Several months ago, I heard about an all-women volunteer trip to Israel through OU Birthright with a group from Baltimore. I immediately joined; I didn’t think about how my husband would handle eight days alone with the kids, putting it in the “future” category of problems. And before before I knew it, five months later, I was in line to board an El Al flight, surrounded by the women in my group. It was very hard for many of us to leave our families, but we comforted, consoled, and supported each other. This was my first experience with how wonderful this group of ladies was.
Day One
Our group of 29 women came mostly
from Baltimore, but we also had members from New York, Memphis, New Jersey,
Silver Spring, and even Australia! After arriving at 6:00 a.m., we headed to
our hotel in Jerusalem. We had the day free until check-in at 3 p.m., so, I did
what any normal person just arriving to Israel on a Thursday does: I headed to
the shuk! Our hotel was in a great location, right next to the bus
station and the light rail, so it made for easy travel and walking to popular
destinations.
At our opening meeting, we got to
know our wonderful madricha, Shoshana, and each other. We shared where
we were from, some of our current life story, and the reason we wanted to go on
the trip. Many women expressed how, after October 7th, they felt
powerless from afar and wanted to find a way to give to Israel. And give is
what we did.
Day Two
On Friday morning, we headed to a
farm, about an hour from Jerusalem, to pick weeds from zucchini plants. We finished
the work in much less time than was allotted. Shmoozing along the way, my
partner and I were the last to finish. The weather was hot, and we stopped for
frequent water breaks. Talking to each other from our respective rows, we learned
about each other’s children and the husbands we left behind.
Shabbos was starting at 4:09 p.m. With
the seven-hour time difference, it didn’t leave much time for calling our families
back home. Many of the women spent Shabbos with friends and family. Those who
stayed were treated to a warm, lively Shabbos experience at the hotel. The hotel
was hosting several simchas that Shabbos, from aufrufs to bar
mitzvahs. It was great for us to watch the cute children, the beautiful head
coverings, and Israeli clothing styles. It was a bittersweet moment for me,
being away from my children, who usually surround me as I light the candles.
But I was energized being with Jewish women of all types doing the same mitzvah
together in our holy land.
What a spread this hotel put out! I
could’ve eaten just the salads and challah and been satisfied. Israeli salads
are so fresh and delicious, and the hotel had many to choose from. They also
had soup, fish, chicken, meat, rice, potatoes, and green beans. Dessert was 10
different cakes cut into individual servings, plus grapefruit!
There were many other groups eating
in the same room, and we enjoyed hearing the singing and conversation. When it
came time to bentch, there were no Ashkenazi bentchers in sight, so
we did our best using our memory and the Sefardi siddurim. After dinner,
I wasn’t quite ready to go to bed that early, so some of us sat in the lobby
and talked. One of my hesitations about the trip was that, although I knew the
other women slightly, I wasn’t really friends with most of them. But I enjoy
meeting new people and hoped we would become friends. And that’s exactly what
happened.
Day Three
Shabbos morning, after finally
catching up on much needed sleep, I enjoyed people-watching and more chatting
with our group in the lobby. I was happy to be going to lunch with friends from
Baltimore who had made aliyah. We were treated to great food and great
conversation. Walking back to the hotel, the sun was setting, and the weather
could not have been more pleasant. Havdalah was set up in the lobby and was
melodically sung by numerous men. What a lovely way to end Shabbos in
Jerusalem.
Day Four
I wasn’t looking forward to this
day, but my apprehension turned out to be unnecessary. The day was full of meaning,
understanding, and connection. We headed south, to see the Nova music festival
site and other areas that were affected by October 7th. We started
at the Salad Trail, where we met our guide, Ivan. The Salad Trail, named for
the many vegetables grown nearby, is only a short distance from Gaza but was
inexplicably not attacked by Hamas. They had several close calls on the moshav and
sadly lost members in other ways that day. After relating his captivating
story, Ivan took us around the greenhouses. We smelled and tried fresh herbs,
cherry tomatoes (an Israeli invention), cucumbers, and baby lemons. Our work for
that day involved pulling up old tomato plants to make room for the new ones. Volunteers
are very important on the Salad Trail as no workers from Thailand are coming. Ivan
taught us about drip irrigation, another Israeli invention, which allow the
plants to be watered even in the middle of a desert.
We stopped in Sderot for lunch and
continued to a lookout point, from where we clearly saw Gaza and how close we
were to it! Sderot was heavily attacked on October 7th. Our guide
for the day, Chava, took us to the Sderot police station, where she relayed the
story of what happened there, and we read the memorials of the residents killed
that day.
After Sderot, we headed to the Nova
site. On the way, something profound happened. Shortly before we reached Nova,
we saw people lining the streets and realized that we were about to witness
history. The body of Hadar Goldin, Hy”d, was being returned, after 14
years in Hamas captivity. The raw emotion of that moment hit me hard, and I burst
into tears of happiness and of sadness. From the heaviness of that moment, we
turned into Nova.
Nothing prepares you for seeing the
spot where such atrocities happened, where our people were killed just for
being Jewish – where a peaceful festival turned into a mass killing ground. I
walked through the memorials, lovingly printed in Hebrew and English and
decorated by family and friends. Each memorial spoke of the kindness of their
loved one and recounted how they died. My heart grew heavier with each step. I
found the memorial of Debbie, a police officer from the moshav whom Ivan had
told us about earlier, who was killed at the festival.
What happened next will stay with
me forever. It is one of the moments that stands out from my trip. Our group reconvened
at the stage, which is still in the spot it stood on October 7th, its
walls filled with memorials. We sat in the middle, 31 women trying to process
what we saw. After a short talk from Chava, two women from our group began to
sing. The rest of us joined in. The sadness and connection I felt, sitting on
the spot where my brothers and sisters were killed, was too much. Singing
helped as an outlet for our feelings and connected us with everyone there. People
stopped to listen, and the tears poured out freely from so many of us. I
realized at that moment that it’s hard to fully understand October 7th
without seeing the Nova site.
The sun was beginning to set as we
left the stage. Chava led us to the yellow dumpsters, where people hid for
hours, sending messages to their loved ones. Sadly, they were found and killed.
Their messages are now posted on the walls of the dumpsters. The memorial was
poignant and painful. The whole experience in the south was one of sadness, but
I left feeling more connected to Nova, to Israel, to the Jewish people, and to the
group of women I was so lucky to experience it with.
Day Five
The next day it was back to work. At
Anava Vineyards, we met Nadav, who had recently returned from miluim
(reserve duty). He told us his life story. After a midlife crisis, he left his
office job and bought a vineyard. He shared how his connection to Hashem grew
through working the land and having faith that rain would fall and his vineyard
would grow and thrive. Our job was to remove the cardboard cartons supporting
the grape saplings. I collected them for disposal on a large tarp that I pulled
from place to place where we worked. After several hours of work in the hot
sun, we headed back to Jerusalem for lunch and free time. Later that afternoon,
we heard from a speaker, Neil Lazarus, who helped us understand the situation
between Israel and Hamas, as well as other political information about Israel.
Day
Six
On Tuesday, we headed north,
stopping first in Petach Tikvah to volunteer at Israel Support Bridge (ISB). ISB
sends supplies to soldiers and civilians. We spent hours organizing clothing,
bags, and so many belts! We also wrote letters to soldiers to be included in
the packages. ISB is a great way to give soldiers and Israelis what they need,
and you can contribute at https://israelsupportbridge.com/.
As we were having lunch at a mall,
one of our members was able to orchestrate something amazing. We were not far
from Kfar Saba, where they were sitting shiva for Hadar Goldin. We
finished quickly and went to be menachem avel the Goldin family. We
arrived, 29 women from abroad using our free time to comfort this family. We
thought that’s what we went for, but in fact, they comforted us. We sat with
his twin brother and his mother. His brother told us he felt that Hadar was one
of the last hostages to be returned because Hadar had to be watching over those
who were still in Gaza. That’s how he was in life and, in turn, in death. He
spoke of a caring soul. His mother shared about their fight for his return and
how, for the last eight years, they rallied weekly at the spot where his body had
been returned a couple days earlier. After he was killed, his family found a Mesilas
Yesharim sefer in which Hadar had included handwritten comments. It has
now been published with his commentary, and they are working on publishing it
in English. When we asked how we could raise children like Hadar, his mother
gave us chizuk and told us we should enable them to learn and grow, both
by letting siblings work things out among themselves and giving them
opportunities like extracurricular activities. It was an inspiring experience
we will never forget.
On our last night, our madricha
Shoshana led us in a reflective activity, where each woman shared a special experience,
thoughts on volunteering, or how she felt about the situation in Israel, now
that we had met so many Israelis and learned their stories. Here are some of
our takeaways:
“It was such a rollercoaster of
intense high and lows; it feels like we’ve been here for 500 days.”
“I thought it was going to be
physical work, but it was spiritual work.”
“Feeling the lightness of being
with people who share the same values, your family, your people. It’s heavy
stuff but there’s a shared love between everyone.”
“Since October 7th,
I’ve been living with such heaviness. With this group, I felt safe to deal with
my emotions and turn the darkness into joy. It was very cathartic.”
Day Seven
Our last day involved volunteering
and touring in the north. We painted bus stations in the community of Mitzpe
Hila, right on the border of Lebanon. They are so close that the response
time to a rocket is zero seconds. By the time the siren sounds, the rocket has
already landed or been taken care of. Sadly, because of the dangers of war,
many young families have left, and there are few young children. They are
hoping more will return or move there. The community was a lovely place, and we
learned that this is where Gilad Shalit grew up and where his mother still
lives. They described the celebration when he returned from captivity. One
woman told us how her son was supposed to go to the Nova festival but decided
against it that very morning.
As we toured the area, we drove
right next to the border wall, and many of us got messages on our phones saying,
“Welcome to Lebanon. Your phone plan does not cover phone calls or messages
from Lebanon.” The scenes in the north are beautiful, and we stopped at a
lookout for a view into Lebanon and learned history of the conflict between that
country and Israel.
Our final stop was at Meron to
visit the kever of R’ Shimon bar Yochai, where we davened Mincha. What a
special way to end this meaningful trip. From there we drove to the airport,
where, due to logistics, we were dropped off about six hours before our flight!
All 29 of us agreed that this trip
was a spiritual and emotional high, and as I write this, weeks later, we are
still coming down from it. We had all been to Israel before but never on this
kind of trip, and we are all changed for the better. We feel more connected to
the land and to the Jewish people. We learned so much about how Israelis dealt
with and are dealing with October 7th, and their willingness to be
open infused our trip with meaning and connection.
Our madricha had a wish for
us – that we should use this trip as a way “to educate your kids and let it
flow on to others.” We will never forget the unique and meaningful experiences
we had and how we bonded through them. I hope our experiences have educated and
inspired you, because I know we are forever changed.
Fallon Saposnik is a mom, teacher,
kosher food enthusiast, and founder of Camp Mommy (the go-to place for
Baltimore family activities). She loves connecting kosher travelers with
options for vacations or day trips. Fallon has a degree in culinary arts from
the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts and loves cooking and baking for friends
and family. She leads a monthly Cookbook Club with local moms. Fallon is
locally recognized as the go-to expert for questions about kosher products at
Costco or Aldi. She can be reached at fallon144@gmail.com.
