Unbelievable Moments

February 4, 2009
Sitting in a café at the end of Keren Hayesod, overlooking Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem, I asked Arnie Draiman how the Israeli population responded to assist residents of the south during the war. Arnie has many jobs, but his primary one is serving as a consultant to donors from North America who want to give tzedakah in Israel. He serves as the local contact, eyes on the ground, for these donors. He is a colleague of Danny Siegel, the writer and teacher and head of the recently closed Ziv Foundation. I was curious based on my participation in the UJC conference calls about how to mobilize an emergency fund and later calls about how to allocate $10 million for proposals by JAFI and the JDC to assist residents in the south. I wondered what Israelis were doing and how did these particular proposals align with what I assumed were many other actions under way. My interest was further provoked by the experience in the U.S., where there is an outpouring of private support in response to disasters like Katrina or the tsunami or 9/11.
Arnie described a range of responses, which, unfortunately, do not make it into the English press or at least the press that I was reading. Somebody organized the sale of challahs from bakeries in Sderot so that each Shabbat during the war 10,000 were brought from those beleaguered businesses and sold in Jerusalem. Many people housed families that fled north. He had requests from some families for financial support to help feed the extra three or four strangers that were visitors in some households, but he estimates that for every request he had for 1000 shekels there were many other families simply absorbing the extra costs. Dormitories in schools opened to shelter kids, so that there were 4 or 5 in a room instead of the usual 2 or 3. While the public obviously supports the soldiers on all of the dimensions that such support implies, reporting of these less apparent, but equally important, elements of a cohesive and caring is an important part of the response to the war. I think that this failure to incorporate these strategies into our consciousness and discussions may reflect too much attention to needs/deficits and not enough to assets, particularly in this economically thriving country.
By coincidence, I had a concrete opportunity to think about tzedakah later in the afternoon. Linda’s friend Ruthie, from ulpan 45 years ago, invited us to a presentation at the Jerusalem Conservatory Hassadna. The Conservatory is over 30 years old. It meets in a three-story school from 2 in the afternoon until 7. Because it is a shared space they have to pack up the classrooms, set up rooms for individual music lessons and chamber groups, and then reverse the process at 7. And for this they have to pay the city of Jerusalem 21,000 shekels (about $5000) per month, but that can be the topic of another entry. About three years ago, Ruthie encouraged the Conservatory to develop a program to recruit Ethiopian kids, both to enrich the cultural diversity of the program and to provide new and creative ways to enhance the lives of Ethiopian kids who face many, many barriers, as they struggle in this new land. The effort was so successful, not only in developing musical talent, but also in enriching other dimensions of their lives and their families that soon the Conservatory was asked about kids at risk who were not Ethiopian and then about kids with disabilities. These special kids now make up about 20% of the enrollment of over 500. Two aspects were especially important. First, they do not just provide music lessons. They visit homes, help with practice, tutor for homework, and encourage family participation (often the absence of bus fare is a barrier) at concerts and recitals. Second, the kids in this program are readily incorporated into chamber groups; in the current parlance, they are “mainstreamed.” We saw a duet between a “regular” 12 year old violinist and a girl with autism, accompanying her on the piano; we saw a jazz quintet of young teens, which was the first “public” performance by the 14 year old Ethiopian sax player. He was so proud when we applauded at the end that it may take him a while to play the sax again, because I am sure he strained so many smile muscles. I am not quite sure, because I was clearing a few tears from my eye. Everybody is struggling due to the financial implosion and the Madoff scandal. Two foundation supporters have cut thousands in funding in the middle of the year. The teachers and staff are so dedicated that they would never consider dropping a kid, but the need for support to pay the $2300 yearly tuition is palpable. Lina, a former teacher at the conservatory and now the director of the special program, and Ronit, a special assistant/outreach worker for these kids, were inspiring as they repeatedly referred to “unbelievable moments.”