  |
 |
|
 |
 |
|||
| OHR Online | |||
 |
|||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
| OHR Online | |||
|
|
|||
|
|||
    
|
|
|
|
OTS Newsletter - Spring 2008OTS Students and Staff Rally in Aid of Sderot As deadly rocket attacks relentlessly pierce the southern city of Sderot, students and staff of Ohr Torah Stone institutions are dedicating their time and energies to helping the city’s citizens under fire.
In early March, as Sderot endured some of the worst rocket attacks in seven years, 35 women from Midreshet Lindenbaum spent a week living, volunteering, and learning in the city. Led by Rabbi Ohad Tehar-Lev, director of the college’s Israeli programs, the young women provided essential help to those in greatest need. “Several worked in kindergartens, lending a hand in rushing the children to shelters every time the ‘Red Alert’ was sounded,” Tehar-Lev reports. “Others rolled up their sleeves in a home for the elderly, serving meals, talking to the traumatized men and women, and, of course, ushering them into safe areas when the rockets fell. A third group of Lindenbaum students volunteered at a municipal soup kitchen to pack meals-on-wheels for those unable – or too fearful – to leave their homes. And every afternoon, we continued our intensive Torah study program.
“This was not our first trip to Sderot,” Rabbi Tehar-Lev stresses. “We volunteer there every year. Yet, this particular time, with such highly escalated attacks on Sderot and the south, was an extremely critical moment to be there. We came primarily to help in any way needed – how could we be idle when our Jewish brethren were in danger? Second, our very presence was an act of solidarity with the population of Sderot, a demonstration of our identification and staunch support. Finally, I cannot think of a more profound place to learn Torah. No matter how intensely we study in our beit midrash, the essence of learning Torah in embattled Sderot is a true educational statement that will remain in our students’ minds and hearts for years to come.” Tehar-Lev noted that the women’s rabbis and teachers from Midreshet Lindenbaum’s Hadas Hesder Program, Tamar National Service Program, and Shachar Beit Midrash Program also traveled to Sderot to accompany and teach their students.
Living Up to Their Convictions
Preceding the Midreshet Lindenbaum delegation, a group of high school students from OTS’ Neveh Shmuel Yeshiva High School for Boys made their way to Sderot to celebrate the Tu B’Shvat holiday with students and adults from the town. “Last year, we sent entire grades of students to Sderot to volunteer with local youth and to help paint and refurbish public areas. We had planned to send as many students as possible this year to continue the work,” explains principal Chezi Zeharia. “But the Kassam rocket attacks increased to the point where we were forced to cancel the project due to security considerations. Our students were very disappointed and insisted that we nonetheless take some sort of action, even on a reduced scale.” As a result, a small but determined group of 12 students from tenth through twelfth grades set out for Sderot, accompanied by their teachers. The Neveh Shmuel students presented a festive Tu B’Shvat program for local schoolchildren and assembled parcels in a Sderot food bank. Later they visited the town’s center to hang morale-boosting banners and distribute homemade cakes.
“Frustrated by the daunting security issues that prevented our sending large groups of students, we kept searching for ways the school could do more,” Zecharia continues. “So we decided to organize a trip to Sderot for our staff members, to enable them to see the situation first-hand and later impart the experience to their students.” The teachers met with fellow educators and various residents who shared their alarming personal accounts of life under fire. “It was a very emotional encounter that none of us will ever forget,” says school administrator Chava Warshavsky. “There’s so little we can actually do, but demonstrating solidarity is crucial. We can’t change the crisis there, nor can the citizens of Sderot. Yet we can show them that they’re not alone.”
A Day of Respite for Children from Sderot
In light of the increasing difficulty of sending students to Sderot, the student body of the Neveh Channah High School for Girls took a different approach to easing the constant fear and tension of children in the beleaguered Negev city. On Rosh Hodesh Adar Alef, the school hosted 100 first through sixth graders from a Sderot elementary school for a day of fun and relaxation on the Neveh Channah campus. The event was entirely conceived, planned, and carried out by the high school students, under the auspices of the Susan Resnick School of Social Work.
Each Neveh Channah grade was responsible for a different activity: ninth graders worked with their young guests on arts and crafts projects, tenth graders organized a quiz game, eleventh graders supervised outdoor sports games and play on inflatable equipment, and twelfth graders served refreshments, helped the children bake their own pita bread and presented a short play about the history of Gush Etzion. “These kids are living under incredible stress,” explains Yardena Nechama, who coordinates the school’s social activities. “Our students were determined to offer them a breather from the ongoing tension in their lives, and show the children of Sderot that they care.”
After a day of hosting the children and listening to their heartbreaking stories, the plight of Sderot has remained high in the consciousness of the Neveh Channah students. Every time there is a ’Red Alert’ in Sderot, OTS students stop whatever they’re doing and recite Tehillim. “Now that we’ve spent time with these kids, every Red Alert has become a knife in my heart,” says Rachel, a tenth-grader. “There is a personal dimension – I picture their faces and I think of their fear and helplessness. Since our experience with the children from Sderot, they’ve become part of our hearts and souls.”
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
