Healing Israel’s North through Community Activism

On August 30, Meretz USA hosted Stav Bar Shany of “Brit Olam”, an international Israeli-Jewish volunteer movement dedicated to social welfare and humanitarian assistance around the globe.  Ms. Bar Shany discussed her experiences running Brit Olam’s “Mobile Summer Camp” project in Israel’s north during the recent Israel-Hezbollah war.  A brief summary of her remarks follows:

• Like all Israelis, Brit Olam initially expected the war to last only a few days.  Once it realized that it would be a protracted affair, the organization developed its Mobile Summer Camp program, and started providing games, food, books, and arts & crafts materials to the people of northern Israel.  In the northern bomb shelters, Brit Olam conducted a wide range of activities, including yoga and exercise classes, community theater and role playing, as well as drawing and game-playing.  Brit Olam was assisted by diverse groups, including professional psychologists and social workers, and even youth from abroad, who were in Israel for the summer and wished to volunteer.
  
• As the war dragged on, Brit Olam put together a large gathering in Tel Aviv, which hosted 1,800 people from the north who lacked the means to evacuate further south.  The gathering afforded them an opportunity to have a day away from the war zone, to talk to psychologists and social workers, and to meet up with friends and relatives who had temporarily relocated in central Israel.
  
• In all these activities, Brit Olam maintained an egalitarian approach, treating and aiding the Jewish and Arab communities of Israel with no distinction.
  
• The war has ended, but its effects continue, and Brit Olam is now seeking to implement a new program to address the post-war situation.  Working in the ten locales most severely affected by the war, Brit Olam’s local program directors will be recruiting 600 youth activists, who will receive leadership training and will head up a variety of community projects, thus allowing both physical rebuilding (reforestation, readying shelters, etc.) and the emotional rehabilitation that comes through activism and empowerment.  Brit Olam believes in youth: They are the individuals hit hardest by the horrors of war, but are also the most resilient and able to regroup.
  
• Brit Olam believes that its work is an expression of the Jewish commitment to ‘Tikun Olam’.  In Israel, the practice of Judaism is often dominated by the narrow, theological interpretation imposed by orthodox and ultra-orthodox elements.  Brit Olam’s approach stresses an alternative vision – one of Judaism as a giving culture – that manifests itself in the organization’s volunteering, humanitarian relief, and capacity building activities.

In the lively Question & Answer session that followed Ms. Bar Shany’s presentation, the audience discussed the potential for involvement in Brit Olam’s efforts by progressive Jewish youth from the US and Canada, as well as from Israel.