By Toby Klein Greenwald
It was Friday night, and I sat at a table next to a lovely young woman. Her name is Emma, but the name she took after converting, a year ago, is Halleli, meaning “Praise G-d” as a command. It comes from the pasuk (verse) in Tehilim 147:12, “Jerusalem, praise the Lord, praise your G-d, Zion.” Emma’s parents, a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, came from Russia in the 90s. Her father’s last name is Katz. “Cohen Tzedek” she says proudly.
Emma is one of more than 3,000 young people who were at the Nova music festival when their world exploded on Oct.7.
364 of those at the festival were murdered and forty were taken hostage to Gaza. Emma-Halleli and her close friend, Shir, are two of those who escaped. (There were about 250 hostages taken all together, including soldiers and civilians who lived in the area.) Of the forty Nova survivors taken hostage to Gaza, five of them (and one who had been kidnapped from a kibbutz) were those who were murdered recently by Hamas, in captivity, whose bodies were discovered and taken back to Israel.
Emma-Halleli and Shir were among 100 Nova survivors who were hosted by the haredi Kesher Yehudi organization at the Ramada Hotel in Jerusalem, the Shabbat of August 3. There were also more than twenty members of the Kesher Yehudi staff and family members present. It was the second such Shabbat organized for the organization for survivors, but their ultimate goal, in addition to providing a warm, spiritual, and loving Shabbat, one that is full of healing, was to have it culminate in the creation of long-term “chavrutot,” partners in the learning of Torah topics.
It is just as well that on Shabbat one cannot take notes, as one cannot write while crying. It was a Shabbat of laughter and tears, and tremendous inspiration.
Kesher Yehudi, which began in 2012, says their mission is to be “a social movement bridging the gaps in Israeli society between religious and secular Jews by building friendships—two people at a time.” They hope those partnerships will be for life. Partnerships that are necessary now, more than ever.
Their bold move is to bring together not just any two groups of Jews, but those who define themselves, for the most part, as “secular” (though some of those are traditional) and those who one might imagine are the farthest from them—haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews. Tzili Schneider, the founder, says she wanted to recruit those haredim who are hardcore in their observance. The success of the endeavor indicates that they are softcore in their hearts.
Parents of two hostages were the honored guests at the Shabbat; Merav and Shlomi Berger, the parents of Agam, who was a ‘tazpitanit’—an IDF lookout, and Sigi and Momi Cohen, the parents of Eliya, who had been at Nova. They were deeply moved and emotional by all the love showered upon them and blessings made for the return of their children. In general, there were constant mentions of the hostages, and that the Shabbat was for the merit of their return.
The line-up for the Shabbat indicated how important people think it is to reach out to those who suffered and are trying to find their way back to normalcy. The former Chief Rabbi, Yisrael Meir Lau, held a pre-Shabbat session at which he spoke and memorial candles were lit.
Yonatan Razel, a much beloved American-Israeli singer, writer, and composer, spent the entire Shabbat with the program, including a musical Kabbalat Shabbat and Havdalah, and leading some of the Shabbat prayers and singing during the meals. The Nova survivors joined in the song and dance.
Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi, while lighting Shabbat candles with them, said, “You need to pray for us now. Your prayers are even stronger than the prayers of Moshe Rabeinu.”
A men’s Hassidic acapella choir, in elegant shtreimels, sang at the Kabbalat Shabbat and Havdala services, and also sang the Prayer for the IDF Soldiers to the melody of “Eretz Zvi,” that has been widely adopted since this war, originally sung by Yehoram Gaon for the 1977 Israeli movie on Operation Entebbe, a film about the freeing of hostages. This was unusual in that it is not a prayer that is usually recited in haredi shuls, though some haredim have told me that they do say a “mesheberach” for IDF soldiers.
Many survivors said they are spending their time now, “rehabilitating.” At the same time, most of them said that they were looking forward to returning to reserve duty. And what do Halleli and Shir, these 22-year-olds with the gentle demeanor and sweet smiles do on reserve duty? “We’re warriors,” said Halleli. “We’re in a unit called the Lionesses of Jordan, as we are stationed in the Jordan Valley.” They chase terrorists.
At Shabbat lunch I met one of the young men who has had a Kesher Yehudi chavruta for a while, Yosef Dadon. Exuberant and a natural comic, he has returned to his work as owner of an air conditioning company in Beit Shemesh. Later His haredi chavruta spoke publicly about his great love for Yosef and what he had learned from him; it was clearly a two-way street.
How It All Began
Tzili Schneider was a teacher in Bais Yaakov. She had grown up in Meah Shearim and says she remembers how, when she was six years old and the Old City of Jerusalem was liberated during the Six Day War, soldiers and local residents danced together in the streets.
As an adult, she noticed that she took a bus every day with the same secular woman for four years and they never spoke to each other. “This made me think that something needs to be done,” She says. She approached Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv with her idea that became Kesher Yehudi. She says that he encouraged her and said that Am Yisrael has to be unified and that this is the way to save Am Yisrael.
She began it by pairing up medical professionals and a domestic cleaner she had met at her local HMO with teacher colleagues of hers. Within a year, she says, there were more than 1,000 chavruta couples, and at this point, 17,000 chavruta couples have been created. That is 34,000 Jews who are learning together and, more important, talking to each other even though they come from opposite ends of the spectrum.
In 2016, Kesher Yehudi received the prestigious Jerusalem Unity Prize from the former president of Israel, Mr. Reuven Rivlin, “For creating a unique platform with an enormous potential for engendering true connections and increasing feelings of unity, identification, and mutuality among the Jewish nation.”
She says she chose to concentrate on haredi and hiloni Jews, and not those who are ‘dati–leumi’—‘national-religious’—because, she says, “The great disconnect in the nation is between haredim and hilonim and I think that if we connect them, the middle will work out.”
Pre-Army Work
Kesher Yehudi people say they also work with 32 year-long pre-army “general” (sometimes called “secular”) preparation programs, called “mechinot.” The first mechina, which is Torani, began in the yishuv of Eli in 1988 and many other Torani mechinot followed. The general mechinot started about ten years later. Today there are also Torani mechinot for young women. Many of the mechinots’ graduates (from both the Torani and the general) become officers or serve in elite units.
One of the graduates of a Torani mechina says, “They include Torah study, but one also learns emunah, and Jewish Thought, and they help one to develop and deepen his spiritual world; he learns good citizenship and volunteering, values, leadership, mental and physical preparation for the army, and responsibility for himself and for society. For the first time, one is not in high school where he’s told what to do, what to study, what time to get up in the morning, and he has to take responsibility for himself. You are learning because you want to, not because you are obligated.”
The mechinot which are in the “general” category also include the study of Judaism and Jewish identity, Zionism, development of leadership skills, volunteering, good citizenship, and elements of military training. (Some of them include Orthodox students as well.)
Schneider says that members of the chavrutot that begin in the mechinot continue their close, loving relationships after the young peoples’ army service begins, and beyond.
One general mechina head with whom I spoke, Avishag Betser in S’de Nechemia, in the upper Galil, said, “We’ve been working with Kesher Yehudi for about five-six years and I’ve enjoyed it. Regarding if the chavrutot continue, it depends on each one. But most maintain very beautiful connections afterwards.”
Shai Plavnik of the general Rabin mechina in Haifa, says, “The cooperation with Kesher Yehudi began six-seven years ago. We had four meetings of chavrutot in the course of the year, and a Shabbat together during which the students of the mechina were hosted in the homes of the haredi chavrutot in the evening and the morning. It is a very positive experience for the participants, getting to know each other beyond the stigmas, what they see on the news, and prejudices. Sometimes they discover that the prejudices are justified, sometimes that they are not. But in any case, there is a positive human connection that is created based on learning together and the opportunity to ask questions.
The connections are maintained, to one degree or another, depending on the desire of the participants. Our people in the mechina, at the end of the year, join the army, so of course there is less connection, but I know they update each other through emails, and the ones who are in the army tell their chavrutot how it is going with them in their army service, and there are even some that come to Haifa to meet their chavruta. Sometimes there are connections that are meaningful and even surprising, since there is an age gap. Our students are eighteen years old, and their chavrutot are usually men and women with families, with children, so on the one hand, it’s not something to be taken for granted, that they are willing to come in the evening for these chavrutot, yet it’s interesting that these connections continue, and this is a positive experience for both sides.
Back to the Nova Shabbat
Reading the room accurately, there was free flowing wine on the tables, and bottles of liquor for a l’chaim before lighting candles and at Kiddush the next morning. The Nova music festival was a trance party, but there were also “regular” adults, and even married couples, who came for the music and dancing, leaving their children with the grandparents. One such couple described how they survived when the husband covered the wife with his own body, as they were hiding among the bushes while terrorists raged around them, killing everyone in sight. “I wanted my child to grow up with parents,” he said on Shabbat, “and if not with parents, at least with a mother.”
Several of the Nova survivors said the Hagomel blessing publicly for the first time since their survival. It is a blessing one makes upon deliverance from danger. The Amens resonated throughout the dining hall at lunch and to the ends of the earth.
There was another surprise at lunch. Rav Yisrael Goldwasser of B’nai Brak brought a sefer Torah that was saved during the Shoah. It had been sneaked into a Nazi labor camp near the Czestochowa Ghetto and when the Jews reading it were discovered by the Nazi guards, they were cruelly beaten till blood ran. Somehow it was saved, and there are still blood stains on the parchment, on the Torah portion of Matot, the Shabbat they had been caught by the Nazis, which was the same Shabbat that we were in the hotel. He held the open sefer Torah high and showed all the guests the bloodstains. “Our Simhat Torah was cut short this year,” he said, “so let us dance now” and the Nova survivors and others joined in, singing, “How greatly have I loved Your Torah…”
In the afternoon, newcomers were offered the option of beginning to study with new chavrutot. I asked to see a copy of the booklet from which they were reading a wide selection of Jewish sources. Its topic title was: “Yesodot Haosher.” The Foundations of Happiness.
At the end of Shabbat, Nova survivors spoke of the Shabbat being an uplifting, powerful experience, saying that it was easier to keep Shabbat when they were together. One said, “I feel that the joy has returned to my life.” Another: “It’s like a honeymoon with G-d…we are leaving here with giant pride that we are Jews and that we were left alive for a reason…” Other comments were “I felt the light within my soul,” “This Shabbat, I finally felt connected to myself,” “I found my inner light, I felt joy in my soul, for the first time in such a long time…” “We experienced unity, love, and how you care, and you don’t look down upon us for having gone to a party on Shabbat, you don’t think we are strange, you accept and love us and that is amazing” and one woman said, emotionally, “The light you provided here for so many Jewish souls you don’t understand what you’ve done, but it’s for many generations.”
Visitors From New York
Moshe Schmell of Woodmere, who also lives in the Arnona neighborhood in Jerusalem today, spent Shabbat with his wife Chavi at the Shabbaton. He said, “I’ve been involved in scores of Shabbatonim for my entire adult life – JEP, NCSY, Arachim, Discovery, and community and synagogue Shabbatonim. There was a dynamic s experienced at this Kesher Yehudi event which is almost impossible to put into words.
“Already at candle lighting, when things are usually barely coming together, an extraordinary aura permeated the room. One hundred Nova survivors were determined, most for the first time in their lives, not only to observing Shabbat, but to extracting from this occasion, all that Shabbos has to offer. The cohesiveness of the group, consisting of two worlds quite alien one to the other, formed almost instantaneously, and got stronger and stronger as we moved, sang, davened, and danced our way through it.”
He adds, “Due to tremendous success of Kesher Yehudi over the past few years, especially since October 7, when requests by secular Israelis have almost quadrupled, our organization has embarked on two campaigns, one to hire a full-time director of development in America and another to hire an executive director in Israel to oversee daily operations of the dual program in Israel. This would free up our CEO Mrs. Tzili Schneider to procure the necessary funding to drive this incredible Avodas Hakodesh.”
Michael (Mich) Cohen was also a supporter from abroad. Originally from Lawrence, he later moved to Flatbush, where he lived for many years, and for the last six years has lived in Toms River, N.J. He told the 5 Towns, “The Nova Shabbaton hosted by Kesher Yehudi was a transformative experience for me personally. It truly felt like a reunion with family and friends that I never met before. Genuine achdut permeated the entire weekend and all that were fortunate to attend left as different people. With the threat of war glooming, it was inspiring to see how many survivors came together and connected. Kesher Yehudi has been facilitating genuine connections between Am Yisrael for over 13 years, and the requests for people to learn with has increased be 40% since October 7th.”
Leah and Ralph Rieder, supporters of Kesher Yehudi, addressed the Nova survivors by Zoom, from New York, at the moving Friday afternoon event before Shabbat.
While checking out after Shabbat, all the participants were given a wrapped parting gift. I asked Tamar Frei, a Kesher Yehudi staff woman, what it was. “A lamp,” she said. I opened it at home and saw it was a small emergency lamp that works on batteries, the kind one keeps in a safe room or bomb shelter for light during a rocket attack, in case electricity would be lost. It was a chilling return to reality, at the end of a glorious, spiritual Shabbat, filled with a different kind of light.
And we are left with prayers that it is the light of the Shabbat is what will accompany us all in the days to come. n
Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning journalist and theater director, and editor-in-chief of WholeFamily.com. She is recipient of the ATARA Life Achievement Award. She was a guest at the Shabbaton of Kesher Yehudi.
