One Family Fund, “the power of being together”

What does “The Power of Together” mean to confront this Simchat-Torah war? In Israel, how can victims of terrorism, wounded soldiers, ex-hostages, orphans, bereaved families survive and rebuild a future through a protean and ultra-reactive community of solidarity? To experience this therapy of sharing joy and sadness, here is a trip to the heart of the rear base, a day in the South of Israel with the One Family Fund association.

Since October 7, there remains for ten million Israelis a raw trauma, which unfolds live every day. The heroes of the IDF, the funerals dedicated to strength and hope, the 6,000 soldiers miraculously exfiltrated from the combat zones, saved from the worst but injured, amputated, disabled. The more the ongoing tragedy of the hostages still held in Gaza, the more the women victims of sexual crimes committed by terrorists, whether alive or dead or even prisoners of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In addition to the three fronts of a high-intensity war, open in Gaza, South Lebanon and Judea and Samaria, the Hebrew State must also ensure that it accommodates 200,000 refugees and also govern in the face of good and bad news coming from the tunnels, rockets, missiles, infiltrations or diplomatic consultations. All commented on and analyzed day by day by the rabbis, in the light of the Torah during conferences, zooms, celebrations and Shabbatot.

There is the hidden side, the rear base, that is to say an entire country, mobilized as a single family, engaged in an extraordinary survival mechanism. As Rabbi Menachem Akerman says, “this war is a Torah lesson given to the whole world regarding Hebrew morality that helps clarify values. » Here is the story of a day in Ashdod, Netivot and Ofakim with the volunteer coordinators Adi and Tsophiat from the One Family Fund association.

In Ashdod, we meet the father of Ilan-Noam, a young hero of 20 years old, just selected to join the prestigious Golani Infantry Brigade and who died on October 7 in Kizufim. Even though his three brothers and their young children remain, this family is in a state of shock. For what ? Because this unit already has 70 soldiers and officers who died in combat in Gaza in recent months, including its commander Tomer Grinberg. That’s more deaths at the end of December than during the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars combined. That the Golani command base at Nahal Oz had been attacked first, left naked, disarmed, deprived of its surveillance and computer systems, struck down in the first hour of the invasion.

Ilan-Noam urgently called to Kizufim, with another comrade of Golani, armed only with their pistols, between them killed many terrorists, recovered weapons, until the last of their ammunition. So we can guess the extent of the disappointment, the amazement, when the grandfather of five grandchildren tells us: “the pain remains up there and it’s impossible to go up there. The day before Saturday, October 7, I felt bad and thought something terrible was going to happen. But the good Lord told us this will be your country, He gave it to Abraham and until now His promise has been kept. But when we are not together here, there are wars. I am sure that when my son was killed as a hero it was the best moment of his entire life. » You should know that in tribute to their dead, the Golani soldiers engaged in Gaza, had drawn with their armored vehicles, a giant Star of David on the esplanade of a terrorist outpost of Hamas and Jihad now controlled site by the Israeli army.

Then the One Family Fund team met Kathy, Bar’s mother, 23 years old, who died during the Nova de Re’im festival. She and her friends first managed to get away, dodge the danger, only to find themselves under deadly fire from the terrorists. Kathy: “I saw my daughter’s last moments on video, she is crying, in terrible pain and asking to die. She had left in my car with her friends to the festival right after the Shabbat meal. When the alarms sounded, they fled by road but the authorities told them not to go towards Kibbutz Beeri still occupied by Hamas terrorists. They left and collided with a car of Gazan attackers who fired shots at them, shouting that they were going to kill them. My already injured daughter took her courage, got behind the wheel, they drove but she lost control, she was helped then she died. My daughter and I are a family that has always listened to a lot of music. My son has a baby and we celebrated his circumcision in the morning and my daughter’s funeral in the afternoon. We must quickly end all the affairs we have with Gaza, restore Israel’s military authority there and never again leave power to Hamas. » Faced with the toll of the Nova Festival massacre, i.e. 364 dead, the families of 42 victims are demanding 200 million shekels (€50 million) from the State. For this civil trial the parents explain: “A simple telephone call from IDF officials to those responsible for the rave party to disperse immediately, given the risk, would have saved their lives and avoided physical and mental harm to hundreds of participants. »

Then in Netivot we met Rachel, the mother of Eliyahou, 31 years old and father of three children, who was one of the police officers killed as heroes at the Sderot police station. What’s left? A wonderful little film on a smartphone, when Eliyahou’s family and friends came to wish him his birthday in July, at a crossroads in Sderot, where he was providing security for a demonstration. It was the life that transcends all reality, the explosion of happiness, the hugs, the party balloons… But on Saturday morning of October 7, Rachel, mother of Eliyahou, also felt a discomfort like a premonition, she isolate myself to pray. When she learns that “all the police officers in Sderot are dead” she faints.

In this apartment, where Rachel receives us with her husband and her daughter, there is a huge painting which represents the two Eliyahus, Rachel’s father who was a rabbi and her policeman son, hero of Simchat-Torah. In this recent photo, in Eliyahu’s gaze, he has this extraordinary gentleness and this certainty in the depths of his eyes, the same as those of the other heroes who fell for Israel. Rachel: “Our soldiers have light in their faces and the terrorists have darkness in their eyes. »

In Ofakim, One Family Fund invited young war widows to discuss during a session led by a psychologist. Sarah, who lost her husband, is the mother of five children aged from 1 to 14: “being there this evening with people who are going through the same thing as me, it gives me new directions that I hadn’t thought of. Being here gives me strength, hope, for the future, strength for the children, to get up for them in the morning, to smile at my children, for me. » Sarah, when we met her once, we only dream of finding her again to bring her all the solidarity and comfort. This is the daily life of Tsoffiat, 35, coordinator at One Family Fund and whose husband, two brothers, a brother-in-law and father are all in operations with the IDF: “Every morning we get up with the same pressure so you have to be there for them. One Family Fund means being there, each of us for each other, we have the same stories. My friends, my family, my friends ask me but how can you work on this every day? For them this story is very sad but when families send messages, calls, thanks, when they tell me how One Family Fund saved their lives, like those of other parents of missing soldiers and orphaned children. Tonight’s meeting? When we manage to get a widowed woman out of her home, to get her dressed, to come here, that’s already a success, a step forward. Our evenings, our events are like phone chargers, you give a little bit of force and it starts again! »

Associations and volunteers like those of Brother for Life, Latet, Emotion Aid, Yad Lakish, the European Jewish Organization, the Heart of Moms, the Witnesses of our History, form a vast circle without borders, united for maximum, automatic, immediate solidarity, with no real line of separation between the army and families throughout Israel. With 3,200 volunteers, One Family Fund cares for 22,000 people or families through a galaxy of groups, workshops and initiatives. Oriella, One Family Fund communications manager: “we are mobilized 24/7 to give a purpose to people who, in one day, no longer want to do anything other than stare at the wall, who have stopped functioning, who no longer see anyone, who withdraw into themselves. So coming together with people like them is an act of survival. We have orphan evenings, bereaved dads who founded a choir, painting and art therapy classes, theater, body expression, a book of favorite recipes of a missing child, parties, seminars, stays in holiday centers. We work with psychologists, artists, social workers. »

In Topic 2011 number 116, titled “On the principle of the Mitzvah”, psychoanalyst Rachel Brami: “To access the Creator God, it is necessary to go through the other human, considered in Judaism, as a creature of divine essence . In the command to take care of oneself as much as of the other, emerges the humanist dimension of the need to be in movement, in transformation in connection with the other of which we become the guarantor. Kol Israel arevim zé la zé. It is the dynamic of life, which concerns the individual in connection with the collective. » On the hundredth day of this Simchat-Torah war, the primordial value of being together is brought to its highest level by One Family Fund, all associations and the entire people of Israel.

The vision of One Family Fund: “To promote step-by-step rehabilitation and empowerment of every victim of terrorism and their family members so that they can achieve emotional and economic independence. »