By Rabbi Josh Berkenwald, Congregation Sinai
Two weeks ago, on Friday afternoon of the South Bay Solidarity Mission to Israel, we went to HaFundak shel Jack – “Jack’s Inn,” a well known home style restaurant at the entrance to Moshav Beit Nehemia in Shoham. We were there to pack up 450 meals for IDF soldiers out in the field.
After October 7, the owner of the restaurant, Meir, who was too old to be called up to the reserves, began providing daily hot food to families, soldiers, anyone in need. He put out a call for volunteers. Within a short time, he had a list of 650 people who regularly come to cook, package, and deliver. They rely on donations to pay for all of the supplies.
After we finished packing everything up, I carried 250 meals out to the parking lot to load into a woman’s car. She had returned that morning from a trip to France, and now her job was to shuttle the meals to Kfar Saba, where another volunteer would pick them up and drive them to a brigade of soldiers in the lower Golan.
As I carried the boxes, I was thinking about logistics. By now, Jack’s Inn has served tens of thousands of meals. How do you organize something like this?
It started with just a guy with a restaurant who felt called to employ his skills to help people in a difficult time. What an inspiring example.
This morning’s Torah portion, Vayak’hel, includes a similar such example.
After cleaning up the mess of the Golden Calf, Moses unveils the project that was supposed to take place upon his descent from Mt. Sinai the first time: the building of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle.
First, he lists all of the raw materials that the Israelites need to collect: the precious metals, woods, animal hides, fabric and gems. Then, he puts the call out for those who have skills in a wide range of areas such as: carpentry, smithing, carving, sewing, and weaving. He appoints two chief artisans, Betzalel and Oholiav, to direct the project.
The Torah repeatedly indicates how inclusive this project is —men and women, tribal chieftains and those at the bottom rungs of Israelite society — everyone jumps to get involved. The people are so enthusiastic that, after not too long, the artisans report some surprising news to Moses. The Israelites responded so positively to the campaign, that they have are inundated with more supplies than they know what to do with.
Moses orders the Israelites to stop contributing. The Torah reports that “their efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks to be done.” (36:7) The first and only time that happened.
One of the places that we visited during the Israel Mission was the Tel Aviv Expo Center, which had been converted into ḤaMaL Tel Aviv. ḤaMaL is an acronym for Cheder Milḥamah, or “war room.” It is a term taken from the military to refer to the command center of an operation. We spoke with Ronen, the volunteer director of the ḤaMaL Tel Aviv. Ronen has led a few startups, and still serves as a Reserve Officer in the Israeli Navy.
The ḤaMaL Tel Aviv has been the central coordination center for the Israeli civil society’s response after October 7. “Civil society” is in contrast to the government. One of the recurring stories that we heard was about the government’s continued absence, not only in its lack of military readiness, but also in failing to respond quickly after the attack, to inform the public, coordinate defense, rescue, evacuation, and then provide for all of the social needs for those who became displaced.
In the government’s absence, Israeli civil society stepped up in a way that expresses the Jewish ethic of mutual responsibility and the Israeli ethos of “Startup Nation.”
To understand how the events played out, we need to go back a little over a year. When the government announced its judicial reform plans, a group of IDF reserve officers, fearing that the changes to the judiciary would lead to the erosion of Israeli democracy, started an organization called Aḥim Laneshek – “Brothers and Sisters in Arms.” This became one of the main organizations coordinating the anti judicial reform protests that lasted for months.
In the course of those political demonstrations, Aḥim Laneshek built an incredibly robust grassroots organizational network. It included many IDF reserve officers with significant leadership experience, as well as Israelis from the high tech sector who brought their own skillsets.
When Hamas attacked on October 7, Aḥim Laneshek immediately pivoted. They renamed their organization Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael– “Brothers and Sisters for Israel,” and made three strategic decisions that would guide their actions over the coming months: 1. The IDF must win. 2. Support civilians who were hurt. 3. For the sake of unity, they would not do anything related to judicial reform.
By Sunday, October 8, they had already divided up the responsibilities. By Monday, computer programmers were building dashboards to organize the workflow. In less than a week, Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael had built the back-end infrastructure to run a nation. There is now a ḥamal ezraḥi, a citizens coordination center, in every part of the country.
Within four days, they set up a military-grade intelligence center to collect and analyze information, including going through photographs and videos from social media to identify hostages. When the IDF visited the site the following day, they acknowledged that they could not replicate it, so they turned over their own intelligence to the volunteers.
With Israelis in the South still hiding in safe rooms, Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael organized volunteer rescue teams to go into places that the IDF still had not cleared to rescue families, elders, and children, and bring them to safety. In some cases, they sent out teams to search for bodies.
It quickly became apparent that many of the IDF units, especially reservists, did not have all of the equipment they needed. The network went into action, ordering a large shipment of helmets and ceramic vests.
It was going to take weeks for the equipment to arrive, but they needed it now. So they put the call out to the network and quickly identiified a supply chain specialist, who was able to track down an airplane that was not being used and bring in the helmets and vests right away..
Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael has continued to supply soldiers, police officers, and especially Civilian Readiness Units, which despite being outnumbered and underequipped, saved thousands of lives on October 7. They have also brought 7 planeloads full of medical supplies into the country.
By the following Saturday night, it had become apparent that tens of thousands of Israelis would need housing, and the government was not doing anything about it. Volunteers went to Eilat and the Dead Sea to determine hotel capacity and to identify the needs of evacuees and their children. Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael were the only ones supporting those families for weeks. In the months since, they have opened 90 kindergartens in hotels.
People had to leave their homes quickly, and did not have time to gather their things, so Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael put the call out for basic household supplies, clothing, toiletries, toys, and so on, for all of the dissplaced families. Think for a moment about what would would have to happen to effectively collect and distribute essential items across an entire country. In days, they set up the infrastructure to collect donations, sort them in warehouses, and efficiently distribute what was needed to those in need. This was 100% volunteer driven.
Just as when the Israelites built the Mishkan, the nation responded so enthusiastically that they eventually had to stop collecting supplies. “their efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks to be done.”
With the departure of most of the agricultural workers, Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael organized thousands of volunteers to go out into the fields to harvest and plant crops.
Across the country, there are now 15,000 regular volunteers, coming from every segment of Israeli society, crossing social, religious, ethnic, and political lines.
Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael, which was initially founded as a left-wing, political organization, has managed to bridge divisions with a number of the more right-wing communities they have been working with. “The mayors love us,” our presenter shared.
Five months in to this war, the immediate needs have been met, and Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael is transitioning to preparing communities to be able to return to their homes.
As we encountered this and other organizations and individuals, a few things occurred to me. First of all, the incredible selflessness demonstrated by so many regular people to do absolutely everything they could to help each other out. And Israel is not a homogenous society.
When I think about life here in the Bay Area, I cannot imagine such a widespread, grassroots, cross-cultural volunteer effort coming together.
Second was the attitude of “just get it done.” Israelis are not known for waiting for permission. There have been countless examples of people, recognizing a problem that needs a solution, and devoting oneself to gathering the resources, human and material, to solve that problem quickly.
Third, this is taking place in a traumatized society. In fact, within days of October 7, Israelis were already turning out in the tens of thousands to volunteer. Many of us might respond to trauma by shutting down, retreating from society. Israelis did the opposite, they jumped in, a far more effective response to trauma, I would imagine.
One person we met, a retired career diplomat, the former Ambassador to France, who is now volunteering with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, shared that this is the most meaningful work he has ever done in his life.
What are our duties as citizens? Here in America, we tend to not think of citizenship carrying with it many obligations, other than following the laws, paying our taxes, and possibly voting.
Ronen, our guide at Aḥim v’Aḥayot L’Yisrael said that in the last year, he has learned that being citizenship is more than that: it includes a duty to give back.
He considers what they have done, both before October 7 when they were protesting against the judicial reforms, and after, when they pivoted to supporting Israeli society, an expression of Zionism and patriotism.
That is surely something to aspire to.
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