters in pre-state Palestine. We talked with them, took part in social and religious activities with them, laughed with them, and sometimes cried with them.

In an extremely short period of time we were able to reach out to these lonely souls, who under other circumstances could have been our parents and grandparents.

We were thanked again and again for being there, even if it was for such a short time. To them, time is irrelevant, but happy memories endure.

The daily ritual of reaching out to our new friends at the Geriatric Center took on a religious quality. In many ways it was like spending six hours a day in prayer and study.

This was indeed for us a spiritual experience of reaching out from person to person, from generation to generation, and from soul to soul. They felt good and we felt better; we knew that we had made the right decision in coming to Israel.

To learn more about volunteer programs in Israel, visit the Web pages for the Jewish Agency for Israel (www.jafi.org.il), Volunteers for Israel (www.vfi-usa.org) or Sar-El Volunteers for Israel (www.sar-el.org).