Funds from Pittsburgh are literally saving lives in Israel
OpinionGuest columnist

Funds from Pittsburgh are literally saving lives in Israel

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh's Israel's Victim of Terror Fund began aiding families in Israel days after Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack.

Kim Salzman

As a resident of Pittsburgh’s Partnership2Gether region in Israel, during the past few weeks I have witnessed firsthand, on multiple occasions, the impact that the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Israel Emergency Fund is having in northern Israel.

Since Israel’s brilliant pager attacks on Hezbollah nearly three weeks ago, many Israelis in the north have been staying close to their homes so that they can make it in time to a bomb shelter in case of rocket fire. In parts of Misgav, including where I live, we have 60 seconds to make it to our bomb shelter; but in other parts of Misgav, which are further north and in Karmiel, residents have only 30 seconds. As one can imagine, it’s hard to stay cooped up inside your home all the time, so we find ways to go outdoors to get some fresh air and move our bodies despite the situation. At our village, Manof, we have a bomb shelter right next to the tennis court and a playground, so when we leave our house, we usually go there.

My son, Gal, is a competitive mountain biker, and is expected to keep training despite the situation. A week-and-a-half ago, he went out to ride his bike within our village. My husband and I discussed it ahead of time — if there was a siren, he would be able to ride his bike fast enough to reach one of the bomb shelters throughout Manof.

Fifteen minutes after he left the house, a siren sounded. We went into our bomb shelter and immediately called our son. He told us he was safe inside a bomb shelter but that he was certain that a rocket had landed nearby because he heard an unusually loud explosion.

Ten minutes after the siren (we need to stay in the bomb shelter for 10 minutes after a siren in case of shrapnel), I picked him up from the bomb shelter, and then minutes later our security officer sent a message to our village letting us know that a rocket of 122 millimeters (which is relatively small, but still deadly) landed on Manof’s cliff, less than 150 feet away from where my son was riding his bike at the time.

We are beyond grateful that he is OK, but it was a traumatic event and we’re going to have to help him work through his feelings and fears in coming days and weeks.

For those readers who participated in Federation’s 2022 Mega Mission, the cliff is where we had our second Mega Event dinner while in Karmiel and Misgav.

After the scene was clear, we went to check it out. We learned that a family from Manof was on the cliff at the time of the rocket fire. They managed to go inside one of the bomb shelters located on the cliff — a bomb shelter that Pittsburgh’s Federation helped fund through its Israel Emergency Fund. That bomb shelter literally saved their lives.
The rocket fire also caused several fires in the forest nearby, and we watched as firefighters flew planes low to the ground to extinguish the fires. Our Federation’s Israel Emergency Fund helped both the Karmiel municipality and the Misgav Regional Council create firebreak lines to prevent wildfires from spreading in case of rocket fire. Thanks to our Federation’s support, the fires didn’t spread and didn’t endanger anyone in villages nearby.

Later that same week, I visited Moreshet, another village in Misgav, to meet with multiple families whose homes were badly damaged as a result of Hezbollah rocket fire last month. On Sept. 22 at 6:20 a.m., Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets toward the area, and unfortunately the Iron Dome failed to intercept several of them. Two rockets landed in residential neighborhoods in Moreshet — one landed between two homes, sending the cars parked on the street flying into the air, and the second landed in the middle of the street, creating a huge hole in the street and shattering the windows of all the homes in the area.

In total, 15 homes were damaged, some worse than the others, but miraculously no one was injured as they all managed to get into their homes’ bomb shelters when the sirens sounded.

While there, I met with the residents, most of whom were in their late 70s or early 80s, who told me how their homes were on fire and how they were rescued by the local security team that arrived within minutes of the rocket fire. They had to leave their homes still in their pajamas, and now have to go through the long process of renovating their homes while they live in temporary housing nearby.

Within days of the attack, all these families received immediate cash assistance from the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Victims of Terror Fund, which is funded by the Pittsburgh Federation’s core allocation to the Jewish Agency and by our Israel Emergency Fund. They were immensely grateful for the support. More than the money itself, they shared that it was a reminder that they aren’t alone in this difficult time — that their Jewish brothers and sisters across the ocean are thinking of them.

Moreshet is a small religious village, and since Oct. 7, it has lost three soldiers in the war against Hamas and Hezbollah. The rocket attack on Sept. 22 was another heavy blow to a village already suffering, but the residents are resilient and they will get up and continue to live their lives in defiance of the terrorists who tried to destroy them. I visited them to offer comfort and to tell them that the Pittsburgh Jewish community stands by their side, but I left feeling that they uplifted me as much as I uplifted them.

I have known for over a year that Federation’s Israel Emergency Fund is literally saving lives on the ground in Karmiel and Misgav, and throughout Israel, but this is the first time that I experienced it so close to home. The connection between Pittsburgh and Karmiel and Misgav has run deep for over 30 years. Karmiel and Misgav feel that their brothers and sisters in Pittsburgh have their back in the most literal sense of the word. PJC

Kim Salzman is the director of Israel and Overseas Operations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

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