Left to right: Dena Laufer, Bess Hoffman, Yotam Polizer, Sally Oren, Sandra and Marcel Grossman

In April, in the beautiful home of Sandra and Marcel Grossman, Sally Oren and Yotam Politzer shared with us the wonderful work that IsraAid does.  The members of IsraAid go out to distressed areas all over the world, helping people.  On their T-shirts is printed a picture of an Israeli flag and the word IsraAid – showing where they have come from to dispense their helping hands. 

The teams are made up of doctors and nurses whose expertise is treating trauma patients, as well as experts who search for survivors under earthquake rubble. They occasionally have the joy of finding someone alive after a week. They also meet refugee rubber boats filled to overflowing with exhausted men, women and children of all ages suffering from exposure and hyperthermia and they wrap them in aluminum sheets and care for them. 

They have many heartwarming stories, such as a report of a Syrian man landing on a Greek Island, seeing these Israelis and getting a fright for fear that he’d landed on Israeli shores.  When he realized they had come to help, he said something like “My enemy has come to save me and my country deserts me”.  This man is now living in Texas on high ground and when the floods hit Texas, he contacted IsraAid and said he was ready to join them to help.  Donning an IsraAid T-shirt, he went to work.  

They even sent a team of therapists to Northern Iraq to train local NGOs who help Yazidi women, who are victims of brutal sexual violence. Some of the countries IsraAid sent teams to included Mexico, Nepal, the Philippines, Guatemala, Italy and numerous countries in Africa. To some of these African countries. they have brought sustainable water solutions to villages.  

IsraAid is an Israeli-based humanitarian aid agency that responds to emergency world crises and helps in moving from destruction to reconstruction. It has engaged in international development around the world for the past 17 years.   Check them on Google.

Cynthia

Jews in Lithuania

In May in Herzliya Cynthia Maresky gave an excellent talk on the history of Jews in Lithuania going back to Babylonian times. She has done tremendous research which she shared with the audience. She also told us of her visits to Vilna, Kovno and shtetls where some of her group had family. The group went on to Poland visiting Warsaw, Auschwitz and Krakow. Cynthia showed us photographs and told us stories of the people they encountered on the trips to Lithuania and to Poland. It was a great presentation.