Dear Benny
First of all, let me join Mano in thanking you and all the generous donors who have partnered with us to bring some relief to the families who have lost their homes over the past month. Your generosity is heartwarming.
We are three weeks into our program to assist these families and almost two weeks into the cease fire. We are continuing to maintain almost daily contact with the municipalities which were hit (Haifa, Bat-Yam, Ra’anana, Holon, Petach Tikva, Rishon LeZion, Rehovot, Ness Ziona, Tel Aviv) , and we continue to receive requests for assistance. In addition, we have renewed our partnership with the Altshuler -Shaham War Room (more details below).
Last Wednesday we convened our War Cabinet for the third time and had our second allocation meeting.
Please allow me to give you a general update on where we stand today.
1) To date, members of Bnai Brith Israel have donated almost $44,000 to our fund. In addition, we have received donations from B’nai B’rith International; B’nai Brith ANZ and Bnai Brith UK, in addition to a smaller donation from a lodge in Germany.
2) We have allocated almost all the funding we have received so far, or that has been pledged, so your announcement that more funds were on the way on Friday morning was very good news, as there are still requests, we have not yet been able to meet. So. thank you for this second round of support.
3) How have we helped so far? With the exception of Tel Aviv, Rehovot and Ness Ziona municipalities (who thankfully have told us they do not need our help at this point because donations have been pouring in from inside and outside Israel) we have already made allocations for 20,000-50,000 shekels to most municipalities for the following needs:
a) Washing machines and dryers for hotels which are housing large numbers of evacuees.
b) Laundry services where evacuees are dispersed.
c) Sets of bed linen for families.
d) Coupons so that families can buy clothing, towels, and toiletries.
e) Specific needs: several laptops for breadwinners so that they can continue working; a hairdresser’s chair for a hairdresser whose business was completely destroyed.
f) Assistance in transportation costs for families who are staying in hotels outside their cities. The Bay Yam municipality, for example, organizes shuttles for people who want to continue to get to work and also so that families can visit the destruction sites and, accompanied by the Home Command teams, salvage family memories, heirlooms, photo albums and anything else they can from under the rubble.
g) We also allocated funds to a sister project of ours, the National Bank for Baby Food. They called us in the first days of the missile attacks and told us that their supply of formula, diapers and baby items was slowly running out. They supply baby food and diapers to the evacuees through the social services of the municipalities.
h) In addition to providing financial help, our volunteers have been visitng evacuees in the hotels and bringing Shabbat cakes and toys for kids, and also visiting families whose houses were partially hit (and who still live at home) and delivering hot coffee and cake).
4) I might have told you we were planning to set up a War Room like we did after October 7th but after examining the facts on the ground, we decided that this was unnecessary. However, we renewed our partnership with the Altshuler-Shaham War Room, an amazing initiative of the Altshuler Shaham Investment House, which was established after October 7th across a whole floor of offices in Tel Aviv. B’nai B’rith volunteers helped maintain the War Room, which was a huge repository of clothing, toiletries, towels, bed linens and toys and books donated by the residents of Tel Aviv, for over a year. The War Room reopened a week ago because of the need to help these families. We have allocated a small fund so that our volunteers can respond to specific needs of families (such a socks , underwear and more).
We are hearing from the field that some of these families will need to be in these hotels for many months, so we are expecting more requests. We will help as much as we can, thanks to your additional assistance.
I am enclosing some photos, and I hope to also have some thank you letters in English soon. Incidentally, everything we donate comes with a letter from B’nai B’rith and we have also pasted stickers on the washing machines and packages, which say Ä A Warm Embrace from B’nai B”rith)
Thank you for being part of this with us.
Sincerely,
Elise
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Elise Shazar
