Shortly after the
Simchas Torah war began, I scribbled a heartfelt message to a soldier on a
Star-K memo pad sheet. A week later, I was very gratified to see a WhatsApp
photo of a smiling IDF soldier holding my note. The initiative to collect
letters and children’s drawings for the soldiers was at the behest of my
coworker, Adina Michelsohn. She also put me in touch with four young, energetic
Baltimoreans who are passionately working day and night to help ensure the chayalim and their families get the help
they need. Here is their story.
* * *
Moshe Lavi was in Yerushalayim when the war started. He remembers
thinking, after the fourth siren went off within an hour, that something
historic – not in a good way – was happening and that the world would not look
the same when we turned on our phones after Yom Tov.
“The entire trip
home I was thinking we have to do something,” he says. “A friend of mine
in New York, Eli Langer, started a WhatsApp chat to help people out, and I
asked him if I could help by trying a similar initiative in Baltimore. At the
same time, I had a childhood friend in Israel (where I grew up and lived for 15
years) who was collecting equipment. When I questioned him, he answered, ‘All I
know is that there were 350,000 soldiers mobilized, aside from the 180,000
current soldiers. I witnessed them running out to their army bases to fight,
and they didn’t have time to pack anything in their knapsacks. The army supply
warehouses are emptying and there is a tremendous need for equipment for all
these additional soldiers.’ When I asked him if I could help, he told me he was
partnering with a few different organizations and was getting multiple lists of
needed items sent to him directly by the IDF commanders.”
After talking to
some of these commanders, Moshe realized that a similar Baltimore initiative
was within reach if they could only get Baltimoreans to donate these
much-needed items. While thinking of different ways to go about it, he noticed a WhatsApp post from Nicola Lerner,
mentioning that she and her husband, Moishy, had already sent things to Israel.
“Knowing the need
in Israel – and realizing that someone in America knows how to send stuff there
– I thought I would try to make a ‘shidduch’
and get the entire Baltimore community involved,” explains Moshe. “When I
started my chat, I brought in Tzvi and Yitz Topper. When Rabbi Silber heard
what we were doing, he offered to be our rabbinical advisor. The Rav has been
extremely instrumental in giving us guidance, helping us focus, providing
volunteers, and pushing us to go in the right direction. Kudos goes to Rabbi
Silber for answering every single call and text, guiding every move – large and
small.”
* * *
Nicola Lerner, a
mother and full-time student, recalls how, after Yom Tov, Moishy told her not to look at the news and to
remove her social media. She couldn’t understand why until she turned on her
phone and saw a WhatsApp from her sister, who lives in Israel. The sister
wrote, “We are okay, please call after Yom Tov.”
“Unfortunately,
everything started to unfold. I – probably along with a lot of other people –
started to feel this weird depression; my family was in serious danger. That
night was very difficult; the next day I was paralyzed with fear. I remember
thinking, how am I going to be a mother, a wife, a student? I can’t go to
school like this. I had a feeling of being so helpless.”
But Nicola was
inspired soon afterwards, when she heard about a collection of supplies for the
IDF soldiers arranged in her hometown of San Diego. “I thought, oh my gosh, we have
to do this! It all happened within a few minutes. I posted on my status,
‘Who knows how to ship things to Israel?’ People responded, and I got in touch
with them. I told them I had a list of things needed and what can and cannot go
through, based on my conversations with IDF coordinators – things like
toiletries, undershirts, and flashlights. Within 24 hours, we had over 40
duffle bags and over 15 boxes packed and on their way to Israel.”
Continues Nicola,
“That’s when things started to mesh. I saw on Tzvi Topper’s WhatsApp status
that a Baltimore Army Chesed chat had
been created, and we joined forces. These types of initiatives unify the Jewish
people; we are all one. Hashem has a really cool way of making things happen.
People sincerely wanted to help. No one is getting paid for the number of hours
and amount of effort they are putting in. It is really a chesed shel emes
because we are not expecting anything in return. We are just trying to help
people in need and doing the best we can. There’s a lot of zerizus (energy). What started out in
my apartment has grown so big that we now need to use a warehouse. Our Baltimore Israel Relief Initiative (BIRI)
team of four – Moshe Lavi, Tzvi and Yitz Topper, and me – in addition to
Rabbi Silber, is really inspiring. You can see the selflessness. We all have a
lot on our plate, and we just managed to send out over 100 duffle bags.”
* * *
Yitz Topper saw
what Nicola was doing on WhatsApp, in addition to Moshe’s efforts. “When I ran
into Moshe at a wedding the night he created his chat, I asked him how we can
make it as Baltimore-centric as possible and start amazing things here as a
community. Within hours, we hit the ground running, joining Nicola. I made a
couple phone calls to people in Israel and started a simple project to sponsor tefillin for chayalim. It snowballed into
the four of us calling everyone we could to find out the needs in Israel
and very quickly and smoothly addressing them here.
“There is a
tremendous dedication of this entire group. No one slept for an entire month,”
continues Yitz. “We spent 20-hour days on the phone with people in Israel. A
lot of thought has gone into not just the logistical aspect of getting supplies
but also into how we can make anyone of any age and gender in our local
community connect – whether via a challah bake, tying tzitzis, or sending much-needed supplies. Our overall goal has been
to connect the community to what is going on in Israel, and I think this has
been achieved and will continue to be. It is non-stop on to the next thing;
what else can we do?”
Yitz says the
requests are pouring in from Israel as well as from America. “One Israeli
couple was in Baltimore for Yom Tov. The husband was in the IDF, and after Yom Tov, he went straight back to Israel to serve in the North. We put
out a request on the chat for one duffle
bag of toys for their children to send back with his wife, and within 20
minutes we had to ask people to stop delivering them. We had collected
enough toys to send her back with two full duffle bags. The community has
really rallied. I’ve seen such a tremendous display of achdus in the
last four weeks – which I think was the entire message behind all this; may it
continue. We have also launched a shul project, whether Orthodox, Conservative,
or yeshivish; it doesn’t matter what or who you are. Everyone just wants to
help and has come together for the sake of connecting and helping Israel.”
* * *
A shout out goes to Rivky Flamm and Liba Dinovitz, who involved as many
shuls as possible to coordinate their donations of supplies via each shul’s
organizer.
“Rivky asked if she could lean on our logistics and volunteers,” says Yitz,
“especially the shipping aspect, which involves getting a lot of permits to get
things past customs smoothly; it’s not simple, even when it is not war time.
Thanks to Moshe, our initiative is running efficiently.” Rivky provided the BIRI organizers with her compiled list
of 32 shuls of all denominations in Baltimore and Silver Spring and their
representatives.
BIRI ensures that the
collection of supplies is coordinated, so you don’t have five shuls collecting
boxes of gauze or balaclavas to protect the chayalim
from the elements. The rabbinic leadership of each shul signed off on it,
mentioning the initiative in their speeches. “That really gave everyone the
push to send out as many supplies as they did,” says Yitz, who added that the donors are from all
different walks of life and religions.
Once everything is
collected, it is driven to New York and flown to Israel. Dov Chapman, aka
“Master of the Road,” had just returned to Baltimore after chauffeuring a
customer hundreds of miles, when he received a call from Avi Thav. Avi wanted
to enlist his help in transporting a huge load of supplies and other
necessities bound for Israel.
“It’s definitely a
team effort, 100 percent,” says Dov, who donated his professional services as
part of a volunteer WhatsApp group. “By the time I got involved, a huge amount
of stuff had been collected. There must have been at least 10 or 15 volunteers
who were loading up the trailer, and Avi Thav, Ami Klein, and I drove the
pickup truck and trailer to New York. We unloaded it at 1:00 or 2:00 in the
morning, with the help of a local Chaverim member. We were willing to do the
drive again, but it ended up that they had other volunteer drivers.”
Moshe attests that
everything the group is doing is being quadruple vetted. “We are not sending
things if we are unsure whether they are needed. We are working almost
backwards – we’re getting the request, making sure all the items are approved
to get into the country, and working on the distribution of where they will go
once they get there. We don’t want to send anything that isn’t needed, that
would be stuck in customs, or would not be put to good use. Tzvi Topper oversees the technology
aspect enabling us to track everything; it really is a very organized process.”
Tzvi corroborates:
“We track everything, down to a roll of gauze. We know exactly how much was
sent, to whom it was sent, when it was received, and when it was put into
service on the Israel side. It can give you that live feeling – my bandage,
which I sent to Israel, is being used to save a life today, or my beanie that I
sent to Israel is being worn by a soldier in the north today to keep him warm
and help him fight for our country. It’s not just about writing a check and
sending it to Israel to buy whatever the soldiers need; this is a personal.”
Yitz adds, “It’s
all for the greater purpose of ensuring that all community resources going into
this are being put to good use and distributed in a proper way. The community
has put a lot into this, and it would be a waste if it were a logistical mess. We
are working with two organizations in Israel, similar to ours, and they’ve
commended us for being the most logistically organized operation they’ve worked
with. It goes a long way to show that we really care that the community sees
the impact we are making.”
* * *
Some of the
projects these four young people are coordinating are: tzitzis and tefillin for
the soldiers; a challah bakes, supplies to the medics in the field in Gaza and
the north and to volunteers who ran into towns to save people without gear, as
well as toys for soldiers’ families.
“I speak to people
in Israel basically the whole day,” notes Moshe. “They are so appreciative of
anything – not just the physical items, but the support they are feeling.
Someone said to me last week: Don’t forget about us; we’re going to be here
fighting for a long time, unfortunately, and even afterwards, there’s going to
be a lot of rebuilding.
“The soldiers and
evacuees are so happy to know that somebody actually cares and that they are
not alone – that the world is behind them and that specific communities are
rallying for them. It makes them feel connected to people all over the world.”
Concludes Yitz,
“This Baltimore Israel Relief Initiative, BIRI, (birimd.org) is just not people
giving money short-term for the war and sending a bunch of tourniquets – which
are lifesaving – but this is something that we want to continue. We want to
maintain numerous projects and partner with organizations and families in
Israel. We have schools making tzitzis,
so the high school kids can get involved. We’re working on a clothing drive
now. We want to start as many projects as possible that will speak to as many
people as possible and raise awareness about helping people in Israel, whether
financially, emotionally, or physically. The war will hopefully end soon, but
there will be an aftermath of the war. We really want to create something
long-term for the Baltimore community to help support people in Israel with
anything they need.”
To contact the Baltimore
Israel Relief Initiative (BIRI), email office@birimd.org.
