The poetry of Israel: A JNF housing mission, recounted in rhyme

The author, second from right, with other members of JNF's Housing Development Task Force.

By Scott Nadler

We loaded up the van with our luggage,

And our leaders discussed the day's plan.

Traveling south from Ashdod to Sderot,

The housing mission began.

We hit the road bright and early,

It was a 30-minute ride -- 

Zest and excitement filled the air,

Our hearts filled with pride.

There were eight of us volunteering

From different states, all with bravado.

From New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania,

To Arkansas and Colorado.

Brave, resilient Israelis in embattled Gaza Envelope give us strength

JNF CEO Russell Robinson with a Sderot resident whose car is riddled with holes. 

By Russell Robinson

As I'm packing to go to Israel to meet with five different Jewish National Fund-USA missions consisting of over 200 participants, my phone's tzevah-adom (red alert) app suddenly starts blaring "Red Alert! Red Alert!" Immediately, I check to see if it's one missile or more. It's more. I watch as one missile after another is launched from Gaza into the Israeli communities surrounding the border.

Our Israeli friends who live in the GazaEnvelope describe life there as 99 percent heaven and 1 percent hell. The 1 percent hell was beginning again, as it has from the day Israel withdrew from 100 percent of the territory in Gaza.

The future of Israel activism is bright: Alexa Goldstein, 'not no nice Jewish woman'

By Alexa Goldstein

Jewish mothers since the dawn of time have drilled it into their sons' heads that they must find their "Nice Jewish Girl," abbreviated NJG for convenience. 

What is a NJG? A girl who went to Hebrew day school with you or sat next to you at a youth group convention. She held your hand on all 10 days of Birthright. She has chocolat-ey curls, soulful brown eyes, and elegance that reigns supreme during her Dvar Torah at a Hillel Shabbat. But in today’s day and age, the Nice Jewish Girl stereotype is outdated. Even the term "Nice Jewish Girl" no longer applies to the strong, alpha females I surround myself with at every Hillel event. I don’t consider myself a Nice Jewish Girl. I consider myself a Not So Nice Jewish Woman. 

Alexa Goldstein, Israel activist. 

A Not So Nice Jewish Woman, abbreviated NNJW, comes in all shapes and sizes. Her hair can be brown and curly, blond and straight, wavy and red, or pink and shaved at one temple. She loves herself without a stitch of makeup or with smoky eyes and wingtip eyeliner sharper than her sense of humor. 

She doesn't fill conversations with empty chatter, but with topics ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the week’s Torah portion. She can express her worth and communicate her needs, and is comfortable being herself. A NNJW encourages women's empowerment in all aspects of life through friendship and mentor-ship. I talk about what it means to be a NNJW not just to brag about the women in my community but to discuss their roles in the future of Judaism and Israel. 

'We will make dreams come true': Reflections on the $1 Billion Roadmap Mission

JNF's Sderot-Shaar HaNegev Eshkol Task Force. Our author stands second from left.

By Phyllis Chancy Solomon

One by one, we trickled in Friday morning, full of smiles, hugs, and embraces. A group of people familiar with this place and the mission they were about to undertake. There was a palpable excitement in the air, and it made the statement: "We are here, when do we get to work?"

I am describing the start of the JNF $1 Billion Roadmap Mission that just took place in Israel from March 6-12. Dedicated professionals and lay leaders from all over the U.S. joined their task forces and went off to hear and access the needs of the communities they were assigned to.

JNF mega-mission leaders leave Israel inspired -- and inspiring others

Photo: Alicia Yaffe

The border task force's itinerary included a stop at the Sderot indoor playground, where kids can play without fear 
of rocket fire.  

Last week, Jewish National Fund task forces fanned out across Israel as part of JNF's $1 Billion Roadmap Mission. One of the groups met with Adele Raemer, who was born in the U.S. and has lived on a kibbutz on the Gaza border since 1975. Adele, a teacher, writer, and moderator of the Facebook group Life on the Border, shared her thoughts about that meeting in a blog post for the Times of Israel. We are reprinting her words here. 

By Adele Raemer

I gave another talk this week. 

I DO actually have a day job. A pretty demanding and time-consuming one, in fact (actually...MORE than one), but I figure I work enough late nights and throughout enough weekends to allow myself every so often to play hooky for a few hours to devote the time to what I see as my "Zionism" these days.

So I snuck away from my pressing "to do" list for a few precious hours one morning this week to talk to a group of visitors over from the States on a JNF task force to the border regions (Sderot, Shar Hanegev, and Eshkol) to try to depict what life here is all about. Here in Israel. Here on the border. In 2016.

After days of war, giving kids a chance to be kids

Israeli kids enjoy a much-needed yom kef, or fun day, sponsored by the Jewish National Fund. 

More than 2,000 Israeli kids enjoyed a much-needed reprieve from months of fear and tension recently when the Jewish National Fund took them on a field trip to the biblical gardens of Neot Kedumim, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

In Israel, such a day is called a yom kef, or a fun day. The field trip included 1,500 elementary school students from Sderot, a city of 24,000 located less than a mile from the Gaza border. For them, the day offered dramatic relief from the tension they live with every day.

The fun day for the children from Sderot came together in just 72 hours. Driven by their desire to do something special for the children of Sderot, staff from JNF, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL), and Neot Kedumim, as well as administrators from every elementary school in Sderot, worked around the clock to coordinate the complex logistics of the day.

"Today was a day of relief for the children of Sderot," said Alon Badihi, executive director of JNF Israel. "We want them to know that we love them. We want to thank them for being there for the Jewish people. We want to send them the message of how important it is for Jewish children all over Israel to keep living their lives and to remember how to have fun."

Sderot indoor playground provides safe haven in times of crisis

By Patricia Golan

Despite the sudden resumption of Qassam rocket fire from Gaza late last week, school children in southern Israel turned out en masse in festive costumes for Purim holiday celebrations this past weekend, especially at the Sderot Indoor Recreation Center, where Purim holiday music blasted from the loudspeakers, adding to a fun atmosphere that helped alleviate the stress of recent days.

"Purim has helped us forget the sirens we have been hearing in recent days,” said a resident. “I can only hope it stays that way." In Sderot -- a town located less than a mile from Gaza and well-known for being targeted by Gaza rocket launchers -- residents were given the go-ahead from the Home Front to hold their Purim festival in town and outdoors. 

Until the last-minute decision by defense authorities, Sderot’s children at least had a unique alternative to staging the Purim parade outdoors: hold festivities in their one-of-a-kind, heavily fortified indoor children's playground.

Reflections on a JNF staff mission to Israel

This past week, 45 members of the Jewish National Fund's USA staff participated in a staff mission to Israel to see projects, participate in team building, and become even more energized by the important work that we do. This post was submitted by Jodi Perlmuth Popofsky, senior campaign executive, Greater New York.  

Getting to Israel

Before my flight began, a passenger became ill and had to get off the plane. This was followed by a search for his baggage, and so our on time departure was not in the cards. My hopes of getting to Tel Aviv in time to meet the LA contingent (and their van to Be'er Sheva) were dashed.  Instead, after a decent amount of sleep on the plane, I got myself from Ben Gurion airport to the train and to my hotel in Be'er Sheva just about 10 minutes after the other 40 or so people in my group.  

Start to the day

I met four of my colleagues at 6 a.m. the next morning and we ran for approximately 4 miles -- it was a lot of fun and was followed by a great breakfast, then onto the busses to begin a big day of touring.  

Giv'ot Bar

First stop was the community called Giv'ot Bar where we saw a real community in the desert, built with JNF support. What was originally barren desert has been transformed -- first with an idea, then with trailers, and now with real houses. Demand for these houses is so high that a third phase of development is in the works.

Aleh Negev

Upon arrival at Aleh Negev, a state-of-the-art rehabilitative community in the middle of the desert, we were met by its founder, Major General Doron Almog. In my estimation, Doron may be the person with the biggest heart I have ever met. 

Caravan, day 7: From the scars of war, inspiration

By Nicholas Vladimir Macek

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a beautiful place and worth the fighting for, and I hate very much to leave it." The Middle East knows much about beauty and fighting, for better or worse, but our experience in Sderot  revealed part of the human condition unexpected to most of us. While most of our time with the Caravan for Democracy through Israel was met with breathtaking sights -- Masada, Tel Aviv, Galilee -- the tragedy of Sderot's reality was exceptionally difficult to accept. More than anything, the impact of a constant threat on the lives of children was humbling. The population of the city with bomb shelters marred an otherwise peaceful city.

From the scars of war, however, emerged an inspiring reality. Not one steel-reinforced, concrete shelter looked as such. Thanks to JNF and Artists 4 Israel, each was adorned with graffiti and street art. Back in the States, it seems no two people agree on whether graffiti is legitimate art or not. It rose up from the hip hop movement of the 1970s and '80s in New York City, hip hop being a tool for youth to resist against oppression and beautify the cement and steel projects they lived in. It was a method to resist dehumanization with creativity and imagination, two truly human characteristics. 

Caravan participants on the climbing wall at the Sderot indoor playground.

In Sderot, the painting of the bomb shelters, while different from traditional graffiti culture, embraces these virtues. Oppressed by violence, the city rose up with creativity; dehumanized into targets, they expressed their humanity; burdened with brutalist bomb shelters, they made their environment colorful, beautiful, livable. 

As moving as our visit to Sderot was, and as sad as it was to see how children's lives are devastated by conflict, the resistance of the residents of Sderot to depression was uplifting, and definitely an inspiring thought to bring home with us.