Dear Friends,
The State of Israel is facing difficult days, one of the most difficult it has faced since it was established.
The tragedy is vast and overwhelming. The numbers of murdered, hostages taken and those missing and injured – these are incomprehensible numbers. So many families have had their world destroyed and almost every home in Israel is part of this pain and heartbreaking loss – family members, relatives, close friends and colleagues – we all personally know victims of these last days. The national and personal trauma is unbearable and made worse by the horrific images that have been shared so widely.
Israel is in a state of war, an emergency situation, and hundreds of thousands of people have been mobilized to the army for an unknown period of time.
Very difficult questions will be addressed after the war, but now the people of Israel are united and stand before the greatest challenge we have known in many years. In spite of the great difficulties ahead, with the support from our friends around the world and the spirit of the Israeli people, we have no doubt we will win this war.
The first days of the war revealed failures in the public civil support systems and a lack of ability to quickly respond to the vast dimensions of this disaster. Here is where we found some light within the darkest moments. Civil society across Israel, individual volunteers and civil society organizations, were the first to respond with initiatives to help those in harm’s way, and from all parts of Israeli society, people came together to do what was needed.
With all of the adversity around us, the volunteering and leadership of these people, has truly been something to witness. For many years, the Jerusalem Foundation has stood together with many community organizations and agencies across the city to build a strong civil society network. We have created an emergency fund to support the efforts of this network to respond to the immediate needs of the evacuees and refugees from the war, to support the most vulnerable residents of Jerusalem who are even more at risk in this difficult time, to all the Jerusalem families of the bereaved and the injured who need support.
We have already begun to fund programs across Jerusalem with the help of friends from around the world. Among these are community centers providing support for bereaved families, essential workers and soldiers, including by providing childcare, psychological support, and food deliveries; therapeutic art workshops from Studio of Her Own and theater performances from Kum Kum Theater group, the Train Theater and Mashu Mashu theater group for children evacuated from the south or whose parents have been mobilized with the military; support for isolated elderly including the 600 Holocaust Survivors in Jerusalem currently unable to leave their homes and are in need of care and special childcare centers for children of medical workers whose parents are working around the clock and may not have a parent able to care for them. These and other programs are supporting our most vulnerable and needy in Jerusalem as they face this disaster. With your help, these programs will be able to provide support to all of Jerusalem, and all the people of Israel.
Thank you for your support always and especially now.
With hope for better days,
Your friends at the Jerusalem Foundation
Below is a list of the current needs in Jerusalem which the Jerusalem Foundation is fundraising for, we will update the list as needed.