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News at Livnot
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To build and to be built
By Hannah Robinow, Special to The Chronicle
Imagine this: you’re strolling along a rambling path in the picturesque Golan Heights, listening to stories about Israeli culture and Jewish history, surrounded by ancient ruins standing testament to the Jewish settlement of old. Now imagine that, while you’re on this stroll, you’re accompanied by a guide who not only knows about the vivid history of the land of Israel, but about what you as an individual Jew can do to connect with it on a spiritual and emotional level.
To read the full story click here.
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Take shelter Young, international volunteers come to the rescue in Tsfat
By Leyna Krow
It felt like about 8 million degrees outside and I was doing a better job of covering my white Adidas with salmon-colored paint than the wall in front of me. From time to time, a Livnot U'Lehibanot staff member came by, and, cigarette dangling from his mouth, took the brush from my hand to demonstrate, sans English, proper technique.
"Ken, ken," I said, although little improvement was made on my part.
I am not the artsy type, but six hours of salmoning up this bomb shelter bought me another free night's stay in the Israeli hill town of Tsfat. So I was willing to try.
I was not the first Livnot volunteer to spend a day painting a bomb shelter. Far from it. In fact, in the last two years, Livnot U'Lehibanot program participants, who come to Israel from all over the world, have painted, furnished, refloored, rewired, replumbed, etc. 130 such structures in Israel's Northern Galilee region.
The birthplace of Jewish mysticism, as well as a thriving artist's colony, Tsfat was one of a number of cities in the north of Israel to fall victim to heavy shelling during the 2006 war with Lebanon. Aharon Botzer, the founding director of Livnot U'Lehibanot and a long-time Tsfat resident, estimates that more than 500 rockets were fired at city that summer, although only a handful struck homes or businesses. Three people were killed.
When the shelling started, most of Tsfat's residents evacuated, including, according to Botzer, 95 percent of city officials. This claim could not be validated by the Tsfat Municipality.
Still, when the municipality's phone system became overloaded, emergency calls began being routed to the Livnot offices, located in the city's artist's quarter, amid a maze of narrow winding streets and tiny galleries. As others fled, Livnot called in 200 volunteers from around the country to come to Tsfat to pick up the slack.
According to Eli Yefet, who manages Livnot volunteer projects in the Northern Galilee, these volunteers spent the duration of the war working to make the city's bomb shelters inhabitable.
"We ran from shelter to shelter," explained the energetic Yefet over tea in the lounge of Livnot's Tsfat campus. "Nobody ever thought about them. They were in terrible shape. No one even knew who had the keys."
Volunteers also took over care for some 70 elderly and infirm Tsfat residents whose caretakers had evacuated, leaving them behind.
Rolan Jarufi, the owner of a Yemenite café/Kabbalah reading room across the street from the Livnot campus, believes that the war could have been much worse for Tsfat, given the number of rockets fired at the city.
"It was a miracle. Hundreds of missiles were shot, but there were only minor damages. Very few of them actually hit. The Arabs were a very poor shot," he told me as I ate something resembling a fried pancake stuffed with tomatoes, hardboiled eggs and a myriad of spices from his walk-up counter one afternoon.
I asked him if he had been in the Tsfat during the war with Lebanon. He said that his wife and kids had evacuated, but he had stayed.
"It's my place, my country. I'm not afraid of wars," he offered by way of explanation.
When the war ended, the municipality went to work cleaning up the damage. Although there are a number of relics left behind from skirmishes in 1948 when Tsfat was a hotly contested site during the war for independence, little evidence remains in the city today to suggest that it has been victim of a more recent conflict. Life in the vibrant, mystical city quickly returned to normal.
For the staff of Livnot, however,going back to the way things were before the war seemed irresponsible, knowing what they now do about the condition of the city's bomb shelters.
"After the war, we began to understand the extent of the situation," Yefet said.
During their efforts in the summer of 2006, Livnot staff and volunteers had found most of the shelters to be in dismal condition. They lacked proper plumbing and were sparsely furnished. Many were without kitchens or even working electricity. Repairing these aging structures has become the news raison d'etre for Livnot.
Livnot U'Lehibanot (which translates to "to build and be built") began in 1980 with the aim of bringing young adults who identify as Jews, but have little or no Jewish background to Israel, to learn about the country (much like Taglit-birthright Israel, with whom the organization frequently partners). Programs last anywhere from two weeks to five months and, along with hiking excursions and Jewish educational
activities, include a host of volunteer projects, such as working in soup kitchens, distributing clothing and food to elderly and low income Israelis and renovating and repairing schools and community centers.
Livnot representatives boast that their alumni roster includes young Jews from around the world, although, in actuality, most come from the United States. Individuals who don't have the time for a whole program are welcome to lend a hand volunteering on specific projects in exchange for room and board.
This core arrangement hasn't changed. A number of the people I met during my free and paint-splattered stay at Livnot's subterranean Tsfat campus in March told me they had worked to spruce up the homes of elderly Tsfat residents and rehabilitate playgrounds as well as bomb shelters.
Tej Green of Oakland, Calif. first arrived in Israel during the winter as part of a 14-day joint Livnot and birthright trip that began as a sightseeing tour and ended with four days of volunteer service in Tsfat. Green stayed in Israel after her tour ended, traveling around on her own. She said she has returned to Tsfat on several occasions in last three months to participate in individual projects, such as repainting the home of an older gentleman who has been identified as a Good Samaritan by the larger community.
"It felt really good too do something for this guy that he obviously wasn't capable of doing for himself anymore," Green said.
Of course, Green noted, she had also spent a fair amount of her time with Livnot working in and around a number of the region's many bomb shelters.
The ultimate goal of the shelter repair program, according to Livnot's Yefet, is to make the shelters into dual-purpose facilities, functioning as both bomb shelters as well as community centers. The hope is that this will make the spaces more familiar to local residents and also more of a priority for neighborhoods to maintain.
"This way, when families have to go into the shelters, the kids won't be so traumatized because they'll have been in them before and know they aren't so scary," Yefet said.
Before my fellow volunteers and I set to work on our shelter, Yefet took us to see a recently revamped structure that is now also home to an after-school program for developmentally disabled children. Outside is a mural of several children, varying in age and race, holding hands. Inside, a narrow staircase gives way to a spacious, well-lit room with multi-colored walls and hardwood floors. A smaller, separate room contains plastic chairs, tumbling mats and hula hoops.
"Now, when you go inside this bomb shelter, it makes you smile, especially if you know what it was before," Yefet announced as he flipped on the new fluorescent lights, illuminating his vision turned reality.
And indeed, he was smiling.
Tamar Sberlo contributed to this report
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Livnot In The News (from "Hadashot")
Within the framework of the "Adopt a Shelter" project, Livnot U'Lehibanot has approached the largest companies in the Israel to assist in the funding and adoption of public bomb shelters. David Alon, Blue Square, and Ituran have agreed to contribute, and visited Kiryat Shmona to tour the shelters.
Muli Timor, vice president of the Alon Group — owner of David Alon and operators of the Alon gas station chain, Alonit and AM/PM convenience stores, Pizza Hut and KFC — together with Ilan Buchris — vice president of the Blue Square supermarket chain and operator of Mega, Mega Ba'Ir and Shefa Shuk — came last week for a visit and tour of bomb shelters in Kiryat Shmona. The tour was scheduled after Livnot U'Lehibanot approached Davidi Weissman, president of the Alon Group and asked him to adopt a bomb shelter.
Indeed, after a tour of the shelters and observed up close saw for themselves the importance of upgrading the shelters and converting them to a pleasant and inviting space during time of war and during times of calm, agreed to fund repairs to two shelters; one in the center of town and one in the Sprinzak quarter.
Also Izzy Saratzky, owner of Ituran, who contributes much to Kiryat Shmona, accepted the challenge, and Livnot has already begun to repair the shelter on Herzl St. that he agreed to adopt. Saratzky even promised to fund the community center activities for the children of Kiryat Shmona that run in the shelter. In addition to Saratzky's economic support, Ituran employees came for two days to volunteer to help paint and repair the shelter as part of the collaboration that is so important to Ituran and to Livnot U'Lehibanot.
Benny Avrahami, community coordinator, and responsible for locating funding, met with the benefactors. He was elated by their support and said, "the social consciousness of these corporations is heartwarming and testifies to the fact that despite their geographical distance we are close to their heart. This is true solidarity.
We hope that Livnot will find additional corporations to join the initiative of Ituran, David Alon, and Blue Square/Mega.
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Non-profit
group renovates bomb shelters
By JULIA MIRIAM
DAVID AND SHELLY PAZ
June 19, 2007
Nearly one year
after the Second Lebanon War, many of Kiryat
Shmona's public bomb shelters are still uninhabitable,
filled with dead animals and rancid garbage
or lacking proper plumbing, electricity or ventilation,
a Jerusalem Post probe has learned.
The war raised
public awareness of the condition of the bomb
shelters. Many residents were unable to enter
the neglected shelters and were forced to hide
underneath stairs and buildings. Only then did
it become apparent that efforts must be made
to upgrade the outdated structures.
Livnot U'Lehibanot (To Build
and to be Built), a community service and Jewish
education program based in Safed and Jerusalem,
has seized and embraced the opportunity to repair
the shelters, in response to the government's
slow activity in this area. Last December, Livnot's
professionals and volunteers began working together
with local residents to repair the shelters.
Livnot receives much of its funding from the
UJA Federation of New York, which granted $1,657,400
to the project.
The government's slow activity
in this area has spurred much criticism, both
here and in Jewish communities abroad. "Time
is crucial," said Lisa Balkan, director
of marketing and public relations for Livnot.
"We do not know what Hizbullah has up their
sleeves, and this cannot be drawn out into a
12-month project."
The government recently announced
an allocation of roughly NIS 90 million for
a two-stage program to renovate over 3,300 public
shelters and 2,700 low-income public housing
shelters.
Despite this promised funding,
Livnot is adamant about its plans to continue
its renovation activities. "Livnot wants
to be involved, on the municipal level, in the
process of the shelter renovations in the areas
in which we are already working," said
Aharon Botzer, founder of Livnot U'Lehibanot.
Doron Snapper, a spokesman
of Kiryat Shmona, said that Livnot plans to
renovate 75 of the 212 public bomb shelters
in his town. The remainder are to be renovated
by private contractors hired by the state, together
with 35 shelters in public institutions and
37 kindergarten shelters. "In Kiryat Shmona,
there are 234 communal shelters. While 50 of
them will be renovated soon by the B'nai B'rith
non-profit organization and the municipality,
186 communal shelters will be renovated by the
state through the Amidar company."
One of Livnot's goals in
renovating the shelters is to not only make
them usable during war time, but also to adapt
them for communal use during peace time. Many
of the shelters have been converted into centers
for children and youth, libraries, club houses,
dance studios and synagogues.
The passionate volunteers
and the few hired workers have had a heartening
influence on the city. "They have enhanced
and changed the face of the city," said
Tsodok Sacket, head of the Tiferet Organization
in Kiryat Shmona, an aid group that works with
people in crisis situations, assisting with
communication within the home. The organization
currently uses one of the renovated shelters
as its office.
"The government could
not give money for proper shelters," said
Sackat, "but this Livnot project came in
and improved so much." Livnot is funded
by donations and with the efforts of thousands
of volunteers, so it can do more with a limited
amount of money, explained Botzer. Gabi Nachmani,
director of Livnot's bomb shelter renovation
project in Northern Israel, reported that ninety
percent of the shelters in Hatzor do not have
plumbing. For those who were living in the shelter
during the war, whether for two days or 32,
taking a shower was impossible and going to
the bathroom unpleasant. Livnot has begun to
renovate the old shelters, building secure bathrooms
above ground for the residents to use.
"Politics is a non-issue,"
said Meir Talti, leader of the Go Galilee Initiative,
a division of Livnot U'Lehibanot. For the volunteers,
all that matters is their desire to help the
communities affected by the war.
"Israel has given me
so much," said Oren Langberg, a 22-year-old
Livnot volunteer from New Jersey, "and
now I want to give back." The shelters,
cleaned and painted inside and out with picturesque
scenes, are quickly becoming places of safety
and tranquility. Once seen as a place of terror,
they are now seen as a meeting point for positive
activities.
"If there is another
war, people won't leave the city," Sacket
claimed, "because now, they feel safer
due to the efforts of Livnot."
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Defense Ministry
to begin renovations of shelters in North next
month
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent
19/06/2007
The Defense Ministry and Amigour, a housing
company belonging to the Jewish Agency, will
begin renovating 6,000 shelters in the north
next month, a year after the outbreak of the
Second Lebanon War.
The cost of the project is
estimated at NIS 100 million, but regional councils
are complaining about discrimination.
The northern Galilee city
of Kiryat Shmona, whose residents absorbed Katyusha
attacks during the second Lebanon War, has 120
shelters awaiting renovation. According to the
new government funding, that translates into
an average investment of NIS 16,500 per shelter.
But it appears that some Kiryat Shmona residents
have been enjoying better service from other
sources.
The Livnot Ulehibanot (Build and be Rebuilt)
fund has been promoting over the past few months
a renovation project of 50 shelters in Kiryat
Shmona at an estimated cost of NIS 32,000 per
shelter - twice as much as the government's
funding.
'We're talking about shelters
that have been turned into the standard of hotel
suites,' says Beni Avrahami, who coordinated
the association's renovation project in his
neighborhood of Kiryat Shmona. The fund's project
is funded by the UJA-Federation of New York.
Head of the Upper Galilee
Regional Council, Aharon Valensi, complained
last month that 'the government was discriminating
against the residents of regional councils in
the north.'
However, it is well known
that the shelters in regional councils are generally
in better condition than those in cities, so
their renovation is expected to be loss costly.
At any rate, after three
Katyusha rockets fell on Kiryat Shmona Sunday,
many local residents complained that the government
has done nothing to improve their shelters since
last summer's war.
The government will contribute
about NIS 60 million to the renovation project
in accordance with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's
decision last month to allocate funds toward
upgrading shelters. The International Fellowship
of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) will supply the
remaining NIS 40 million.
The government funding will
be used to improving 3,300 public shelters in
towns and cities north of Acre and in the Golan
Heights. The Defense Ministry will be responsible
for the renovation work itself.
The IFCJ will fund
renovation of 2,700 shelters belonging to private
owners, which will come under the responsibility
of Amigour.
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No money, no shelters
Right after the war
the government promised huge budgets to rehabilitate
the north, but shelters there are still not
fit for prolonged occupancy. Promises were made
to reinforce hospitals in the north, but not
a single shekel has been provided
by Itamar Eichner
06.22.07
Less than a month after the
war in Lebanon ended, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
presented to the Cabinet a special plan to rehabilitate
and strengthen Haifa and the north at a cost
of NIS 4 million (about $950,000). Two months
later Ra’anan Dinur, Director General
of the Prime Minister’s Office, declared
that most of the shelters in the north were
prepared. Are they really? An investigation
by Yediot Ahronot found that most shelters in
the north are far from being ready for the next
war.
A source in the Prime
Minister’s Office stated that as of today,
some 90 pecent of the public shelters in the
north are usable, which means they can be occupied
for a short time. However, the experience of
last summer indicates that this is not enough.
In the last war residents of the north were
forced to stay in shelters for days on end without
approcpriate amenities. On this issue nothing
has changes since last year.
Most towns in the north
have still not received a single shekel for
upgrading shelters. This is the case in Ma’a
lot, Kiryat Shmona, Safed, Nazareth, Shlomi,
and other towns.
Some of the towns,
such as Kiryat Shmona, Safed, and Karmiel, chose
not to wait for the government, and raised money
to renovate the shelters. Fifty public shelters
have been renovated in Kiryat Shmona, and 80
in Safed, all by Livnot U’Lehibanot, with
funding from UJA Federation of New York. Some
of the money used for renovating shelters in
Karmiel was raised from the Pittsburgh Jewish
community.
In Tiberias and Haifa
the situation is better. Tiberias received a
NIS 320,000 (about $76,000) budget and started
upgrading shelters, though another NIS 1 million
are still needed. Haifa received NIS 165 million
($39 million) in January to rehabilitate industrial
areas harmed during the war, to upgrade shelters,
and for other projects, and according to the
Haifa municipality, all public shelters in the
city are in very good shape. On the other hand,
many of the city’s private shelters are
still in disgraceful condition, with dirt, broken
furniture, cockroaches, and a strong stench.
A national sample conducted
for the Association for Housing Culture and
the Ministry of Housing indicates that as of
today, some 80 percent of the private shelters
in the northern region are not ready for an
emergency. Many shelters have become storage
rooms over the years, and are full to bursting.
In some buildings residents did not wait for
government aid, choosing instead to clear the
shelters and collect the money for renovations,
but most residents of the north are not able
to afford this. “It’s a catastrophe,”
says a senior offical in the Housing Ministry.
About a month ago, nine months
after the war, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert toured
the north and promised to budget NIS 100 million
($24 million) to upgrade shelters for prolonged
occupancy. Olmert promised that the entire project
would be completed within nine months.
Officials have recently been
sent to assess the state of the shelters. According
to a source in the Prime Minister’s Office,
the work will include not only the 3,300 public
shelters in the north, but also some 3,000 private
shelters. Floors and bathrooms will be replaced,
shelters will be painted, and fans will be installed.
Contractors are being instructed to complete
the work within a few months. “There are
many objective problems,” says a source
in the Prime Minister’s Office. “It
doesn’t just depend on us.”
Hospitals in the north
are also in a sorry state. In December the government
promised to give NIS 400 million ($95 million)
for protection of seven hospitals, but to this
day nothing has been done. Rambam Hospital, which
treated hundreds of wounded during the war, prepared
a plan for reinforcing the hospital which has
not been implemented. The promised NIS 160 million
($38 million) have not been given, and the ER
continues to function with a tin roof. The situation
in other northern hospitals is similar, other
than in Nahariya, where an underground hospital
was dedicated four years ago. Idan
Avni, Yisrael Moshkovitz, Lior El-Hai, Eitan
Glickman, Goal Beno, Eran Navon, and Ofer Petersburg
contributed to report.
UJA allocates USD
9.3 million for Kiryat Shmona recovery
Organizations raise
millions in funds for the recovery of northern
town following second Lebanon war
Ynetnews Published: 10.03.06,
18:51
United Jewish Communities
(UJA) Federation of New York will allocate more
than USD 9.3 million from its Israel Emergency
Campaign (IEC) for the recovery of Kiryat Shmona,
which suffered the most severe damage during
the Lebanon war, it was announced in New York.
The funds will be provided
for projects to be implemented by five organizations,
as detailed below.
Merryl Tisch, IEC Allocation
Committee chair of UJA Federation, who was part
of a UJA Federation leadership mission that
visited Kiryat Shmona during the war, personally
witnessed both the physical devastation and
emotional trauma of the community.
“Today Kiryat Shmona
residents, especially the children and elderly,
are suffering from trauma. Businesses and factories
have been closed; the city’s education
infrastructure has been damaged. We have witnessed
the strength of these people despite this tragedy,
and we wanted to respond swiftly and comprehensively,”
she said.
She continued, “We
know that while most of northern Israel was
dramatically impacted by the Katyusha rockets,
no city encountered the number of rockets and
the damage, both physical and psychological,
to the extent of Kiryat Shmona,”
“The Jewish Agency
reached out to us because they believed it would
be important for the largest Jewish community
in the world to invest in Kiryat Shmona,”
said John S. Ruskay, executive vice president
& CEO of UJA Federation of New York.
Five grants total
USD 9.3 million
USD 2,676,960 to the Jewish
Agency for Israel to reach out to 3,756 students,
ages 6 to 18, in 11 schools through programs
that provide individual attention, one-on-one
counseling, social and cultural opportunities,
and professional staff support.
USD 2,635,000 to the Joint
Distribution Committee (JDC) to aid Kiryat Shmona’s
economic recovery, strengthen the municipality’s
organizational resilience, and boost the resiliency
of its vulnerable elderly and disabled residents.
USD 2,123,060 to the Israel
Trauma Coalition for the development of a walk-in
treatment center for the entire community, and
a school-based support network within the high
school system at the Danziger School.
USD 1,657,400 to Livnot U’Lehibanot
to bring together teams of North American Jewish
volunteers and local Israelis to repair and
install plumbing and electricity into approximately
100 shelters, and design 30 bomb shelters that
will serve as community and youth centers during
times of peace, creating community and empowering
and strengthening the resiliency of residents.
USD 102,000 to fund the Israel
Association of Community Centers to upgrade
the Kiryat Shmona Municipal Library to serve
as an educational, social, and cultural center
for the entire population.
This summer, UJA Federation
of New York appropriated USD 10 million from
its reserves to immediately send to Israel for
humanitarian assistance. In addition, UJA Federation
has raised USD 44 million through the Israel
Emergency Campaign (IEC), which was launched
in conjunction with the effort of United Jewish
Communities (UJC), which has raised more than
USD 300 million.
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10/20/2006
The Rebuilding
Is On
From
repairing shelters in Safed to providing one-on-one
counseling in Kiryat Shmona, American Jewish
money is fueling the recovery effort up north.
Michele Chabin
- Israel Correspondent
KIRYAT SHMONA
During last
week’s Sukkot vacation, the park next
to the town’s main shopping mall here
was full of noisy children playing tag and rushing
down twisting slides. Some 50 yards away, a
seasonal amusement park was established, with
big, flashy rides and cotton candy. Inside the
busy shopping mall just up the road, dozens
of attentive kids sat spellbound as a magician
amazed them with his sleight of hand.
All over this
quiet town near the northern border with Lebanon,
residents strolled in the cool evening air while
others ate in their sukkahs. Dogs, some of them
homeless from the war, salivated nearby, anxious
for any leftovers.
Given the peaceful
small-town atmosphere that pervaded Kiryat Shmona
during the holiday, it was easy to believe that
life has returned to normal. And while it is
true that schools and most factories and businesses
have reopened since the ceasefire was implemented
on Aug. 14, the people who spent 34 days in
bomb shelters or fled the town for safety, are
still grappling with the war’s many aftershocks.
The vast majority
of residents—who weren’t necessarily
doing well prior to the war—suffered grievous
financial hardship during the conflict as well
as lasting emotional trauma, local officials
say. And the other problems that surfaced during
the war — from the sad state of the shelters
to the failure of municipal and governmental
agencies to provide social services —
have yet to be solved.
To get the recovery
process off the ground, the UJA-Federation of
New York has decided to allocate more than $9.3
million from its Israel Emergency Campaign (IEC)
specifically for the recovery of Kiryat Shmona,
which was hit by more than 1,000 rockets during
the war, and sustained the most damage.
But instead
of handing over the money directly to the municipality,
which has been widely criticized by residents
and the media for the way it mishandled the
crisis, the UJA-Federation has handpicked five
veteran agencies “that have the knowledge
and the ability to develop and implement formative
programs that will strengthen the quality of
life of the citizens of Kiryat Shmona,”
said Stephen Donshik, director of UJA-Federation’s
Israel office.
Of the $9.3
million, nearly $2.7 million will go to the
Jewish Agency for Israel, to help 3,700 students
through programs that provide individual attention,
one-on-one counseling, and professional staff
support. The Joint Distribution Committee will
receive $2.6 million to aid the town’s
economic recovery, “strengthen its organizational
resilience,” (read: figure out an emergency
plan) and upgrade programs that will better
serve the elderly.
Roughly $2.1
million will go to the Israel Trauma Coalition,
an umbrella body for several excellent trauma-related
organizations, to develop a walk-in treatment
center for all citizens, and a school-based
support network. The Israel Association for
Community Centers will receive $102,000 to upgrade
the Kiryat Shmona Municipal Library, to serve
as an educational and social center, while Livnot
U’Lehibanot will get $1.65 million to
bring teams of North American Jewish volunteers
and local Israelis to Kiryat Shmona to repair
100 bomb shelters and to design 30 bomb shelters
that will serve as community and youth centers
during peace time.
The Livnot initiative
promises to be the most hands-on from a volunteer
perspective, because it will encourage American
Jews, especially from New York, to come to Israel
for two weeks to rehabilitate the shelters.
In the process of making the shelters habitable,
they will work and live alongside ordinary Israelis
equally determined to make a difference.
Livnot, which
was founded 26 years ago by Aharon and Miriam
Botzer, immigrants from the U.S., repaired numerous
shelters in Safed, where it is based, throughout
the war. Its volunteers also provided food,
medicine and caregiving services to the residents
who stayed behind, but who had no one, including
social workers or healthcare aides, to help
them.
While the federation
could simply pay local builders to do the work,
rehabilitating the shelters is just one of Livnot’s
goals, Aaron Botzer, an effusive, bearded man
said during a visit last week to one of the
Safed shelters his organization is turning into
a year-round community center.
“This
isn’t just about repair work, though this
is vitally important,” Botzer says. “It’s
about the overseas volunteers getting to know
Israelis and Israel while contributing to the
country, about strengthening all the volunteers’
ties to the Jewish people and Judaism. It’s
about empowering local residents to care about
their shelters and their communities, to transform
them from saying “We deserve this”
to “We deserve this because…”
Avraham Ze’ev,
the man responsible for the upkeep of Kiryat
Shmona’s 180 public shelters, estimates
that 60 percent are in “good” condition.
“There’s
not a single shelter without a problem,”
he said during a tour of a shelter destroyed
by a fire during the war. This particular shelter,
which contains the burned, sooty remains of
sofas and mattresses, has already received a
funding pledge from the United Jewish Communities.
“Almost
all the public shelters are problematic,”
Ze’ev admitted. “Only 60 have air-conditioning,
and the electricity is outdated. All the shelters
are below ground and the air isn’t very
good. The plumbing was overused during the war
and needs to be replaced.” Ze’ev,
who has spent much of the past several months
underground examining the shelters, said the
town lacks both the money and expertise to repair
the shelters.
“The public
shelters are the responsibility of the Security
Ministry, but the money hasn’t been forthcoming,”
he said tersely. The Botzers are more concerned
about the so-called “private” shelters
built by contractors in neighborhoods all around
the Kiryat Shmona, or in the basements of large
residential buildings. Despite the fact that
they were built at the behest of the government,
neither the municipality nor the national government
are prepared to provide money for their upkeep
or rehabilitation.
The result is
that the residents, who are legally responsible
for the hundreds of private shelters, turned
them into storage facilities long ago. Most
do not have toilets or running water, Botzer
said, even though the law requires this.
One such shelter,
in the basement of a run-down apartment block
in a working-class section of town, has several
neatly stacked mattresses, good lighting and
a toilet, but is infested with large cockroaches,
which scurry along the tiled floor the minute
the light comes on. “Some of these buildings
belong to Amidar and it’s their responsibility
to repair them,” Ze’ev said of the
quasi-governmental housing authority.
When a group
of families from Englewood, N.J., arrived in
Safed to clean and paint a bomb shelter, they
found a dark two-room cement block that reeked
of urine. Though swept clean during the war,
the remaining dust makes it difficult to breathe
for more than a few minutes. During the war,
the electricity was supplied, via an extension
cord, by the family that lives next door, the
Zatloffs.
“There’s
no water, no toilet, no electricity and there
are holes in the walls,” Shneor Zatloff
said during the visit to the shelter. “And
there’s no ventilation system,”
he added, coughing.
“It doesn’t
have to be like this,” said Aharon Botzer,
touring what he calls a “model”
shelter in another working-class neighborhood
of Safed. Here, Livnot volunteers have painted
the walls lavender and murals welcome visitors
at the entrance. Downstairs, the floors are
made of sound-absorbent wood and the environment
is inviting.
“We
want to encourage citizens to use the shelters
all year round, as community clubs and meeting
centers,” Botzer says. “If the shelters
are usable during peacetime, they’ll be
ready during wartime.”
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'Don't
put socks in the packages...one of the soldiers
lost a leg'
By GABI
NACHMANI
The writer is director of community service
volunteers for Livnot U'Lehibanot in Jerusalem.
This is a
first-hand report from a Jerusalem-based director
of the volunteer group Livnot U'Lehibanot,
who has been helping with the group's volunteer
effort in Safed and has a son of his own fighting
in Lebanon.
"Twenty
more food packages," yells David, the
foreman for Livnot U'Lehibanot volunteers,
to the people sitting in the dining hall.
Within 10 minutes the packages are ready.
Asher, a volunteer
from Rehovot who came with his car, takes
a crew of volunteers to the homes of a new
list of Safed residents received from the
city emergency services headquarters. The
count of families helped today is up to 130.
Our day had
started with a visit to the Safed Home Front
Command army officers, who allocated another
11 bomb shelters to Livnot. (This is after
Livnot made 18 bomb shelters habitable last
week). Later, the city engineer asked us to
clear out the rubble from the girls' school
which taken a direct hit and whose top floor
might need to be taken apart altogether.
Twelve crews
of volunteers visited close to 130 people,
including 100 elderly. The elderly, whose
caretakers left them alone, have no one from
the municipality to care for them. Upon returning
for lunch, the volunteers reported that they
had bathed people, cleaned their homes, taken
them to the doctor, picked up their medicine,
joined them for a dialysis treatment and did
their shopping.
One lady had
spent the morning attempting to open her bottle
of eye-drops. Another needed to talk about
her fears when the siren went off, and the
feeling of helplessness she had when hearing
the rocket explosions.
After dinner,
we called the officer in charge of the wounded
soldiers in the hospital, and proceeded to
make care-packages for the soldiers. Thirteen
volunteers went to the hospital. "Don't
put socks in the packages," instructed
the officer, "because one of the soldiers
lost a leg, and the matter might be sensitive."
Tamir, a Nahal
solder who hails from Beersheba, gave our
volunteers a first-hand report from the front.
"They fired a missile into the door,"
he reported, "and then four Hizbullah
fighters tried to get into the house we occupied
to kill someone and kidnap a body or a live
soldier. It was the quality of our men and
their determination to win the battle that
made the difference. I finished all nine magazines
and all my hand grenades on them, while I
was already wounded. We killed all of them,
and as soon as I'm better, I would like to
go back to my chevre" - his IDF colleagues.
Tamir told
us,"Kol Hakavod to you all for coming
to visit us at this time." For us, it
was a true lesson in humbleness. Here is a
boy who put his life on the line, thanking
us for coming to visit.
As I've been
writing over the past hour, the siren has
sounded six times and we've heard at least
30 Katyushas falling in the Safed area. But
in general life goes on. We take shelter behind
a thick wall or in the downstairs room, and
as soon as it is over we get on with our missions...
until the next siren.
Yesterday,
when we heard that my own son, Matan, was
coming out of Lebanon for a few days, regrouping
and stocking up, we bought a mountain of pizzas,
a whole bunch of snacks, fruit and cold drinks
and made our way to the border community of
Shtula to meet his unit. The soldiers seemed
well-rested and fed, and were cracking jokes
about Hizbullah.
When the loudspeakers
called for everyone to take shelter, the soldiers
did not even bother to leave the shaded area,
and the only reminder that we are at war was
the big boom that sounded outside my car on
the way in. It was so loud that my left hand,
resting on the car door, was sent flying from
the reverberations.
"My soldiers
are the best in the entire army," the
baby-faced Captain Itamar, commander of my
son's paratroop unit, said to me. "Although
we lost one of our officers a few days ago,
our spirits are very high and we are ready
to go in and do the job."
"I trust
you," I told him as I gave him a big
hug, "that you will do all you can to
look after my son and the other soldiers."
I also told
him I was bringing him blessings from the
entire people of Israel, including our brothers
and sisters overseas, adding: "Those
snacks and pizzas are sponsored by them."
I told the
soldiers about the phone calls I have been
getting every day from our friends from America.
These friends are planning to come in the
next few weeks, and help Livnot with our war
effort.
As we were
leaving we saw some of the soldiers covering
their faces with camouflage paint, readying
for the next mission.
The writer
is director of community service volunteers
for Livnot U'Lehibanot in Jerusalem.
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