Andrea Good

Some set off by plane.  Others by car.  And still others in a shared van.   Their common destination, the mountains of Appalachia, where need wears a human face and tikun olam can be in short supply.

Waiting for them: a massive truck of donated food and other items to unload, a winding ramp to be finished for a man with handicaps, and multiple structures to fix, paint and spruce up — among other projects.

This was tikun olam powered by sweat, a few days of positive works and human connections earlier this month to honor the sacred Jewish value of repairing the world — a guiding Good People Fund (GPF) principle in both theory and practice.

“We are trying to make a little corner of the world slightly better, sooner, for some of these people,” said Peter Freimark, a GPF Board member and volunteer from Cleveland.

He was one of about 20 volunteers from around the country — including a delegation from Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn, NJ — who gathered in McRoberts, a Kentucky town of just under 800 people in a region stained by rural poverty.

Here, unemployment, economic stagnation and lack of social services and opportunity are not distant statistics, but day-to-day reality.

“Every trip to McRoberts gives me and all of our committed volunteers greater understanding of the unique problems affecting people living there,” said Naomi Eisenberger, GPF Executive Director.

“Beyond the physical things that we leave behind, the fact that we care and come back year after year is an indication that we recognize that these people are there and that we care about them.”

At one point, she joined Susie Duncan, a 15-year-resident, to help volunteers unload a 53-foot trailer load of canned food and other non-perishable items, plus household goods and personal hygiene products.  The items will be distributed through schools, churches and community centers to those who need them, and also delivered directly to elderly and homebound people.

“To realize there are people in the world who care about us and our well being gives hope to a very cut-off community,” she said. “When you feel so isolated and that no one cares or is looking, and then The Good People Fund group comes in here and does things for people they don’t know, it restores faith in the goodness of people and what they can do.”

At one home, volunteers finished a job started last year by sealing a lengthy ramp linking a house steeped on a hill with the road below, easing the way for a wheelchair-bound man to socialize within the community.  At another, volunteers helped a recently widowed woman clean and spruce up her home, adding brightness at a vulnerable, lonely time for her.

The June trip marked the ninth year that GPF, in partnership with Congregation B’nai Israel, brought a volunteer corps to McRoberts.  Many participants – from high school students to seniors – have made the trip numerous times.

Andrea Levine of Short Hills, NJ, a member of Congregation B’nai Israel making her second trip to McRoberts, said beyond the hammer-and-nails projects on the ground there, people-to-people connections can be even more long lasting.

“We should all step outside of our comfort zones and help people we may never have met otherwise,” she said.  “Year after year, relationships and trust are built where they never before existed and probably would never be.”

Steve Moehlman of South Orange, NJ, a GPF Board member, underscored the point. He described how a young boy in McRoberts followed him around and befriended him, sharing how he would spend the summer swimming in the local creek with friends and making birdsongs.

“His life may be difficult, but in every basic way, he is just a boy like any other kid anywhere else — and as deserving,” said Moehlman, who has made three previous trips to McRoberts and was accompanied this year by his 25-year-old son, Jesse, who has been going since he was in college.

“It is an immeasurably positive experience to create these connections, find out what we all have in common, and how we can all just help each other overcome the various challenges we all have.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund

As we celebrate our 10^th anniversary year,  we are designing dynamic new channels through which we can share some of the highlights of all of the good your ongoing support makes possible. Ideally, each of you would be able to be at my side each day and watch as we use your dollars and our creativity to improve lives in the US, Israel, and elsewhere around the world. Until that is practical, we hope our monthly Good News e-newsletter will remind you of the good work you make possible.

We also hope that the news we share here will be an antidote to the headlines we all read each morning.  It is very important to me that you — vital members of the GPF community — know about the impact you help to drive and the issues you help to advance. Please let us know your thoughts — we would love to hear from you.

The social hall in a Petah Tikvah community center, just outside Tel Aviv, seemed more like a nightclub, what with a cool DJ, vibrating music, endless food and beverages, and spirited chatter, laughter and singing.

And on this one recent evening, no one here – adults of varying ages and each with a physical or developmental challenge – seemed wanting to be anywhere else.

“I am connected to the people here,” said Liora Bat-Am, 28, who traveled to the event from Haifa.  “People here look at and value me for who I am.”

For her and hundreds of others affiliated with Inbar, an Israeli-based non-profit working to equip the physically or developmentally challenged with tools and capacities for boundless self-confidence, and to find significant relationships in their lives – meaning partners and spouses – attending this event was a way to express a wholeness that for many was once seemingly out-of-reach.

A common narrative thread is shared among each of them – lives of accomplishment measured any which way – serving in the Israeli Defense Forces, perhaps, or earning educational degrees, or rising in their fields, or merely getting up in the morning to face the day with optimism and hope.

Yet always with that hard reality lurking that for them, some basic human aspirations and needs like love and marriage and even families of their own weren’t so likely.

“All my life I was taught to see myself as equal to everyone else,” said Hadera resident Hila Nouri, 32, who herself has physical challenges.  “I did things that everyone else did – I was in the Army and I finished a master’s degree.  But I always thought that I could not have a partner, that I could not be loved.  This is very hard to accept.”

Banishing that mindset is not easy, but is the challenge, and Inbar’s very reason for being.

“Some within our community have never had a date in their entire lives,” said Shoshi Margolin, Inbar’s Executive Director.  “They may be successful in other areas, but at a time and at an age when others are finding significant, loving relationships, they simply are not in the game.  And that is what we are changing, putting them in that game.”

The organization got its start in 2009 by Rabbi Shaul Inbar and close friend Shalomi Eldar.   Inbar, born with Cerebral palsy, often spoke of his deep loneliness, and the pair began a network for people with disabilities to meet others through social events.

Eldar, a rabbi and now a software engineer, said dozens of people across the spectrum of challenges attended that first event, in someone’s apartment, making him realize that the need among this population was deep and widespread.  And in fact, Rabbi Inbar met his future wife at one of these first events, and they were married in 2012.

“I always thought he and others like him should lower their hopes,” said Eldar, who is now Inbar’s Chairman.  “I don’t say that anymore.”

Since that first social event, the organization has grown and morphed into so much more than a mechanism for such meet-ups.

Today, Inbar is actively reaching and engaging about 250 individuals with physical and developmental issues, plus their families, with regular workshops equipping participants with social and communication skills, and building trust, self-confidence and self-esteem within the framework of a relationship.  In May, for example, one workshop entitled “Song of the Heart” explored channels of expression to relay one’s inner thoughts and needs to others, including potential mates.

“Communication is the first thing that I want to help build,” said Margolin, who herself has physical challenges and became Inbar’s executive director early last year and has driven its recent growth in reach and scope.

“This is what enables all of us to know ourselves and those we are meeting, and to know and express what is right for us and what we want and need from anyone, including a potential significant other.”

Under Margolin’s leadership and vision, and with the support of The Good People Fund, Inbar’s work is going even deeper.

Social events are being enhanced, like a recent one in which professional stylists helped to make-up participants and boost their self-regard.  And a mentoring program is being established to give participants ongoing and personalized support to complement more formalized programming and workshops.

Any observer of the Inbar experience is a witness to personal stories of change and transformation, courage, determination and hope.

Shira Lev of Yavne, 39, trains people on how to present themselves before audiences.  But what she puts forth in professional settings was not internalized until she became part of the Inbar community as an individual with physical challenges.

“For myself, I didn’t think that I deserved anything,” she said.  “I was coaching, but I didn’t know how to coach myself.  But here I have learned to communicate with myself and to love myself and to realize that I can do everything that I want.

“I used to pretend that I am normal, and now I know that I am normal.  And now I accept myself and feel like a whole person who can have everything, even love.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund

Much as it is here, Independence Day in Israel is all about barbecues, family outings and the beginning of summer.

For the past few years, Avraham Hayon and our friends at S.A.H.I., an organization which focuses on helping troubled youth through a program that teaches compassion and giving, mark Israel’s independence in a poignant way that reminds everyone of the true meaning of the celebration. While barbecues and beaches are fun, S.A.H.I. participants visit thousands of elders, handing out flowers and hugs and thanking them for their role in building the country. This year, even more groups are involved as “the public is urged to add, each in his or her own way, new meaning to the day.”

It is difficult to watch this film and not get a little teary. It reminds us of the kaleidoscope of different cultures that make up Israel, and also how much strength is gained when everyone comes together.

Yom Huledet Sameach, Israel!

In Israel today, Yom HaZichoron, the country mourns the thousands of lives lost through war and terror attacks. In a place so small, there is no one untouched by these losses. To our friend and grantee, Anita Shkedi, co-founder of the Israel National Therapeutic Riding Association, today is a day of personal pain. Please take a moment to read how one person’s loss has turned into hope for others damaged by war.

Dear Friends,

Today, Yom Hazikaron, is a day of reflection here in Israel as we remember those who have lost their lives in defense of the country. For my family and friends, Yom Hazikaron holds special meaning as we remember my son, Jonathan, who joined the Israeli Army and served his country with pride and enthusiasm. Jonathan died from traumatic brain injuries after being mortally wounded on a rescue mission in the Lebanon. He was a fighter and a very brave soldier. I gave the State of Israel my most precious possession and was left with a choice; either to remain paralyzed at home, or go back to work and cope with this loss by dedicating the rest of my life to his memory. I consider one of INTRA’s most important projects – the mental health and well-being of those who return from war — to be my life’s work, and it is my response to the devastation of Jonathan’s death. It was the best way I knew to help soldiers who return home damaged by the horrors of war. 

Since the Yom Kippur War many thousands of soldiers have arrived home from campaigns with severe injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD is a severe mental health problem that causes intense anxiety, fear, helplessness, and often horror.) Sadly, since the second Intifada  and Operation Protective Edge in 2014 the numbers of soldiers with PTSD symptoms have escalated to tragic proportions. Veteran soldiers suffering from PTSD constantly re-experience the traumatic event, causing them to avoid activities of normal life. PTSD leaves many with a feeling they will always have a gun at their head. Unable to find peace and happiness, they become depressed, have difficulties falling asleep, and when they do sleep they frequently awaken after nightmares and anxiety dreams. The daily news, loud sounds and specific odors remind veterans of combat, and for some, safety is hiding under the bed covers or going no further than the end of the street. They lose contact with their families and friends, are unable to work or study and their quality of life regresses to emotional numbness and mental pain.

Many of these vulnerable veterans come to INTRA wanting to participate in the equine therapy program but we must turn them away as we can only offer places in the program when we have sufficient funding. Currently, only eight veterans benefit from our equine therapy.

 The soldiers of the IDF protect the Land of Israel and, by extension, Jews around the world.  They put their young lives on the line, and many come home damaged by the traumatic experiences they endure. Our responsibility is to make them whole again, but we can only do that with your help. Can you help us rebuild these lives so that fear and pain are no longer part of their daily life?  It costs $2500 to provide one soldier with a year of equine therapy and a chance to live again. 

Thank you,

 Anita

 Dr. Anita Shkedi, Director,  INTRA- Israel National Therapeutic Riding Association