It’s impossible to comprehensively catalog the acts of hessed (kindness) and unity, many of which have sprung up seemingly overnight, in Israel and throughout the world in response to Operation Swords of Iron. Here we provide a window into some of the glory of the Jewish people in Israel and their supporters around the world.
- Millions of dollars have been raised from donors worldwide, with a concentration on funding numerous Israeli organizations in order to support the war effort. The funds have gone to purchase supplies for medics and first responders; tactical gear and equipment for IDF soldiers; medical treatment for the 3,000+ wounded civilians; emotional and psychological support for survivors; and much more.
- Countless Tehillim (Psalms) groups on WhatsApp have been formed, resulting in thousands of chapters of Tehillim being recited daily by thousands of Jews in Israel and abroad for the safety of our IDF soldiers, for the safe return of the hostages, and for Am Yisrael (the Jewish nation) as a whole.
- Hundreds of Jewish boys and men are volunteering to tie thousands of pairs of army green tzitzit (specially knotted ritual fringes, or tassels) for the soldiers. Synagogues and schools are offering rooms in their buildings for the effort.
- Drivers are traveling all over Israel to pick up and deliver army supplies and medical equipment where they are needed most. This involves many long hours and late nights on the road to get the deliveries to their intended recipients.
- With the cut in public transportation, soldiers are left without a way to get to their army bases. Volunteer drivers are taking the soldiers all over the country so they can join their units.
- Endless amounts of food and beverages, such as trays of cookies, containers of hot soup, fresh pita and hummus, even sushi, are being prepared and delivered to army bases, guard posts, and numerous other destinations throughout the country. Before Shabbat, special attention was given to baking and delivering countless loaves of challah and bottles of grape juice to enable the soldiers to make Kiddush and Hamotzi.
- There are tremendous acts of unity across the Jewish spectrum. Hassidim are delivering pizza to soldiers; haredi yeshiva students are tying tzitzit for soldiers; non-kosher restaurants are making their kitchens kosher in order to cook kosher meals for religious soldiers; non-religious women are committing to take on the mitzvah of lighting Shabbat candles and/or wearing modest clothing; and non-religious men are committing to wearing a kippah. Jews all over the world are turning toward Torah and mitzvot.
- Non-religious male soldiers are now asking for their own tzitzit, kippah, and tefillin (phylacteries) to wear on and off the battlefield. Jews are giving their time and money to ensure that all who reach out are granted their request. One group sat down to crochet a batch of kippot, with notes to the soldiers praying that Hashem (God) should keep them safe. Donors are offering to purchase tefillin for anyone who asks. Their idea is to purchase one pair of tefillin for every victim of the war. Shipments of tzitzit are coming in from all over the world.
- Although Israel is under attack, certain cities are less beleaguered than others. Thousands of families from the “safer” cities have opened their homes to families who live close to the Lebanon and Gaza borders, enabling them to escape so they can benefit from the relative quiet. Owners of empty apartments and vacation homes throughout the country are offering their properties free of charge to accommodate families escaping from the North and the South.
- Dozens of toy and clothing drives have been established to collect for families who fled with nothing.
- There are countless offers to foster or adopt children who have become orphans as a result of the attacks.
- Yeshiva and seminary students and other young people are going to supermarkets that are currently short staffed to help stock the shelves.
- Meal trains, offers for babysitting, toy drives, camps, and offers to run errands are being coordinated for women whose husbands were called up for reserve duty.
- Nursing mothers are donating their breast milk for babies whose mothers were killed or cannot afford to buy formula.
- Hundreds of people waited at Ben-Gurion Airport to greet and sing for the reservists who returned to Israel from abroad in order to don their uniforms and fight in the war.
- Dozens of Torah learning initiatives, such as committing to learn the halachot (Jewish laws) of shmirat halashon (guarding one’s speech) or adopting a soldier’s name in order to learn in the merit of his safety, have recruited thousands of participants.
- Hundreds of volunteers dig graves so the dead can be respectfully buried sooner rather than later.
- Donors have purchased hundreds of airline tickets or organized private planes to send reservists back to Israel.
- Donors have purchased millions of dollars’ worth of equipment, and then paid to ship hundreds of pounds of cargo via commercial airlines.
- Thousands of people have shown up for the funerals and shivas of the civilian victims and the IDF soldiers who fell in battle. Others have set up meal trains to send hot food to families who lost loved ones in the war.
- In order to supply soldiers with much-needed gear and equipment, store owners have cleared their warehouses and shops, offering goods for free or with steep discounts.
- Children are drawing pictures and writing letters of encouragement and love to be sent to soldiers on the front lines. Photographs of army tanks decorated with children’s notes circulate on social media.
- At least one man rigged up his vehicle and drives to army bases so dozens of soldiers can charge their phones at the same time.
- Bringing love and support to the streets: Israelis all over the country are gathering on street corners, standing in front of shops, and parading in car processions, waving Israeli flags and holding signs that read Am Yisrael chai! (the nation of Israel lives).
- Fulfilling the mitzvah of bikur cholim (visiting the sick and wounded): For the 3,000 wounded Israelis recovering in hospitals, the days are long and painful. Jews of all ages, including celebrities, are volunteering their time to visit the wounded, bringing food packages and warm hugs, sending messages of support and best wishes for a speedy recovery.
- Soldiers who are working for hours in the field are often wearing the same clothes covered in dirt, sweat, and, in some cases, blood, day in and day out. Numerous private citizens are doing their laundry and returning clean clothes to our dedicated soldiers.
- There are stories of Israeli civilians who literally ran into the line of fire without any protective gear in order to rescue citizens in the South.
- Rabbis composed special prayers for the safe return of the hostages and for the safety of the nation.
- Trauma professionals are offering support, guidance, and interventions for the victims and Jewish community at large, free of charge.
- Volunteers are taking to the fields in order to harvest food, to be donated to families and soldiers in the battlefield.
- Two mitzvot that are especially relevant to women are challah baking and lighting candles to bring in Shabbat. For Parashat Bereshit, which marked the completion of the first week of the war, numerous initiatives were spread across social media asking women (especially non-religious women) to commit to lighting candles and baking challah for the merit of the safety for our soldiers and the hostages.
- Just One Shabbos: There is a teaching that the strength of Am Yisrael comes from those who keep Shabbat and its halachot (laws). Last Shabbat, Parashat Bereshit, there was a worldwide initiative asking even the non-religious Jews to keep Shabbat for the merit of its protection and for the sake of our soldiers and hostages.
- Medical personnel living abroad flew to Israel to provide their expertise to hospitals in order to assist with the round-the-clock demands placed upon an already overwhelmed medical staff.
- With so many wounded, the demand for blood was drained faster than the blood banks could keep up with. Calls for people to donate blood were sent out on social media. Thousands of people heeded the call, waiting in line for as long as six hours to donate. Others were turned away because the number of people wanting to give blood was more than the workers could manage.
- In order to bolster the safety of communities across the country, numerous volunteers have signed up for neighborhood patrol.
- Big initiatives are incredible, but “hessed also starts at home.” On a small scale, numerous people are doing acts of kindness and community service to help out their friends and neighbors, such as staffing the local post office, picking up packages, and offering rides.
- When hundreds of thousands of reservists were called up on Simchat Torah, many took their family’s only car to drive to their bases all over the country. A new initiative was started for volunteer drivers to go to the bases, often hours away from their communities, to bring the cars back to the reservists’ families.
- Volunteers from Yedidim go to people’s homes to help seal the heavy metal closure for safe room windows and to fix the door so civilians have functioning safe rooms to escape to in case of rocket attacks.
ERICA SCHACHNE, editor of the Magazine, shared this thought about the outpouring of hessed. “As Below, so Above. There’s a spiritual concept that every little act that you do has an effect Above. Even if you think you’re helpless to influence the unfolding events breaking our hearts, one act of kindness actually impacts the world in a positive way.
“Only when we ourselves enter the Above world will we watch the movie of our lives and see the endless ripple effects of our tiny – to us – thoughts and actions,” she said.
Inspiration by WhatsApp
Two young mothers – Michali Caplan from Ramat Beit Shemesh and Tara Horn from Neve Daniel – each initiated WhatsApp groups to share uplifting news and inspiring stories related to the war.
Caplan told the Magazine, “I wasn’t coping, and I was not managing to hold it together. I was going online every few minutes to check the news. I was falling apart every minute I had by myself. Every time I went online, I saw horrific, devastating images.
“And every time I went online, I saw the most beautiful acts of giving and kindness I had ever seen. When I looked at those beautiful images, it gave me a sense of hope and pride; it was the only thing that got me through.”
She decided to share these acts of goodness with others through WhatsApp. Caplan named her group The Beauty of the Jewish Nation and attracted close to 1,500 subscribers in a matter of days. She explained that her goals in starting the group were to “try to help people get through this awful time by focusing on the absolute beauty of our nation, and the incredible acts of giving.” She also wanted to give people an alternative to the dark side of social media. “I wanted their feed to be full of inspirational and uplifting posts as well,” Caplan commented.
“We are finally seeing the Jewish world coming together in a way they never have before. Inspiring people to get through is one thing, but I also wanted to allow people to see the unity of the Jewish people – how possible it is to let go of differences, to love each other no matter what. I wanted to document it, so that when this all blows over, we’ll be able to look back and see how united we are able to be, not only in times of darkness, but always.
“One thing I’ve seen through this group is that no one is sitting back and saying they don’t live in Israel so there’s nothing they can do. Everyone is doing whatever they can, helping in any way that they can or taking things on in the merit of their brothers and sisters. Everyone is doing something. And it’s beautiful.”
Tara Horn’s motivation to open Iron Swords Inspiring Stories was almost identical to Caplan’s. “The original motivation is that I found myself scrolling through the news, which is obviously terrible and sad and didn’t put me in a good place. It’s really, really heartbreaking, and I wanted to have some positive news because, even despite this terrible, terrible thing that’s going on, there’s a lot of really, really good things we’re seeing. For me, I just needed it to stop looking at the news.”
Iron Swords Inspiring Stories has close to 3,000 subscribers. Horn reflected, “It is so wonderful to see everyone doing whatever they can to help. I like seeing the range of pictures from all over the world [depicting] everyone doing whatever they can.
“I have gotten tons of messages about people thanking me for giving them strength during this time. [The] focus [of the group] is not to raise money, but as a by-product, we raised a couple of thousand dollars that went directly to vests [for] soldiers. We also helped some soldiers get tefillin that they [didn’t] have.”
The Shmira Project
In 2006, Batsheva Goldman was inspired after hearing that “the Bostoner Rebbe and Rav Simcha HaCohen Kook of Rehovot teamed up and offered a prayer partner for soldiers at war. I thought this process had a particularly geula – redemptive – quality to it.
“In 2012, my son was a lone soldier in the paratroopers. It looked like the IDF was going into Gaza. We [my husband, Yaakov (Jon), and I] launched the Shmira Project [ShmiraProject.com] on a small scale, and the ground invasion was called off.
“During Tzuk Eitan [Operation Protective Edge] in 2014, The Shmira Project grew. Parents would call, email, and text their soldier’s names in. Yaakov and friends would drive to the Gaza border to hand clipboards to soldiers. We had over 70,000 participants that summer from over 35 countries. It was exhilarating to realize how Am Yisrael can come together, and we decided to make aliyah the next summer,” Goldman reported.
Today, The Shmira Project has a handful of volunteers throughout Israel and in the US managing the logistics.
Goldman is aware that people in Israel have started alternate projects with similar goals. “I’m very happy for the many groups that have started organically. The more tefilot [prayers] and mitzvot [good deeds], the better,” she said.
“The Shmira Project is the largest automated matching program. Our goal is to reach out to the wider world: to people who don’t know about these informal lists and to people who don’t have family in Israel. It’s to galvanize support for individual Israelis in danger. Because we’ve done this before, we are very attuned to preserving the privacy and security of soldiers.
“We’ve received participants from 35 countries: almost all of South America, most countries in Europe, as well as Malaysia, Japan, Korea. In general, once the website reaches a few prominent people (connectors) in a city, it spreads. We can follow the website bouncing from community to community by watching the data come in.
“My hope is to bring this concept to the wider world – to make it possible for Jews and Israel supporters worldwide to have a personal connection with our people and the struggle against our enemies. I get choked up when reviewing the data and realizing how many people around the world support Israel. Their words of encouragement are bright lights in a world of confusing moral relativism,” Goldman concluded.
Lev LaChayal
The only yeshiva center for lone soldiers, Lev LaChayal is based in Yeshivat Lev HaTorah in Beit Shemesh. At any given time, Lev LaChayal, led by director Rav Dudi Winkler and executive director Rav Binyamin Kwalwasser, is directly responsible for up to 60 lone soldiers who are on active duty, stationed at Israel’s borders, checkpoints, and army bases all over the country. From the first day they don their uniforms, these brave soldiers look to Lev LaChayal for emotional, moral, and physical support throughout their service.
When Israel launched Operation Iron Swords, the requests for gear and equipment came flooding in from more than 150 soldiers, including Lev LaChayal alumni, who are stationed throughout Israel. Lev LaChayal jumped into action and has been working around the clock to fulfill each request, providing each soldier with the life-saving gear they need in the field to fight this war.
To date, Lev LaChayal has distributed thousands of items of tactical equipment, toiletries, thermal wear, food, first-aid kits, and more to soldiers all over the country. The materials that pour into the Lev LaChayal Support Center on a daily basis come not only from businesses in Israel but also from parents and supporters in North America who send suitcases stuffed with donations for their sons and brothers fighting in the war. Volunteer drivers take the carefully packaged boxes and deliver them to remote locations, wherever the soldiers may be, no matter how far.
Their mission is simple: Help the soldiers at any cost.
Christian support
Christian Zionists all over the world have been activated to help since the war began. Here are some examples from four different organizations.
Jonathan Feldstein, a Jewish man living in Efrat, is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation, an organization that builds bridges between Jews and Christians with Israel. He reported that “Immediately since the outbreak of the war, I have been inundated with an outpouring of support from Christians from throughout the world, personally and on behalf of the Genesis 123 Foundation. In addition to briefings and interviews and inspiring prayer events in Nepal, South Africa, Nigeria, Sweden, the UK, Brazil, and across the US, we have received numerous donations.”
Feldstein told a particularly moving story. “I got a call from a woman apologizing that she was only able to donate $3.44. The conversation lasted 10 to 15 minutes, with my sharing about what’s going on, why every dollar matters, and telling her how moved I was by her donation and how it was a privilege for me to be able to thank her directly.”
Christian Friends of Israel was established in 1985 to “comfort and to support the people of Israel, and to inform Christians around the world of God’s plans for Israel.” Working with a skeleton staff, CFI is involved in a wide range of supportive projects such as supplying security drones to the IDF and to farmers; organizing temporary housing, food, and clothing for families displaced from the South; and providing supplies and aid to those near the Gaza border.
Operating since 1976, Bridges for Peace has been devoted to “Christians supporting Israel and building relationships between Christians and Jews in Israel and around the world.”
The BFP chapter in Korea heard about 30 Israeli Jews who were traveling throughout Korea when the war broke out. They “decided to welcome them with a surprise at the airport as they returned from traveling in different regions of Korea. We didn’t have much time and we were short on personnel, but we made small gifts and went to the airport, holding up a banner saying “Bless Israel.”
“When the Jewish travelers arrived and saw this, they were deeply moved. They hugged us and thanked us. They embraced us and shed tears. Everyone cried and comforted each other. Some of them showed pictures of their families and even pictures of their sons in the army.
“We thank God for guiding us to comfort them and share our hearts during this difficult time for Israel,” said Doorim Han, a representative of Bridges for Peace Korea.
SINCE 2004, HaYovel has been bringing Christians to Judea and Samaria for faith-based volunteer opportunities. HaYovel recently launched a $29 million campaign to airlift security equipment to Judea and Samaria, calling on Christians from all over the world to stand with Israel.
We asked HaYovel’s executive director Zac Waller why HaYovel feels moved to help the Jewish people.
“We Christians are beginning to realize that God is with the Jewish people. That does not necessarily mean that they will always have peace or success. It means that they have been commissioned by God to represent Him and what He stands for in a national expression.
“God-ness – what is good, right, moral, peaceful, blessed, and successful – is permanently stamped in the DNA of the Jewish people. God is with the Jewish people. Therefore anyone who truly loves the God of the Bible (the God of Israel!) will never give a second thought to whether or not they should bless, defend, or come to the aid of God’s chosen people.
“It could not be more obvious that this war is spiritual. The darkness is unimaginably dark, but the light is strong and it is rising! It’s actually pretty simple. Believers should side with God – goodness, light, morality, blessing, life, and peace!”
Waller concluded with a verse from the Book of Zechariah: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days 10 men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”