Together sukkot 2013

SEPTEMBER 2013

Together “I looked at them and so many questions came to my mind: How will they deal with the terrible void? With the fact they are different from other children? With the horrific pain their mothers experience?�

PM Netanyahu reflects on meeting IDF orphans in his Remembrance Day speech

Cover: PM Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu with Aviya Moreno, while meeting IDF orphans prior to the Remembrance Day, 2013

Contents: Together with Nava Shoham Solan | 3 Bibi and the Children | 4 Brothers in Arms | 8 Doing the Right Thing | 12 From Tragedy to Growth | 16 To Laugh and Never Forget | 18 The Power of OTZMA | 20 Losing him, Twice | 24 IDF Widows & Orphans Organization is deeply grateful for your generosity in supporting our vital work, and we look forward to welcoming both new friends and established supporters as partners to our mission.

To Donate: Israel Defense Forces Widows & Orphans Organization 1 Oranim St. Givat Shmuel 54052 Israel Tel: 972-3-6918403 Fax: 972-3-6916483 Email: office@idfwo.org Website: www.idfwo.org Chairwoman: Mrs. Nava Shoham - Solan CEO: Gil Simenhaus, Adv. Editing team: Nava Shoham-Solan, Daniel Tuksar, Gil Tevet Translation: Alisa Shilor Designed by: Ron Jedlin Studio Photography: Koby Koenkas, Richard Nowitz Photography, Noa City Eliyahu, Sherry Steiner, U.S. Army photo by Spc. Klinton Smith

www.idfwo.org +972-3-691-8403, Ext. 6 office@idfwo.org

Wishing you and your loved ones

SHANA TOVA, a new year filled with good health, joy, prosperity and peace!

Dear friends, Forty years have passed since the Yom Kippur War, the most difficult and painful of all the wars we have known in Israel. Of course, the results of every war we have gone through have been difficult, because we have always suffered tragic losses. In that war, the sad news also knocked on the door, leaving more than two thousand six hundred families in mourning and pain. Many of the Yom Kippur War widows have fortunate enough to (re)build their lives. The children who were orphaned have already grown up, and we are glad that they have established homes and families of their own.

Nevertheless, that war was like an earthquake for all of us, primarily due to the element of surprise and to what was afterwards defined as a lack of preparedness. For everyone it was a war for our existence because with it we paid a very heavy price for the euphoria and wonderful feeling of victory that we had adopted six years earlier. Maybe that is the reason we continue today to painfully examine the wounds of a war that might possibly have been avoided, or at least have been entered under more favorable circumstances.

Together with Nava Shoham - Solan Chairwoman, IDFWO

Forty years have gone by, but we still feel the impact of that earthquake. Perhaps we feel it now because we have since learned that we might have been able to avoid the terrible loss. Perhaps we also still feel it because we had hoped so much that our prayers would be answered and the words of our songs would come true. We wanted our children, born during and after that war, not to have to carry weapons any longer in the same war in which their fathers died. We truly wanted that this would be the last war. Although Israel has since entered into peace agreements with two of its neighbors, we have not yet sat in the real warmth of the tent of peace. We wished for so much more. The children born in the winter of 1973 sadly did not hold the dove of peace and an olive branch in their hands. Instead, they continued to carry weapons, as did the children that were born afterwards, because our war for existence continues and did not end in the war of 40 years ago.

We all remember how everyone spoke privately then about the destruction of the Third Temple. Thankfully, that did not happen. We knew within 18 days of bloody fighting how to reverse the situation and end the war with our canons threatening Damascus and our forces 101 kilometers from Cairo. We really succeeded in transforming an extremely painful surprise into a victory, but that victory was a very bitter one. The taste of the salty tears remains with us until this day.

We cannot forget that war, because everyone remembers the echoing sirens in the middle of Yom Kippur, and the quiet that was disrupted when the recruiters came to homes and synagogues to call up the military reservists. It is impossible to forget the fears and the uncertainty about our loved ones from whom we hadn’t heard – until the messenger came, without any good news to tell us. But we also remember the wonderful friendship among the soldiers, a friendship that still connects us with each other today.

With the approaching New Year, a time in which we all pray and wish for a good year for us all, I hope that the buds of peace will open after the renewal of talks with our Palestinian neighbors. I hope so much that our children and grandchildren will grow up in a different reality, where even in the constant shadow of bereavement and pain, we will see the sun shining on a clear morning.

Shana Tova, Nava Shoham-Solan

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Bibi and the Children Gil Tevet

Right before all of Israel stops and remembers its fallen heroes on Remembrance Day, PM Netanyahu found time to meet their children. His office was filled with realities no 12 year old should deal with, and if there is someone who understands the pain - it is Netanyahu, who lost his brother Yonatan in Operation Entebbe .

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S

uch great excitement. For most of the people, just being present in this room on the eve of Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers, 2013, was special in itself – even before the Prime Minister arrived. Young IDF orphans gathered at the Prime Minister’s office in Tel Aviv, in order to meet and talk with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

They sat at the table in silence. In front of each one of them there was a name card with his or her name. Everyone felt the suspense. They didn’t drink or eat anything that the hosts offered them. At the appointed time, the Prime Minister entered the room smiling. Not every day

does he receive so many young people in his office. Also seated at the table were Deputy Minister of Defense, Danny Danon, who is himself an IDF orphan; Military Secretary to the Prime Minister, Brigadier General Eyal Zamir; and Nava Shoham Solan, IDFWO Chairwoman.

The Prime Minister knows many of the children’s stories personally. Among the fathers who lost their lives were senior officers or men who took part in events that sadly we all remember. An interesting discussion developed. The Prime Minister knows bereavement personally. His brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, fell in 1976 when he commanded the rescue operation

at the terminal in Entebbe, Uganda, where kidnapped Israeli passengers were being held. “When I received the notification of Yoni’s death, I thought it was the most difficult moment of my life. Only after I had to tell my parents, did I understand that that was the most difficult moment of my life,” the Prime Minister told the boys and girls who asked questions and spoke about themselves.

“The Prime Minister is emotional,” whispered his staff during the visit. “We’ve never seen him like that,” said one of his assistants. The words of the children were touching. Ishai Weinberg, the son of Colonel Dror Weinberg who was killed

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The Prime Minister knows many of the children’s stories personally. Among the fathers who lost their lives were senior officers or men who took part in events that sadly we all remember

in the battle in Hebron, asked the Prime Minister about personal mourning and public mourning. The Prime Minister spoke about his need to take part in the big national events on Memorial Day and about his need to cope emotionally and visit the grave of his brother, Yonatan, personally – as a private citizen. Ishai Weinberg summarized those thoughts in a way that brought the listeners to tears.

“For us, those who have experienced loss, Memorial Day is for remembering all the fallen heroes – we remember our own fathers all year long.”

The young man, Iddo Ben David, who lost

his father, Daniel, in the Second Lebanon War, said that he understood at the meeting that “everyone in our country has to cope with the bereavement and pain that exists here, whether you are a bar-mitzvah boy or the Prime Minister.”

The Prime Minister told the children, “I am moved to be here with you. We are all one big family. In each of you the pain exists all the time. The pain is different and personal for everyone, but we have something in common, a pain that we share. In this room, where you are sitting, many of the country’s decisions are made.

The decisions that are made protect the

State of Israel. Your fathers are the heroes that took action so that we could live here, and the price is a very difficult one.

We, the bereaved families, understand each other’s pain, even without speaking, but you should know that talking and sharing eases the pain, and I, unfortunately understood that only after many years.”

To the right of the Prime Minister sat Shirah Begin, the daughter of the pilot Yonatan Begin who was killed in an airplane accident, the granddaughter of the former minister, Benny Begin, and the great granddaughter of the late Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. After the meeting, Shirah wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, in which she continued the conversation, “You spoke about subjects

“I thought to myself, they are so young. Before they managed to grow up, they were struck by the terrible sword of bereavement . They weren’t able to experience being with a father and absorbing his personality into their souls. They didn’t have the opportunity to receive his advice and the fatherly warmth that could have helped them in their futures. I looked at them and I was filled with questions: How will they cope with the feeling of terrible loss? With the fact that they are different from other children? With the terrible pain of their mothers? One of the boys asked me, “How do you cope with the loss of your brother?”

I responded honestly, “I don’t know how to advise someone how to cope with loss like this.” “My mother says that we have to keep moving forward,” someone else said. I remembered my mother’s heroism when she lost her first son and I said to him,”Your mother is a heroine.”

(from the Prime Minister’s speech at the Memorial Day Ceremony on Mt. Herzl) 6

that I identified with – coping, the thoughts about your brother, and the strength to continue moving forward and not forget.

It’s a little difficult for me to describe what it is like to grow up without a father. People ask me if I’m sad that I don’t know him, and when I try to answer, I am not able to.

I don’t know if sadness is the right word. Is it possible to be sad because of someone that I don’t know? I don’t know. I can say that I feel incomplete. I don’t know an important part of me, and that feeling is always with me. I have an amazing mother, a grandmother and grandfather, aunts and uncles, and wonderful friends. Everyone is very close to me and always supportive of me. It is touching and at the same time it emphasizes the father that I don’t have.”

An open discussion took place between the Prime Minister and Emily Nesterenko, whose father, Alexander, was killed on the border of the Gaza Strip. On the morning of the meeting, Emily spoke on the radio and said that she wants to invite the Prime Minister to her home. At the meeting, the Prime Minister brought up the subject, and the two chatted about the details of the future meeting. And then the meeting was over. But it seemed that the Prime Minister didn’t want to part. “Come see the office where I work,” he suggested with excitement after everyone stood up with the intention to leave. “Follow me,” he said, and everyone went to the end of the hallway where they entered his surprisingly small office. This was so unplanned that the Prime Minister’s assistants really pushed ahead to get there before the children in order to turn over classified documents that were on the desk. Only days later it was possible to learn how much the meeting with the children influenced the Prime Minister, when he dedicated significant portions of his Memorial Day speech on Mt. Herzl to the meeting (See separately). The reporter, Hanoch Daum, is a friend of the Prime Minister who wrote in Facebook about how he found him in his office some time after the visit ended.

“The door was open. He sat in his office.

I never saw him like that before. He sat in tears, held his face in his hands. I thought

that maybe something happened - maybe a terrorist attack. But he sat by himself and nothing changed. He was gloomy, really like sinking into some sort of sadness. I didn’t hold myself back and I asked what happened. He raised his head and gave a sign with his face, a sort of sign that seemed to say, ‘There are things that are even hard

for me to handle.’ I insisted, and then he explained. It appeared that the children opened his wounds from the past. The Prime Minister of Israel is sitting alone in his office with tears in his eyes after a meeting with IDF orphans. That is the moment that will accompany me on this Memorial Day.”

r of Israel To The Prime Ministe u Mr. Benjamin Netanyah

r hosting press my gratitude fo First, words cannot ex us time spending your precio us in your office and with us.

otional eting, I felt very em When I left the me share opportunity we had to about our visit and the r our w and our longings fo rro so ep de r ou u yo with e with that we are not alon d oo rst de un I rs. the fa pe with u, like us, need to co our pain and that yo see the also very moved to the same loss. I was rson, n, like every other pe rso pe as r ste ni Mi e Prim t loved gs, and dreams abou in ng lo , gs in el fe th wi er with us. ones who are no long ain, and to speak with you ag I would be pleased that I t many other subjects ou ab u yo m fro rn to lea liar with. am sure you are fami would me at my home, and I invited you to visit uld come true. be glad if that wish co Respectfully yours, Emily Nesterenko

rs old, when her Emily, 12, was two yea sterenko, an IDF father, Alexander Ne der police, was bor reservist with the ambush while on killed in a Palestinian Oz. patrol near Kibbutz Nir

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Brothers in Arms Shlomi Nahumson

D

uring the summer of 2013, the highlight of Camp Otzma was in Washington, D.C. The campers were Israeli bar-mitzvah aged youth, orphans and members of the IDFWO, who had just completed two weeks packed with enjoyment and entertaining activities in Canada and in the USA. The emotional peak awaited them with others who shared their fate – American youth, members of the TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) organization, which is the local counterpart of the IDFWO. Today’s youth – Israelis and Americans – share similar worlds via touch screens, virtual keyboards, and short incomprehensible syllables: music, culture, sports, and more.

But in order to share pain that begins from Afghanistan and extends to the Gaza Strip, it seems that face-to-face meetings are necessary.

44 IDF orphans of bar and bat mitzvah age, who are members of the IDFWO, met with 15 American orphans of approximately the same age, coming from Virginia and North Carolina. All of the participants agree that their shyness lifted faster than anticipated. The chatting with hesitation that had already begun during their breakfast quickly expanded to include their personal and painful issues. After they were together for only an hour, a spectator from the side would have thought that they were a cohesive group participating

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in a long process of group dynamics.

The cautious and polite questions were replaced with real direct conversation and in-depth questions. They wanted to know everything about each other, “where your father died,” “how exactly you found out,” and more. 12-year-old Lior Nachshoni, from Modiin, Israel, the daughter of Israeli Police Sergeant Major Elad Nachsoni, Z"L, said she experienced cultural differences for the first time in her life. “The Americans are very nice but different from us. They are shyer. They open up more slowly. In the beginning, it was a lot easier for us to chat, while they remained more closed.”

“It was amazing,” exclaimed James Stoddard, III, from Crofton, Maryland.

He lost his father, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class James Stoddard Jr., in Afghanistan in October of 2005. “These are people who truly understand how I feel. The counselors are so nice and did everything to help us,” added twelve-year-old James.

During the first meaningful activity, the youth were given the opportunity to go back and be a little bit like small children.

They were asked to draw pictures of their hands on a piece of paper, then cut the paper in the shape of their hands and add their names, the names of their deceased parents, and whatever personal words they chose. “Dad, I miss you,” “Mom, you are missing in my life” were just some of the writings on the little collages. At the end

of the creative process, the 59 pairs of colorful hands were joined to each other, into a round wreath with the flags of Israel and the USA at its center.

The real culture shock awaited the Israeli youth at the Fort Myers army base where they watched a spectacular parade of the U.S. Air Force Honor Guard Drill Team. Ido Ben-David, who lost his father First Sergeant Daniel Ben David, Z"L, in the 2006 Second Lebanon War when a Katyusha rocket hit a group of IDF reservists at Kfar Giladi and killed 12 of them, says that the ceremony in which the soldiers waved their shining rifles in the air was exceptionally impressive – very different from the Israeli ceremonies that are almost without any formal displays. Except for orchestras, Israel does not have special military units devoted to ceremonies and events.

After the ceremony of the Changing of the Guard near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, the young Israelis and Americans took their places for a huge surprise and overwhelming honor. Now, their moment had finally come. 15-year-old Zachary

“ “

I added a picture of the word ‘hero’, because my father is a hero “When the heart cries, only G-d hears”

Shade from Spring Lake, North Carolina, and the counselor Aaron Borsiaga, who served as a captain in the U. S. Marines, represented TAPS. Assaf Amitai, a 14 year old boy who lost his father, Sergeant Major Yaron Amitai – the oldest IDF soldier to fall in the Second Lebanon War who was volunteering at his infantry unit at the age of 45 - and IDF Staff Sergeant Shani Turgeman represented the Israeli organization. The two orphan youths marched together, carrying the wreath of

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hands that the groups had prepared. They slowly approached the memorial stone, glancing at each other from time to time, and together they placed the wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The captain of the Old Guard ceremoniously explained to all those present, including numerous tourists, the identity of the youngsters and the special occasion surrounding them. The excitement was tremendous.

Later that very busy day, the orphans met Dr. Oron Gan, a clinical psychologist, who lives in the U.S. and is himself an IDF orphan. Under the guidance of Dr. Gan, the children created a collage that expresses universal feelings of coping with loss. Sarah Trudy, who lost her father Hani Trudi, Z"L, a Druse police officer, said, “Preparing the collage was very exciting. Each person took paper, pasted pictures, and wrote words. Everyone was given a question, and we had to respond in pictures, drawings, and sentences. I

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took the question, ‘Why are you proud of your father?’ I placed a picture of someone who works hard, another picture of smiling people, and a picture of people who sleep well. I wrote that because of my father, there are people who sleep well at night, and there are people who smile. I added a picture of the word ‘hero’, because my father is a hero.”

The day ended with a reception at the Israeli Embassy, in the presence of Ambassador Dr. Michael Oren, and his wife Sally, who spoke to the children for over an hour and joined the boys and girls for dinner.

Ido Ben-David summarized the day spent with the Americans. “The meeting was really, really exciting. They took us for a tour of the city and to other sites. The friends who accompanied me on the tour together with their mentor were sociable and funny. We even saw the White House, from a distance.”

A special moment that summed up the visit occurred the following day in the morning. at the entrance to the hotel

where the Israeli delegation was staying.

All the suitcases were already placed in the baggage compartments and the bus engine was already running. Then the members of the American delegation appeared. They wanted to hug us goodbye, to say a few parting words, and to wish their friends from Israel a good trip. Promises were made to each other that this was only the first of many meetings, and that next year will be in Jerusalem.

“ “

It was amazing, These are people who truly understand how I feel

summer The

they deserve

July 25th - August 19 were truly special times – as 44 boys and girls, sons and daughters of Israel’s fallen heroes left Israel for North America for our annual Bar & Bat Mitzvah summer camp experience.

The children had an opportunity to visit Chicago, IL, stayed in Camp Chi for 10 days and continued for a magnificent tour of the East Coast, while spending the final Shabbat in Toronto, ON. On the way our children were hosted by numerous amazing families from different Jewish communities, had a chance to spend a Friday night as guests att the AEPi’s centennial celebration in NYC, meet with orphans of the US military forces through the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) organization and just had an amazing time with the special people who spoiled and tampered our children. What a summer and what an experience – TODA RABAH to everyone involved!

TODA RABA Dr. Michael B. Oren, Ambassador of Israel to the U.S. FIDF - Friends of the IDF AEPi - Alpha Epsilon Pi TAPS - Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors Dr. Oron Gan Stella & Peter Ekstein, Toronto, ON Brian Goldberg & Jody Klapman, Toronto, ON Brian & Pam Hochman, Toronto, ON Mickey Baratz, Toronto, ON

Stella & Pete r Ekstein wit h IDF or

phans

Esti Cohen, Ammy Bitton & BAYT Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto David Benishai, Magic Tours, New York, NY Main Event Caterers, Stamford, CT Tovli Pizza, Toronto, ON My Zaydie’s Bakery, Toronto, ON Avi Bogler, Toronto, ON Host families from communities in the U.S. and Canada 11

Doing Right the

thing

Gil Tevet

Assaf Filler was killed in 1958 just three months after his wedding. His memorial stone on the Golan Heights, put there by his friends many years ago, was hit by many hard winters, in one of the most unapproachable places imaginable. Members of IDFWO’s OTZMA group heard the story and decided to do something about it - found it and renovated it – in Assaf’s honor.

Last winter was stormy in Israel, with more than usual amounts of precipitation.

The rainy season was exceptional and the level of the Sea of Galilee, one of the major concerns of the worried Israeli, rose to its highest point in many years. Streams in which water had not flowed for a long time suddenly overflowed. Israel flourished.

The IDFWO decided to visit unofficial memorial sites in remote places, to document their locations and to develop them as necessary.

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On one cold and clear day, a group of IDFWO leaders, including Chairwoman Nava Shoham-Solan and CEO Gil Simenhaus, went to one of the empty river beds at the foot of the Golan Heights.

Their purpose was to find the small memorial stone that was placed there many years ago in memory of Assaf Filler, a member of nearby Kibbutz Gonen.

The IDFWO members decided to visit unofficial memorial sites in remote places, to document the locations and to develop

them as necessary.

The general directions to the site were given by Filler’s widow, Tikva Rubenstein, a member of Kibbutz Gonen since the 1950’s. Rubenstein said that the death of her husband, Assaf, in 1958 was a great blow to the members of the kibbutz that had been established only a few years earlier.

Tikva and Assaf came to the Hula Valley from their kibbutz, Mishmar Hasharon, in order to strengthen the young settlement that suffered from Syrian shelling and

On one cold and clear day, a group of IDFWO leaders, including Chairwoman Nava Shoham-Solan and CEO Gil Simenhaus, went to one of the empty river beds at the foot of the Golan Heights. Their purpose was to find the small memorial stone that was placed there many years ago in memory of Assaf Filler, a member of nearby Kibbutz Gonen

had lost some of its members. They were a young couple who had been married not long before. The older members of Gonen were 26 years old. There were not yet any children at the kibbutz. Three years before Assaf passed away, the kibbutz struggled with another mystery that continues until today. Yaakov Migovski was a member of a Nahal Community Service Program that was placed at the kibbutz. He went out to hunt wild boar in the adjacent valley and never returned. The search party discovered Yaakov’s equipment and signs of blood near the Syrian border, and assumed that he was injured and kidnapped. His body was never found.

The IDFWO members who were searching for Assaf’s memorial stone, arrived at a very small valley south of Kibbutz Gonen.

Tens of others like it are disregarded by those who use the narrow road. Tikva said

that perhaps the valley doesn’t even have a name. Two waterfalls, more than twenty meters high, bring the rain water to the stream. Tikva pointed to the depth of the narrow valley and said that there was no chance of finding the stone that Assaf’s friends had left there in his memory, exactly at the spot where his body was found. She said that at events that she had held in his memory marking 40 and 50 years from the time that he passed away, people stood on the edge of the cliff and only looked down at the area where the stone was thought to have been left. It was a valley without a name, without a path or trail to walk on.

Tikva and Assaf came to Gonen in September 1958. In December he was killed and then buried in the kibbutz where he was born, MIshmar Hasharon.

Tikva remained in Gonen. She remarried and had four children. Did she struggle

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After renovation with how to tell her children about Assaf who had passed away? “A little,” she says, but afterwards it was completely natural, also because of the way that her children’s father had approached the subject.

Immediately after he was killed, Assaf’s friends established a monument in his memory on the road between Gadot and Gonen, only a few hundred meters from where he passed away – but closer and more approachable. The members of the IDFWO went back to look for the stone – to really touch it, to read what is written on it. Assaf and another kibbutz member herded the cattle of Gonen. They were armed with rifles. The tension in the area was constant. Syrian soldiers used to harm the Israeli herds, even for the purpose of stealing the cattle.

Maybe it was a sniper or a group of soldiers that went out to patrol along the border.

One shot was heard. The frightened friend called out to Assaf, and when he did not answer, ran to get help. The waterfalls do

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not flow the same way every year in the nameless valley. The sound of water can be strong. Aside from the water, there is only quiet. One can imagine the handsome Assaf sitting on a boulder, wrapped in a faded military jacket, reading a book and glancing from time to time at the grazing cows. Shepherds generally play flute, but Assaf was an artist. Did he carry in his bag a notebook for sketching, together with the bread and cheese? He loved to travel, says Tikva. The new area that they came to excited him. Perhaps Assaf was enjoying the quiet, lying down and waiting desperately for his friends who were searching for him.

Was December 1958 also stormy? Did the noise of the waterfalls keep the searchers from hearing him shout? Did he hear the searchers, while unable to answer? There is no path. Only a huge thicket, partially flattened down by strong flooding. The canes were bent over and it is possible to carefully walk on them from one side of the stream to the other. Where is Assaf?

“There is no one who will do this instead of us. Filler did not have children and our presence in this place is once in a long time. We have an important role here.”

Before renovation Where is the stone? It is a small search area – not even 200 square meters, like two medium sized city apartments. They are looking through the weeds, cleaning dirt from stones. They almost give up. They call Tikva again, “Direct us please.” 10 precise words were enough. The stone was found under a big and dense bush.

Two months later, the weather cleared up and got warmer. The flow of water almost stopped completely, and a group of young orphans went down to the valley. They were campers of the IDFWO Otzma camp.

Each year the orphans take on another project during the Passover camp in the spring. This time, Chairwoman Nava Shoham-Solan suggested that they go to the monument for Filler that she visited herself in the wintertime.

The group of campers looked down from above to the bottom of the valley where the young kibbutz member was killed. “There is no one who will do this instead of us,” said Shlomi Nahumson, director of IDFWO

youth programs. “Filler did not have children and our presence in this place is once in a long time. We have an important role here.” The youngsters had already read and learned about the unique story of Assaf and Tikva. “It is thrilling and beautiful to be here and to make the history come alive a bit. It is hard to continue remembering and memorializing a man who has passed away, did not leave children, and whose widow is already advanced in age. That is why we came here,” said the young man Stav Harari whose father, the reserve officer Lieutenant Colonel Dov Harari, was killed in 2010 by Hezbollah fire on the Israel – Lebanon border.

Little by little the youngsters cleared a path in the thorny thicket. They looked for a long time and with persistence for the little stone that went back into hiding among the bushes, ever since the last visit during the winter. With hoes and shears in their hands they combed every corner of the narrow valley until they found the

stone. The excitement was amazing. “To look for something and to find it is always fun. This time it is also an important commandment,” the young people said.

“The story of Filler and the circumstances of his death somewhat remind me of the story of how my father was killed three years ago,” said Stav Harari. “The terrorists shot at my father and his soldiers when they approached the border to remove trees. It wasn’t an Israeli attack. Filler also was killed only because he herded the cattle for the kibbutz.”

The young people cleared weeds and made sure that travelers in the valley who do not know the story of Assaf Filler will be able to more easily see the small stone. The girls in the group got down on their knees and renewed the faded writing with black paint, “Here in the pasture our friend, Assaf Filler, was killed in an ambush. He was 24 years old.”

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From Tragedy to Growth In July of 2013, six of our orphans were invited by the European Janusz Korczak Academy to attend a seminar in Munich, Germany. The seminar, organized and led by Ms. Eva Haller, President of the European Janusz Korczak Academy, and her dedicated team was a wonderful opportunity for our children to visit Munich, be hosted there by the incredible host families who opened their homes and their hearts, connect to and learn about a Jewish community that was almost entirely exterminated in the Holocaust, but was able to survive, grow and today become a thriving Jewish center – all that on German soil.

Our orphans proudly presented Israel when meeting with Ms. Charlotte Knobloch, the President of the Jewish Community of Munich, Mr. Tibor Shalev Schlosser, Consul General of the State of Israel in Munich, Mayor of the city of Berchtesgaden and numerous members of the local community, while visiting fascinating places and paying honor to the fallen at the site of the Munich massacre, an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics on 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team, who were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by Palestinian terrorists.

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TODA RABA Ms. Charlotte Knobloch, President, Jewish Community of Munich IDFWO delegation at the site of the Munich massacre, where in the 1972 Olympics 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists

Mr. Tibor Shalev Schlosser, Consul General of the State of Israel, Munich Ms. Eva Haller, President, European Janusz Korczak Academy, Munich Dr. Stanislav Skibinski – Director, European Janusz Korczak Academy, Munich Dr. Oren Osterer – Projects Director, European Janusz Korczak Academy, Munich Host families in Munich Special thanks to Mr. Itzchak Belfer

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To Laugh and Never Forget Prior to traveling to Germany, a group of IDFWO orphans had a preparatory meeting with Yitzhak Belfer, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor and an artist who was among the orphans cared for by Janusz Korczak.

Zur Tahon

T

hey were unforgettable moments.

Not every day do you meet a man like Yitzhak Belfer. He is 90-yearsold, active, full of vitality and happiness, and his steady smile makes you immediately forget the story of his life. There is nothing in his facial features that will remind anyone of his difficult childhood or the fact that he lost his entire family in the Holocaust, under circumstances that remain unknown to him to this day.

Before their trip to Munich as invited guests of the Janusz Korczak Academy, six IDFWO orphans met with the Holocaust survivor and artist Yitzhak Belfer. Belfer, himself an orphan, was educated in the famous orphanage of Janusz Korczak in Warsaw. He is apparently the only one of the orphans who is still alive, and can tell about Korczak from personal experience. The six young people, who were accompanied to the meeting by their mothers and by IDFWO chairwoman, Nava ShohamSolan, were very excited. They sat around a table in the IDFWO office, and waited anxiously to hear the words of the kind man who sat down with them. The atmosphere of the meeting soon became mixed with the tension surrounding their upcoming visit to Germany. But as soon as Belfer began speaking, it was as if there had never been any tension at all. Relaxed and full of empathy, the charismatic and very sensitive man told them in minute detail about what had happened to him more

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than eighty years earlier.

Yitzhak was born in 1923 in Warsaw, Poland. He lost his father at the age of 4, and remained with his mother and five siblings.

Since earning a living was a difficult struggle for his mother, she brought him to Janusz Korczak’s orphanage when he was 7 years old.

“I remember the first meeting with Korczak. He and my mother sat in the room and talked. I sat on his knees. I wanted to check if his beard was real, so I pulled it and

“We have a lot in common in our perspective on life and in coping with loss. Our family also tries to focus on the good things and to be optimistic.“ discovered that it was. I pressed my cheek against his because I wanted to know how the world looked through his round glasses, but I didn’t succeed. When my mother left, I didn’t cry. I understood that I had come to a good place.”

He remembered with longing and

enthusiasm the eight years he spent from 1930 to 1938 in that special home, and it seemed that he yearned to go back again.

“I had a big white bed there, all to myself.

Every Sabbath we would visit for a few hours in the family home. But the moment I left the orphanage, I wanted to return.

There I felt the best. My friends were there.

I was disconnected from everything that was going on around us, and I felt at home.

That home was a dream. I am still dreaming it,” he said with sparkling eyes.

He continued with an explanation of Korczak’s guiding principles, according to which the home operated: sharing, full trust, and connection with the adults. He described the systems in place at the home, such as the court and the council, that were run entirely by the children. “Korczak was ahead of his time. It saddens me that his teaching is not implemented. I feel that people are still not able to absorb it, as if it was and remains bigger than life.”

It was evident that the children and their mothers, who themselves have experienced loss, were identifying with Yitzhak’s words and listening attentively to his stories. In his way, full of humor, he spoke about his difficult experiences without directly relating to his loss. He told about how, after the war broke out, he tried to escape from Warsaw with an older boy from the orphanage. He separated from his mother with a kiss (and did not go back to see her anymore), received from

Korczak the blessing for a voyage, and the two boys got on the train to the Russian border. “The train was full of Nazi soldiers.

We saw their glances and we looked at one another. We decided to get off the train at a remote station where we disappeared into the forest. We walked for two days.

At night we walked, and during the day we slept. We almost got to the Russian border when the Germans caught us and brought us to a concentration of Jews where the Selection Process took place.

They placed me with the Poles, and my friend was placed with the Jews. I never saw him again.” Later it turned out that the friend had been taken to Auschwitz, had survived the war, and had later lived with his family in Canada. After countless hardships and experiences during which he was drafted and discharged from the Russian Army, Yitzhak went to Poland in 1946 to search for his family. When he found out that no one had survived, he immigrated to Israel. On the way, his ship was detained by the British, and he spent about a year and a half in a prison camp. In 1949 Yitzhak finally arrived in Israel where he served in the young army as a driver in the “Transportation Force,” until he was discharged in 1951.

Yitzhak devoted himself to art and to his

Janusz Korczak

Yitzhak Belfer with the children of the IDFWO need to share his experiences with the public. He learned drawing and sculpture and his works that are based on wartime memories have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Israel and abroad. For years Yitzhak worked as an art lecturer. He still often meets with young people to tell his story and to exhibit some of his work.

Since coming to Israel, Yitzhak has lived in the same neighborhood in Tel Aviv. He got married and had a son, an officer in the Navy, who is today a teacher. “I see him as following my path, and I am very proud of him. I was educated by the greatest teacher that existed, and I admired him. In certain ways, up until my last day, I will be his representative. Throughout my entire life I have tried to put into practice his world view and I hope that I have succeeded. The fact that my son chose teaching shows that I certainly succeeded in something.”

Shlomi Nahumson, who heads the IDFWO Youth Programs, shared his feelings with the group. “I learned an important lesson today, that despite all the difficulties, it is possible to be optimistic and full of humor, even when reality does not welcome you. And those are exactly the values according to which we work in our organization.” This was perhaps the motto of the entire evening. Yitzhak asked each of the participants to introduce

himself and to tell about the circumstances of becoming an orphan. It was clearly important to him to relay his optimistic message to his listeners. “What would you recommend that we emphasize when we go to Germany as representatives of the IDFWO and the State of Israel?” - he was asked. And even then he surprised us with his answer. “It is impossible to erase or push aside the Holocaust, but you have to understand that it was one of the factors for establishing the State of Israel. In the early years, I couldn’t even think at all about travelling to Germany. I even turned down the reparations. But with time I understood that this is a different Germany. Today in Germany they learn about the Holocaust and the teachings of Janusz Korczak. It’s unbelievable that I am saying this, but I even have friends there.” Nava ShohamSolan, IDFWO chairwoman, invited Yitzhak to one of the upcoming youth events, so that he can become familiar with the activities of the organization.

Gal Amitai, an IDF orphan, said, “It was fascinating to hear first hand from someone who grew up with Janusz Korczak’s. We have a lot in common in our perspective on life and in coping with loss. Our family also tries to focus on the good things and to be optimistic. That is what helps and gives us the strength to continue telling our story.”

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r e w A M Z T O f o To D nate:

IDF Widows & Orphans Organization is deeply grateful for your generosity in supporting our vital work, and we look forward to welcoming both new friends and established supporters as partners to our mission.

www.idfwo.org | +972-3-691-8403, Ext. 6 | office@idfwo.org Mailing Address: 1 Oranim St, Givat Shmuel 54052, Israel

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Children for Children T

his past July I had the good fortune to spend three weeks with my family in Israel. We did a lot fun things like kayaking on the Dan River with friends, visiting many of my Israeli cousins, and surfing on the Mediterranean Sea. As part of my bar mitzvah, I wrapped tefillin and got an aliyah at the Kotel for the first time. These were all wonderful experiences that I will always remember, but the highlight of my trip was meeting my new Israeli friend, Yoav Levi.

Yoav is an ordinary kid. He recently turned 13 years old just like me. He currently lives in Shoham with his mom, an older brother and sister and very sweet younger sister. He plays on a top notch, competitive soccer team that plays against teams from other cities in Israel. He is a typical teenager except for one thing: when he was two, he lost his father serving in the IDF. Yoav’s Father, Yoram (Z”L), died in 2002 during operation Homat Magen in Jenin. Yoav’s Mother Rachel was left with two sons, a daughter, and a daughter on the way. You see, I met Yoav as part of my bar mitzvah project, which was to create a program to twin kids from America with kids from the Israel Defense Forces Widows and Orphans Organization (IDFWO).

The IDFWO, the sole non-profit of its kind recognized by the State of Israel, provides social, emotional, and financial support to widows and orphans who have suffered the greatest loss: that of a husband or father. This seemed like a worthwhile

cause for my bar mitzvah chessed project. I set up a website were boys and girls who are bar/ bat mitzvah age here in America can connect or “twin” with a bar/ bat mitzvah boy or girl from the IDFWO in Israel. If you are bar or bat mitzvah age or you know someone who can participate than log onto idfwotwinningproject.com to find out more. Hopefully this will help create many long lasting friendships between kids in America to kids in Israel. As a first step I twinned with Yoav, and thank G-d, others are already planning to twin next year for their bar or bat mitzvah.

Before I met Yoav, I was a little worried that it would be awkward. It kind of was for the first 3 seconds. But just like any other boy would, we started talking about sports, video games, etc. His English was as good as my Hebrew so we were able to communicate with no problem. We went paddle boating in Modi’in. I learned that Yoav is a typical kid like me who has similar interest, curiosities, likes and dislikes. I noticed that Yoav was smiling a lot but I was saddened to think about all the birthday hugs, special moments on holidays, davening, listening to stories about his childhood, soccer games and support he didn’t get from his father. It was then that I realized what the IDFWO was truly about.

Rachel, Yoav’s Mother, told the story of the day her husband received the “t’sav shmoneh” (the military order) that he needed to arrive at his base as soon as

Eitan Karsch

possible. It arrived on a Shabbat morning and he insisted on delaying it until Sunday morning. That would be the last Shabbat he shared with his family. A few days later he and 12 other soldiers were ambushed and killed. Rachel described the agony of being left alone pregnant with three, young children- and my entire family was captivated by her story.

I had the opportunity to meet with the leader of the IDFWO, Daniel Tuksar, who shared story of his own struggle to live in Croatia when the Jewish community was threatened with violence during the war there in the early 1990s. He was rescued and taken in by the Jewish community in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. People in Cherry Hill saw that there was a problem and took action. They raised funds, found adoptive homes, and found the ambassador from America in Croatia, who happened to be Jewish, and made sure all the kids were safely put on planes to America. This is what drives Daniel to do what he does.

He is the kind of person who listens and considers other’s needs. His entire life is devoted to helping Jewish people in need.

Daniel is a mentor of mine and I hope I will be able to do what he does one day.

When I first set out to start my bar mitzvah project I thought I was going to do Chessed for someone else but I ended up benefiting from it a lot myself. I not only did something that was very meaningful to me but I also made a friend who I hope be close to for the rest of my life.

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Losing him, twice Yona Buchman came back from the war critically wounded • His body was whole but his spirit bled for three years until he ended his life • Sarah Aviv-Buchman tells how she survived those excruciating days, alone with her young daughters, and what she received as a present on her birthday.

Gil Tevet

I

n the early 1970’s, Sarah and Yona Buchman were a young couple that had just gotten married. It was love from both sides of the Coastal Road. She was from Nof Yam and he was from Rishpon.

They met at a party at the swimming pool in Kfar Shmaryahu. They got married in Tel Aviv. Sarah worked at Bank Hapoalim and Yona on his successful farm. When their first daughter, Sharon, was born, Yona was on army reserve duty in the Jordan Valley. He heard the news on the army radio station. That is how they would notify people then. He got to the hospital at night, met the baby with great excitement, and then went back to the post. Several days later, Yona completed his reserve duty and returned home. Sarah explains that she immediately felt that something was wrong. He had trouble sleeping, wanted to speak to her during the nights about the farm and about income, and he was gloomy. They consulted a psychiatrist who gave him medication and his condition improved. Sarah says today that she didn’t imagine at the time that Yona’s emotional condition was connected to the incidents he had experienced during the reserve duty. Yona, says Sarah, returned to being Yona – an unusually kind and warm person, joking, ambitious, a model father and husband. The doctor recommended transferring Yona from the paratrooper

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unit to less of a combat unit, and that is what happened. Yona became a semi-trailer driver in a transportation unit. The farm flourished. The young family established itself economically. They bought an additional apartment, purchased modern equipment for the farm, and built a small house for themselves. The story about the time of despair became something that

The war ended and Yona came back only in body. His struggling soul remained behind on the killing fields. was laughed about or simply forgotten. On January 1, 1973, their daughter Maya was born, and four months later the war broke out.

Yona already wanted to go to the war. The Coastal Road was filled with army vehicles traveling in the direction of the fronts, and he hadn’t been called up yet. He got a backpack ready and said that he had to go.

Sarah was filled with anxiety. When they finally called him to military service, he

was in a wonderful mood.

Yona left and called her two days later.

“Everything is all right. I am on the way to the Golan Heights,” he said to Sarah. “I knew that the situation was terrible. They called up everyone and there were no men left in the village. They called up my three brothers, and my sister’s husband,” she explains. After a few more days in which I didn’t hear from Yona, I got a call from someone from German television that had seen Yona on the Golan Heights. He told me that Yona is fine. On the night of the 26th of October, a huge truck stopped near the house and a person whom Sarah did not know, together with the man who used to be Yona Buchman, got down from the truck. Sarah saw a very thin person, unshaven, eyes wide open. The two of them came for the night to repair the truck.

Yona’s truck cabin partner told Sarah about what had happened to them since the war broke out. All by themselves, they chased armored columns of trucks loaded with shells, and were asked to distance themselves from the rest of the forces lest their truck be hit. During one of the bombings, the other man said, they hid in an aqueduct and an Israeli tank fired on them by mistake. Only when the trailer was damaged were they allowed to go down to the center of the country to fix it.

The man said that Yona reacted very badly

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to the things that he saw during the last few weeks. He told her that they parked near a station for gathering the wounded where tens of half covered bodies were laid down next to the screaming wounded. Yona was horrified and broke out in tears. Yona, the man continued, said that human life is not worth anything, and that the flies hovering over the bodies near them are worth a lot more.

Yona did not ask about his little daughters whom he hadn’t seen in weeks. He showered and went to sleep. Sarah woke up from his screams. He shouted, “Get your head down. They are shooting at us.” The next day Sarah took little Maya and Yona, who was in shock, to the transport base.

War or no war, Sarah was determined to release Yona from the reserves, and take him for treatment. Sarah will not forget, for the rest of her life, the moments in which she faced his mocking commander, with an infant seat and a baby in her arms. She asked the commander to release Yona because of his condition, and she explained his emotional history. But the commander

“Why is my father lying here in bed? He has no wound or bandage.” said to her, “Ah, He brought mother to complain. Everyone complains. People abandon equipment on the fronts, I need everyone. If it’s hard for him to transport shells, I’ll let him transport fuel trucks.”

Sarah pleaded and told the commander that Yona needed urgent medical attention, but he refused to listen. Yona got onto a fuel truck and went back to the war. He wrote to Sarah from Sinai and afterwards from across the Suez Canal. He asked her to take care of herself.

The war ended and Yona came back only in body. His struggling soul remained behind on the killing fields. The scenes and the smells chased him everywhere. A doctor

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whom he saw referred him immediately to the Geha psychiatric hospital.

Family life was turned upside down.

Sharon, their daughter, would ask her mother, “Why is my father lying here in bed? He has no wound or bandage.” The grandmothers helped to take care of the children. Sarah was in Geha with her beloved and his bleeding consciousness.

Nothing interested him. “Life is meaningless. There is nothing in it. I don’t see any reason to live. To save a lira, and another lira, is not worth a lot,” he would repeatedly say to Sarah, the doctors, and the other patients in the closed ward. No one spoke about the possibility of shell shock.

One morning Sarah came to the hospital and asked Yona where his roommate was.

“He succeeded,” answered Yona with the first smile in many long months, “He committed suicide.”

The days turned into months and years. Yona would come home for short vacations. For a long time Sarah believed that he would get better. She felt terribly lonely then, as a young woman with two little girls and almost no outside support or help. On the evening of the Passover Seder, Sarah dressed the children well and went to Geha to bring Yona to the family celebration. When he came in through the doorway and saw the holiday table and his family members smiling at him, he turned around and demanded to go back to the hospital ward. “Take me back there,” he requested from Sarah. On the way he tried to jump out of the car. “My entire body shook,” she remembers. The doctors whom they had asked for advice and hope said that they had tried everything that they knew, including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and other methods, and it was impossible to help him.

There were periods of time when Yona would stay home longer. His behavior was unbearable, Sarah explains. It was impossible to be near him. He was aggressive, but not violent. The doctors asked Sarah to remain aware, because it is impossible to know what can develop.

“The day before my birthday he committed suicide. Perhaps that is the present that he wanted to give me” Yona did not work, did not speak, hardly slept and did not communicate with his surroundings. He did not ask about anyone, nor did any of his many old friends ask about him. He would say to Sarah, “You are the most unfortunate. If I would die already, you would be recognized as a widow. And I just continue to suffer. I don’t want this life. I can’t look at tomorrow morning.”

Almost three years had passed since the war, and there had been no change – to the contrary. Sarah decided to move with her daughters close to her sister in Rishon LeZion, to disconnect from that house in the village, and to try to establish a little more normal routine life. When Yona was at home in the village, family members took care of him. The rest of the time he was hospitalized. Tensions arose between Sarah and Yona’s family. She understood that she would not have real help from them.

They were angry because she had asked, for the sake of her own mental health and the future of her children, to distance herself for some time. Aside from some money that she was given right after the war, Sarah had not received any additional help on a regular basis from the IDF or from the state – neither money nor anything else. No one provided advice, listened, or expressed an interest.

One day Yona appeared at the apartment where Sarah lived with the children. He didn’t want to eat anything. One of the girls read a story to him, and he fell asleep.

When he woke up, he asked to go back, and they took him by car in the direction of the

central bus station. On the way, he didn’t speak with his daughters and they didn’t speak with him. Several days later, on the 14th of May, 1976, Yona walked in his fields in the village. With an aluminum watering hose that he lifted towards a high voltage tower, he electrocuted himself. “The day before my birthday he committed suicide.

Perhaps that is the present that he wanted to give me,” Sarah says today.

Yona was buried in a civil ceremony in the village cemetery. Only after his death did Sarah contact the Ministry of Defense for the first time, in order to inquire about her rights. For years, she also participated in the IDFWO and various treatment workshops. She remembers that during her first meeting she primarily cried and cried.

The terrible years of being with the living dead finally burst out and were released.

Sarah permitted herself to tell others, for the first time, about what she had experienced.

“Only then did I begin to feel sorry for myself and for my daughters. Only after Yona died did I begin to understand what we had been through. I also was concerned that perhaps he committed suicide because I left him at home.”

Sarah got up from the couch she had been sitting on during the conversation and went to look for pictures. Today she lives in Nes Ziona with her partner, Yossi.

They only met when she was 41. “Such a combination of positive characteristics and talents is hard to find in one person,” she says about him. The house is filled with her oil paintings: landscapes and moments that she saved in her memory from trips all over the world and throughout Israel, including still life. On the table she sets out the family story in photographs. Here is little Sharon in Yona’s arms. Here is Maya in her mother’s arms because she has no pictures together with her father. And here is Yona smiling. And here is the charming house that they built for themselves. And here are Sharon and Maya again. They are already grown up, with glistening eyes, and so beautiful. Each one has three children, a career, and a husband - and also one strong and special mother.

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BEING THERE FOR THOSE WHO’VE BEEN LEFT BEHIND www.idfwo.org