Episode 11: Rise Upward, Aleh | With Hania Marmorstein, VP of External Relations at the 'Aleh' organization

00:01 Speaker 1 How do you build an organization that grows to an enormous scale and breaks records across the country? How do you fight for children with special needs? And where do we, as a community, fit into all this? A moving and surprising conversation about decades of work with Henya Marmorstein, vice president of external relations at ALEH. You’ll hear about determination, strength, extraordinary devotion, and what we can do, too. How can we make our lives lives of shlichus, full of meaning? I’m Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In this podcast, we’ll meet women working in a range of fields. By sharing their shlichus, they’ll help each of us find and refine our own shlichus in the world. Because living the lives we were created to live is as good as it gets. Shlichus as a way of life. Let’s begin. Good afternoon, Henya. You’re in charge, the CEO—how should I introduce you?

01:08 Speaker 2 My name is Henya Marmorstein, and I’m the wife of ALEH’s director and CEO—and, in a way, one of its founders. I’ll explain in a moment exactly how ALEH came into being, but today he’s ALEH’s CEO, and I’m his wife. Over time, I became involved in the organization and started several things within it. I continue to help and build, and as we talk I’ll explain exactly what my part is in the—

01:43 Speaker 1 Yes.

01:43 Speaker 2 —organization.

01:44 Speaker 1 If we can fit such a big organization into one podcast episode, that’ll be...

01:48 Speaker 2 We can, we can.

01:49 Speaker 1 It’s amazing. I have to tell you, I’m sitting here talking with Henya after taking a tour of the building, and I’m so impressed. It’s simply incredible. But tell us from the beginning.

02:00 Speaker 2 From the beginning.

02:01 Speaker 1 How did it all start?

02:03 Speaker 2 ALEH was established by several families in Bnei Brak. Some had children born with disabilities; for others, sadly, something happened—an accident when their children were very young—and their children came to have special needs, with difficulties and accompanying health problems. The families joined together. At first, there were very few children. They looked for a preschool teacher, staff, and a building to house the program, and they got it running. It had no official recognition—not from the government, not from the Knesset, not from anyone.

02:50 Speaker 1 What years are we talking about?

02:51 Speaker 2 About forty years ago. We weren’t involved then. What brought it to our attention was my sister. She lived in Bnei Brak and gave birth to twins very prematurely, in her sixth month. One died, and one survived. He weighed 900 grams, then dropped to 600, and developed very serious difficulties. She began looking for a small preschool for him, somewhere he could spend time and also receive help to make progress. That’s when she discovered the organization called ALEH. They called it “Help for the Disabled Child.” She approached them, and when she knocked on the door, she discovered that she knew the preschool teacher. Our family is originally from Haifa, and this teacher was from Haifa too. My sister began asking her for help finding a place for her son there. It wasn’t suitable for him, because he didn’t have an intellectual disability, but the teacher helped her figure out where to go and where to get help for him. Through the information she got from that teacher, she learned about this whole initiative the parents had started, about seeking treatment and getting help through the health funds and the child development institute. Her eyes were opened. She discovered the place and learned that they were short of money and badly needed help. She gathered her friends from Haifa who lived in the area, and they decided to help the organization. They recruited women to come and volunteer. They found families to cook lunches. The place operated like a preschool, but the children needed a midmorning snack and lunch. They found families who volunteered to cook and bring in food. They held fundraising evenings to bring in

05:22 Speaker 2 a little money to pay the staff who worked there. In the meantime, they found out that the man managing the place—an outside manager, not one of the parents who had founded it—wanted to leave. The chairman, one of the fathers, said he was looking for a manager: someone who would put the organization on a formal footing, make sure salaries were paid, obtain government recognition, and take care of everything else that was needed. At the time, we lived in Haifa, and my husband was running a cheder in Tiberias. He had already run a larger cheder in Hadera, and he wasn’t very happy in Tiberias. The place really didn’t give him the fulfillment he was looking for. My sister knew he was looking for a new position, so she approached him and suggested he apply. He applied, and—never mind all the details of how it happened—he got the job. The rest is history. We lived in Haifa, and every morning he would leave early and come home late at night. He sat and studied and read about how to put the institution on a formal footing: first, how to get government recognition, and then how to run it and, with a lot of help, build it up into something bigger. As he was learning about all this, he heard that a wealthy man had wanted to donate a building. The organization had received land from the municipality, and the man had offered money to build on it, but they’d had a falling-out. The building was just a shell, and construction needed to be completed. That’s a story in itself—how my husband traveled to Switzerland to reconnect with this wealthy man so he would continue donating. At first, the man threw him out of his house. Eventually, they connected. Boruch Hashem, my husband

07:34 Speaker 2 has a certain personal charm that people really respond to. Boruch Hashem, things moved forward. The man eventually accepted him and helped him finish the building. It was four or five stories high, and the goal was to turn what had been preschools and a school into a residential facility as well, for children who couldn’t grow up at home. Once it had received recognition from the Ministry of Welfare, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Education, we began bringing children in. At first, we tried to find a housemother who would live there and help us welcome the parents and children. It was a whole undertaking. That didn’t work out, so my husband decided, “We’re going to live there.” I had just given birth to our fifth child, a baby girl two or three months old. We packed up our belongings and moved into the institution itself.

08:41 Speaker 3 To be like parents to the children.

08:42 Speaker 2 To be the housemother in the building, to offer warmth and help the parents adjust. It really wasn’t easy. We thought it would take five years to fill it. We had about ninety to a hundred beds, and demand was so great that within a year and a half, we had filled almost all the available places.

09:10 Speaker 3 People just didn’t know about it. Once they heard, all the people who needed it suddenly came forward...

09:13 Speaker 2 Suddenly—let me tell you something. When we were young, after we got married, I told my husband about relatives of ours who had a child with Down syndrome whom they kept hidden. It was my cousin’s child, and ours was the only family—my parents and us—who knew he existed. We would visit them from time to time, and it was terribly painful that this child never saw the light of day. He died—

09:44 Speaker 3 It went that far?

09:45 Speaker 2 Yes. He died at five, partly from a lack of vitamins and everything else. He simply had no access to treatment, no attention to his mental or physical health. He died, and it affected us terribly. So when my sister gave birth to a child who needed help, our whole family said, “We’re not hiding this. We’re going to look for ways to help him, and try to help other families too.” My sister would knock on doors where she knew there were children like that. She would say, “Come, don’t hide them. We’ve opened a preschool, we’ve opened a place. Bring the children out. Let’s give them treatment so they don’t go without care and without a chance to progress. Let’s develop each child’s potential as much as we can.”

10:33 Speaker 3 Which today sounds like the most natural thing in the world.

10:35 Speaker 2 Right, it was really, really hard then. And when we opened the new building that this Jewish man had donated, we really began working with social workers and other professionals who knew the field, so people wouldn’t feel ashamed. We found volunteers to take the children for walks in the streets, to introduce the people of Bnei Brak to these children and show them that there was no reason to be ashamed of them. These children, too, are part of our lives, and they need to feel the sunlight. We took them on outings, brought people in to volunteer, and found families to sort of adopt children—to take them home for visits. Some of the children came from families who didn’t visit them. So we found volunteers who would take those children under their wing, bring them home for Shabbos or an afternoon, and have other children come play with them. We really opened the home up, especially to the chareidi community, where this had been the biggest difficulty. We wanted people not to be ashamed and not to put all their energy into hiding the child, but to put all their energy and strength into helping the child progress, showing the child affection, and giving the child a good life. If progress isn’t possible, then at least a good life—and whatever progress is possible. Over the years, we discovered that because of this, many, many children who weren’t expected to make progress did make progress. We achieved wonderful things. I can tell you about a boy who came to us as a tiny baby. His mother complained to me, “Why? Why did they drag him back from heaven by force?” I asked her what she meant. She said, “He was born, he stopped breathing completely, and they came and resuscitated him. And look at him now. What for? Every day they tell me this child is going to die.” And there really were periods when we kept calling his mother because we had to hospitalize him again and again with

12:39 Speaker 2 seizures and breathing problems. So I told her, “We can’t understand what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. We’ll do our part.” She said to me, “In any case, they told me he wouldn’t live more than a year.” He came to us at six months old, and I want to tell you, he really wasn’t a child who developed very much, but we helped him progress. In any case, he lived nine years.

13:00 Speaker 4 Wow.

13:02 Speaker 2 He lived nine years. When the child passed away and I went to comfort the family, his mother said, “Who would have believed it?” And he had a good life. He was content, he smiled, he was happy, and he received what he needed. A soul has a mission here in this world, and we can’t understand it. But we have to do everything we can to help these children progress and give them good lives.

13:27 Speaker 4 So besides the practical care you provide—a child with a particular disability receives the care they need—there’s also all the emotional support and the circle of support the parents receive here, and the faith. It’s very strengthening to see that, too.

13:38 Speaker 2 Yes, very, very much so. We have a very large social-work team and a very dedicated educational team who know how to speak with the parents and how to welcome them. We toured the rehabilitative day care center earlier. But before we talk about the tour, I want to tell you that ALEH started in Bnei Brak, and afterward there was a demand for us to open in Jerusalem. We also opened a residential facility in Jerusalem with a kindergarten and a school for the children living there. And we opened in Gedera. After a while, there was a building in Gedera that belonged to the welfare authorities, and they asked us to run it as a facility for children with developmental difficulties. All three of those facilities were meant to take children up to age twenty-one. Then we saw that we needed to do something for our residents when they reached twenty-one. We began thinking about a large place in the countryside where we could build separate homes for older residents. Then the government raised the need to build a village in the Negev, both to serve the Negev’s population and to create jobs where they were needed. The government allocated us a very large piece of land there, and we built a village. Today there are about a hundred and fifty

15:08 Speaker 4 Adults.

15:08 Speaker 2 Adults. Well, not only adults. In the end, we also had to take in younger children from the south. Over time, we opened a rehabilitative day care center there as well. We opened kindergartens and a school, and there are many adults there too. The people there range from six months old to over fifty.

15:26 Speaker 4 Where exactly is it in the Negev?

15:27 Speaker 2 Near Ofakim, just a kilometer and a half from the city of Ofakim.

15:34 Speaker 4 Wow.

15:36 Speaker 2 Over time—when we first opened ALEH, there was no such thing as a place for babies from six months to three years old. In Israel, the education system only recognized children from age three onward, from three to twenty-one. So we were the first, working with other organizations, to establish rehabilitative day care for children from six months to age three. In 2000, we succeeded in getting the law passed. In 2008, we expanded it to cover a larger group of children. It opened up to children with intellectual disabilities, autistic children, children with various syndromes—all kinds of children who need help from six months to age three. It’s even more developed than ordinary day care centers. Ordinary centers provide basic child care. We have a kindergarten teacher, paramedical therapies, and caregivers who all have qualifications in special education. And we see a great deal of progress, because the best time to treat children with developmental delays is when they’re young, while the brain is still very flexible. We’ve seen children we thought would make no progress at all suddenly begin to advance. Chani, on today’s tour I showed you a child whose director said he used to have no mobility at all, and today he walks with special aids.

17:07 Speaker 5 Yes.

17:07 Speaker 2 He walks around, so happy to be walking down the hallway.

17:10 Speaker 5 It’s amazing to see it with your own eyes. It’s like a walking miracle.

17:13 Speaker 2 Right.

17:14 Speaker 5 Truly.

17:15 Speaker 2 Without this, he wouldn’t be able to do it. And the child is delighted and happy. Over time, we’ve also developed considerable expertise in caring for children with severe needs: children with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities, and children with very complex nursing needs. Today we even have children on ventilators—children who, in the past, would only have been in hospitals and wouldn’t have come—

17:36 Speaker 5 An actual kindergarten class of children on ventilators. It’s amazing to see it with your own eyes. It’s just...

17:41 Speaker 2 Right. We have nurses and a paramedical team who specialize in this. Chani, I showed you the day program: there’s a rehabilitative day care center, kindergartens, and a school. The children arrive at seven-thirty in the morning and leave at six in the evening. But we also have another program in Bnei Brak, the children’s residential facility. Those children are there 360 days a year. There’s a small day care center for the babies there too, kindergartens for children with very severe needs, a school, and also adults over twenty-one. Over time, the welfare authorities concluded that you can’t send the children away at age twenty-one without providing for them. True, they’re no longer in the education system, but they still need care. So they allowed us to keep them in the residential facility after twenty-one, and the welfare system funds a day program for them until the afternoon. If the children are capable, there’s some work for them to do—not all of them are capable—but light tasks like sorting items or filling birthday party bags, things like that. And there are children who can’t do any of that, but we give them quality of life. First of all, paramedical therapies, doing our best, G-d forbid, to prevent them from losing ground. We take them out into the yard and gardens and make sure they enjoy themselves. If they can watch a little of a movie, they do that; they talk with the care staff. For example, right now seventy of our children are at a respite retreat in Nir Etzion for three days. That’s another program we set up a few years ago. Other institutions do it now too, but we started it. And it’s a very difficult operation because

19:47 Speaker 2 you need to bring all the children’s equipment.

19:49 Speaker 5 The logistics are incredible.

19:50 Speaker 2 The logistics are incredible, and it takes a great many staff. There are lots of volunteers, employees, and nurses, and the doctor herself visits to make sure, G-d forbid, that nothing goes wrong with any child. We even take children who have seizures, and children with breathing problems, with all their equipment and the whole support system...

20:11 Speaker 5 What a gift this is for the children, for the parents.

20:13 Speaker 2 They’re so happy, unbelievably happy. It’s actually happening right now, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday we’re invited there—the staff, the senior staff—and the parents are invited too, for a festive dinner. That brings the event to a close, and they have a program, really beautiful programs. The children go to the pool, they have an indoor play area, inflatables, all kinds of things you wouldn’t believe. You just have to walk around and see how much the children enjoy themselves there, and how much they get out of it. No one had ever done anything like this for children like them.

20:48 Speaker 5 Wow. Tell me, what does your day actually look like, as...

20:53 Speaker 2 Well, let me first tell you how I got involved. When I came to Bnei Brak, I had just given birth to my fourth daughter. Later, when she was about a year and a half or two years old, my husband said, “Maybe you could come in and help us a little?” So I started coming in. All I had was a teaching certificate; I knew nothing about special education. But I said I’d come and take a look, just to volunteer at first. I began volunteering and helping the kindergarten teachers and other teachers, feeding the children and doing all sorts of things. I saw that I needed to know more, so I went back to school and completed studies in special education. Then I gave birth to my fifth daughter, and we began moving people into the facility. We came to live there. Then someone approached us—today he’s a member of Knesset, but back then he worked for the Bnei Brak municipality. He had a child with special needs and asked us to run a daycare center for children from the age of six months. His wife needed to go to work, and they had nowhere to leave him. The child had very severe needs. He said, “If I can’t work and carry out my shlichus at the municipality”—later he was also a member of Knesset—“that would be a shame. I want you to open one.” We took it on and initially opened it together with AKIM. Later, AKIM withdrew, and it was left entirely to us. The whole burden was on our shoulders. No one funded it; ALEH had to pay for it alone, and that was no small sum.

22:36 Speaker 5 So half, or most, of the work was fundraising.

22:39 Speaker 2 All the fundraising that—

22:40 Speaker 5 The costs.

22:41 Speaker 2 The costs were very, very high. There was rent for the place we leased to house those classrooms, and every single child required a great deal of money. Around then, there was a director who wasn’t getting along with the parents. My husband said to me, “Our daughter is already two. Let’s get someone to care for her, or put her in kindergarten. Come take this on, and little by little try to run it.” So I began running it, and I started looking for ways we could get government funding. It couldn’t be right that we alone had to struggle and raise the money. I approached other places I’d heard were doing similar things. There were another four organizations—or three other organizations—that had something like it, though on a very, very small scale, serving a very small group. I joined forces with them, and we began fighting to establish it formally. In 2000, we succeeded in getting a law passed called the Rehabilitative Daycare Centers Law. As I explained, that meant funding became available, though not full funding. Our funding is never complete. We always have to raise another fifteen to twenty percent from donors and good people, even for day-to-day operations, and especially for special projects. In 2008, we expanded it, as I told you, so more children could benefit. And the rest is history. There are now over three hundred rehabilitative daycare centers in Israel.

24:14 Speaker 5 Wow.

24:14 Speaker 2 But we were the first to—

24:17 Speaker 5 Pioneers.

24:18 Speaker 2 Pioneers in this.

24:20 Speaker 5 It’s amazing that alongside your work in special education and everything that involves, you were also in the courts and the Knesset.

24:26 Speaker 2 That had already started. When I began working on the daycare law, we really started using that momentum to pursue other things and get more support from the authorities. First, I went to study management, because it was required of me. Once I became the director of an officially recognized rehabilitative daycare center, I needed a director’s qualification. So I studied for it and got the certificate, and that exposed me to all sorts of other things. I said to my husband, “Listen, there’s a lot we could work on.” My husband is also extremely persistent with the government ministries. He knows the whole group there. He makes connections with members of Knesset, and especially with the officials and the ministers—education, health, welfare, economy, whatever is needed. Boruch Hashem, he has a special knack for finding good people who can truly help us and help the children. My husband always says something that’s so true: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the one who runs things for these children. Whenever we hit a setback, we say, “It’s all right. Nothing terrible has happened. Hakadosh Boruch Hu won’t abandon these children.” And we see it with our own eyes. We really do. Over time, we also became the place for children with the most severe conditions and the greatest nursing needs. At first—

25:44 Speaker 5 In the country?

25:45 Speaker 2 In the country.

25:45 Speaker 5 Wow.

25:46 Speaker 2 At first it wasn’t so complicated. Today they’ve divided the facilities into those for children with less severe needs and those for children with more severe needs, and we really do take the children with the most severe needs. Why? Because we never said no. I remember we had a director—

26:00 Speaker 5 That’s amazing. You say it as though it’s just...

26:03 Speaker 2 I had a director who told me, “Chani, you can’t take this child. It’s dangerous. He has seizures; he stops breathing. You can’t—” I said, “I can’t tell his mother no. We’ll deal with it.” We took him in, and I looked for ways to manage. I sat beside that child. I remember when we took in the child with the most severe needs of all, I sat beside him all the time so I would know what to do each time—when to call the specialized staff to care for him, when to call his parents when something happened. I want to tell you: I really developed expertise, not so much from going to study, but from seeing and being exposed to so many cases that I practically became a doctor myself. I remember—

26:50 Speaker 5 You remember it like that.

26:50 Speaker 2 I remember bringing children to Beilinson Hospital. They started inviting me to the doctors’ meetings there about children who were hospitalized, so I could hear how they treated them and what they did, and know what to do at our facility. We once had a girl who came to us at six months old with a condition called Crouzon syndrome. The top of the skull is open and gradually has to close. There’s a problem with the eyes: they protrude very, very far, and you have to be extremely careful that an eye doesn’t come out of its socket. One day it happened, and the staff shouted, “Chani, come quickly! Come quickly!” Acting on instinct, I grabbed a disposable cup, placed it over the eye and held the child. I called an ambulance and held the cup there the whole way to the hospital, until they put most of the eye back in place.

27:40 Speaker 5 Oh my. Oh my.

27:41 Speaker 2 They asked me, “Tell us, how did you know?” I said, “I don’t know.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu simply helped me and told me, “Here’s what you should do. Take this and do it.”

27:49 Speaker 5 What presence of mind.

27:50 Speaker 2 “Take this and do it.” Just like that. That’s all.

27:54 Speaker 5 Wow.

27:55 Speaker 2 Or there were children who suddenly had seizures that went on and on, and I discovered ways we could stop a seizure. Later we developed more expertise, too. I brought in nurses from Tipat Chalav and people from Magen David Adom. Today, every two years, we all take refresher training here in first aid—and more than first aid: exactly what to do. How to give an injection to a child having a seizure, and generally how to save a child in that situation, or after a fall, or in all sorts of other situations. The women on our staff are really skilled. They tell me neighbors knock on their doors and say, “Do you know how to handle this? Come and see. This happened with my child—come help me.” People know our staff know what to do when a child has fallen, how to respond immediately. First aid, yes.

28:46 Speaker 6 Wow. We’re sitting here in such a beautiful building. Tell me about it too.

28:52 Speaker 2 I’ll tell you about the building.

28:53 Speaker 6 Tell us how it all began.

28:54 Speaker 2 Yes.

28:54 Speaker 6 When you started out helping one child, saving one child—and now the whole operation you have here is incredible.

29:01 Speaker 2 That’s right. Quite a few years ago—twelve years ago—we received an allocation from the municipality and decided to establish a special-education school for children with very severe needs. It was very, very difficult. First of all, for the building we brought in exceptionally good professionals. It had to be like a five-star hotel for our children, because they deserve it. The truth is, there’s a limit to how much we can help our children progress. We’re happy with every bit of progress, of course, but we need to give them quality of life, for them and for their families. So we decided it would be something unlike anything else: a swimming pool, a gym. We have a dental clinic, therapy spaces, therapy rooms, a Snoezelen room for every class, and really, really sophisticated kitchens. A huge yard, a place to gather. Something truly big and beautiful, and that takes a great deal of money. The government helps too, and the education and welfare authorities allocate funds for it. But in recent years there’s been a new government every year, and each year we’ve had to start over, submitting applications and asking again for support. My husband traveled abroad a lot to ask good people for help, and they really did help us. I can’t tell you exactly how many millions. This building cost millions.

30:40 Speaker 6 Anyone here can see that. Yes.

30:42 Speaker 2 Yes, when people come to visit—I really invite everyone. You can come visit. I’ll give you the phone numbers afterward, so you’ll know how to come and see it.

30:48 Speaker 6 It’s amazing to see it with your own eyes.

30:50 Speaker 2 And...

30:51 Speaker 6 Especially when several government offices are involved.

30:52 Speaker 2 Exactly.

30:52 Speaker 6 And you mentioned the Welfare Ministry, so everything gets complicated.

30:55 Speaker 2 Everything gets complicated. You have to coordinate with them, have them come and see it, arrange tours—and then the government falls again, and again, and again. Another thing that happened was COVID. First, there had been a downturn in recent years, a recession in the United States, and many people stopped donating. It became very, very difficult. And because the government wasn’t cooperating very much, quite a few donors said, “We’re willing to help, but this can’t rest entirely on our shoulders.” We were really afraid it would become a white elephant, but we didn’t give up. My husband has this quality: he doesn’t give up, even if it takes time. “As long as Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives me breath and strength, I’ll keep going. No matter what.” Governments came and went. He kept finding people, and, boruch Hashem, Hakadosh Boruch Hu continued to give him siyata diShmaya. Then suddenly COVID came along. COVID made things very, very hard for people, but it was good for us. The residential facility had to close to outsiders because the Health Ministry decided that no one could come in, so the residents—whose needs were so severe and who were so ill—wouldn’t catch COVID, because no one knew how to treat them if they did. So they closed the residential facility to visitors. Even parents could visit only in the yard or in a special room. But what were we to do with the children who came from home? At that location, we also had a school for about a hundred children who came from home, from Gedera to Hadera. Special education didn’t stop; it kept operating. Where could we put those children? People from the Education Ministry came here to the site to see where we could put them. Then my husband said to them, “Look, remember this building we’ve still been struggling to

32:43 Speaker 2 finish? Help us finish the building, and we’ll move the children who come from home into it.” Then, for three months, we raced to get it done—working, getting things moving.

32:54 Speaker 7 It was really just the finishing touches left here.

32:56 Speaker 2 We had to finish those last details, which are the most, most important part.

32:59 Speaker 7 Yes.

32:59 Speaker 2 And we finished, and on September first—COVID broke out before Pesach, right?

33:05 Speaker 7 March, April.

33:05 Speaker 2 Right. We opened on September first. Even with the children already here, we still had a little renovating and other work to do, but we got it done. We moved the children who came from home into the building. Then the Bnei Brak municipality thought: once COVID was over, why transport the children from the residential facility to the school here? If it worked during COVID to have a school here and a school there, let’s have two schools—one at the residential facility and one here. That meant, by the way, that we needed another principal. My daughter-in-law—oh, I haven’t told you this part yet. I’ll tell you first. My son lived in Haifa. I have two sons; they lived in Haifa. One of them decided to go out to work. He did two years of civilian service and started working with Bayit Cham. Bayit Cham is an organization that provides mental-health support. He went and trained to manage it, and they wanted to open a Bayit Cham branch in the north. Then suddenly my husband said, “Wait a minute. If my son has started studying special education and management and all that, why shouldn’t I ask him to come here? Let me explain.”

34:28 Speaker 7 Come, come to the center.

34:29 Speaker 2 Come to the center and help me with this.

34:31 Speaker 7 If the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree anyway, then...

34:33 Speaker 2 Exactly. So, come help me here. We’re going to expand, we’re going to finish the building—come and... He moved to Bnei Brak and began helping my husband. Then his wife—he has three daughters, and the girls had grown older—said, “I’d like something to do too.” She joined us; we gave her a role, and we opened another school. So my husband said, “There you go, now you have a position.” She hadn’t studied for it, but one good thing to come out of COVID was that you could study over Zoom.

35:08 Speaker 7 Remotely.

35:09 Speaker 2 Remotely. She was able to complete her studies and earn a teaching certificate, then a special-education certificate. She became principal of the school for the children in the residential facility, and the woman who had been principal of the entire school became principal of this location. This new location, which we opened around the time of COVID, grew tremendously. It has so many classrooms that she needed to be its principal full-time, and many, many more children came as well. I think we have twenty-one classrooms here.

35:42 Speaker 7 So a whole building opened up...

35:44 Speaker 2 A building opened up, and it became a place for a much larger group of children who had been waiting to get in and had nowhere to go. They started coming, and today, as I told you, children come from Hadera to Gedera. They arrive on an extensive transportation network, with escorts and all the arrangements that requires. We made room outside for parking for all the minibuses and all the wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

36:15 Speaker 7 The nicest parking lot in the country. We came in through the parking lot, and as I got out, I said, “Wow, even the parking lot is beautiful.”

36:19 Speaker 2 That’s right.

36:20 Speaker 7 Really.

36:21 Speaker 2 Yes, and we also have ambulances. People donated ambulances to us. We have two ambulances to take the children to treatment, to the health clinics, for tests, and to other places like that. I wanted to tell you today that over time, in the early years, we realized we needed a great deal of equipment adapted for our children, and each child needs equipment adapted specifically for them. Equipment that suits one child won’t necessarily suit another. Some things do work for more than one child, but other things have to be fitted precisely to the individual child. So we opened a workshop. Someone came to us—yes, it isn’t here. It’s in the other building, on Uziel Street, at the residential facility. We have an actual workshop that modifies and improves equipment to suit each child. Let me give you an example. There’s something called a scooter—people familiar with special education probably know it. It’s a kind of little wheeled stool that you fit to a child and attach to them, and the child learns to crawl with it. It was an invention of our allied-health team. A man came to us who was wonderfully handy and knew how to make all sorts of things like that. More than that, he had a kind of siyata diShmaya. He knew how to invent things and come up with solutions for the equipment the team dreamed of having. His name was Beni. He passed away a few years ago. Sadly, his wife, who also worked with us as one of the kindergarten teachers, is no longer with us either. He knew how to make exactly what the allied-health team asked for, to help the children progress. Later, he trained other people too. Today

38:21 Speaker 2 There are several people there who make all these things. Even at home, when I see some bag or something else I want to make, I say, “I’ll go to the team there.” They always know how to solve the...

38:33 Speaker 7 A creative mind. Really tailoring it to the need.

38:34 Speaker 2 A creative mind. Exactly. Yes. Special spoons, for example. How do you give a spoon to a child who has such a hard time gripping one? How do you arrange it so they can hold it? Or how do you make an arm that reaches up to the head and lets a child operate a computer by pressing it with their head?

38:52 Speaker 7 Wow. That really means watching the children closely, observing them.

38:57 Speaker 2 Observing and understanding. We had a child who came from the United States, a child with very severe disabilities. We felt he had tremendous potential to communicate using a computer, but he couldn’t move anything except his head, just a little. So one of the team observed him and made him an arm that pressed a button when he moved his head, activating the computer. That’s how this child communicated with the...

39:23 Speaker 7 Wow. How amazing.

39:24 Speaker 2 Today things like that already exist. People study them now, and you see them in other places. But we were the first to try it, and we succeeded. We also made special equipment for operating all kinds of things by hand. I told you that the children aged twenty-one and up have work to do in the mornings, so there are all kinds of devices. You have to come and see them. How can a child who can’t move their hand scoop all the sweets on the table into a bag, using a particular device, to fill a birthday bag, a bag for a Chumash seudah, or a bag for a three-year-old boy’s first haircut? We also get orders before Purim. We fill baskets for mishloach manos, or end-of-year gifts for teachers and preschool teachers that people order from us. Our allied-health team—the physiotherapy and occupational therapy staff—came up with ways to make all this possible, and the creative people in the workshop make the devices.

40:34 Speaker 8 Basically, when... I think the children’s welfare is the first thing you have in mind.

40:38 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

40:39 Speaker 8 So the sky’s the limit.

40:40 Speaker 2 Right.

40:40 Speaker 8 You can take in a child in the most difficult condition, and you’ll manage. You’ll find a way.

40:44 Speaker 2 Right, right.

40:44 Speaker 8 You can invent devices no one ever dreamed of.

40:46 Speaker 2 Exactly.

40:47 Speaker 8 It’s...

40:47 Speaker 2 Exactly. I was just telling you, Chani, that many years ago there was a disease called Tay-Sachs. Today we don’t see it anymore, because of Dor Yeshorim. We were the ones who took in those children. We watched those children fade away before our eyes.

41:02 Speaker 8 Yes.

41:02 Speaker 2 Gradually declining.

41:04 Speaker 8 How sad.

41:04 Speaker 2 It was very, very hard, but our staff took them in and cared for them until the very last moment. Their families knew they could rely on the staff, that they could go to work and everything would be all right, and that we would call them when the time came. Sadly, all those children passed away. In fact, despite all our achievements, we’ve also lost many, many children. I’ll give you a number: more than two hundred children have already...

41:29 Speaker 8 Oh my.

41:30 Speaker 2 ...whom we’ve lost. We’ve had to support the families and the staff members who lost children they cared for. With some children it came as a complete surprise, and with others we really saw that it was...

41:40 Speaker 8 It’s hard to see a child every day and...

41:42 Speaker 2 Very hard. Very, very hard.

41:43 Speaker 8 On the one hand, you hold on to “How wonderful” and “How well the child is doing”...

41:46 Speaker 2 Right.

41:47 Speaker 8 ...and then to see that...

41:47 Speaker 2 It’s sad to see. There are children, especially from our residential facility, whom we send to the hospital, and then they gradually fade away. We have a whole team of staff members who sit with the children in the hospital. We never leave a child alone there. A caregiver is always, always right beside them. That costs money, and the Ministry of Health reimburses us very, very little for it. But we will not leave any child alone. We even ask the family, “Would you like to stay with your child?” Usually the families can’t face it—it’s too hard for them—so we do it for them.

42:26 Speaker 8 And at the same time, you see all the children making progress and...

42:29 Speaker 2 Right, right. What I wanted to tell you about COVID is that some of our children caught it too. The first five children who got sick had to be hospitalized. We were told they couldn’t stay with us, because other children and staff might get sick. They were moved from hospital to hospital—five hospitals, one after another. Each one turned them away: “We can’t treat them, we can’t treat them.” And they wouldn’t let our caregivers in, because no one was allowed into the COVID ward. Eventually the Ministry of Health approached us and said, “Why don’t you open a COVID ward yourselves, on one floor?” Since we had opened the day center building, we had a vacant floor in the residential facility. So we turned that floor into a COVID hospital ward, with all the protective gear. You remember those white suits they wore, and the gloves, and the—

43:22 Speaker 8 Astronauts.

43:22 Speaker 2 They looked like astronauts, the whole outfit. We equipped the floor like that, and it cost us a great deal of money.

43:28 Speaker 8 A proper ward.

43:29 Speaker 2 Exactly. The government promised to reimburse us. In the meantime the government changed, and the current finance minister said he hadn’t made that promise and didn’t want to honor it. We had to absorb the cost ourselves. And I want to tell you that not one child died from COVID in our care. These were children with breathing difficulties, lung diseases, seizures, and illnesses we knew nothing about. Boruch Hashem, our entire allied-health team learned how to suction them, tap on their backs, and clear the mucus so their lungs could drain and clear. We didn’t leave them alone for a single minute, and boruch Hashem, not one child died from COVID. We did lose children to other things, but not to COVID.

44:13 Speaker 8 I’m trying to think how many people around the world might have been saved if someone had sat beside them and devoted themselves to their care like that.

44:19 Speaker 2 You know, later on, when hospitals began focusing on this kind of care, they asked us to send our staff to show them how to drain the mucus, how to tap people on the back and from the front, and how to position COVID patients so their lungs would drain and keep working, without breathing problems.

44:38 Speaker 8 Wow, wow. Can you imagine yourself without this organization?

44:43 Speaker 2 No. It’s part of our life at home too. Even though—

44:46 Speaker 8 It really is your life’s work—

44:47 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s true. Look, my children grew up there. I told you we lived there, and they grew up with it and saw it all. My children aren’t frightened of children with these disabilities. They always go up to them and help. My eldest daughter cares for children like that in her home. People come to her because they know she knows how to care for them. She has a small daycare, and when a child can’t yet attend it, families turn to her. They rely on her a great deal for babysitting and for looking after these children when they travel to family celebrations and the like. Another daughter of mine studied hydrotherapy and practices it. She lives in Haifa, built a pool there, and she—

45:30 Speaker 8 Wow.

45:30 Speaker 2 ...provides hydrotherapy there for children. My youngest daughter is the medical secretary for the medical department at the residential facility. Today she knows exactly what’s needed medically and handles contact with all the doctors, the hospitals, the whole medical system. They rely on her a great deal. So the whole family is really involved and aware of it. It’s a family business, as it were—

46:01 Speaker 8 It really, really is.

46:02 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem. I now have a granddaughter who went to Mivchar to study speech-language pathology. She’s finished her first year and will continue so she can become a speech-language therapist too.

46:15 Speaker 8 If you’re not in the field, you almost feel left out. You have to be.

46:20 Speaker 2 Yes.

46:21 Speaker 8 So let me ask a practi—well, not a technical question. Say I want to help the organization. Later, at the end, we’ll talk about how people can donate money. But apart from a financial donation, what can someone actually do?

46:36 Speaker 2 First of all, we have a volunteer program, and people are absolutely welcome to come. Our home is open twenty-four hours a day, 390 days a year. You can come in, you can help, you can volunteer. There are lots of things you can do: take them out for walks, volunteer when we go on trips, help with feeding. Absolutely. We have someone in charge of that. Her name is Chani Twersky. I can give you her phone number, and you can contact her: 0544934405. 0544934405. Chani Twersky is in charge of the volunteers. And, for example, young women looking for challenging work, women who have qualifications—there are many today with a special-education certificate or a certificate as a qualified caregiver—who aren’t put off by this and want a challenge. It’s a shlichus. It’s true the salaries aren’t very high, but we make a point of paying salaries very, very promptly every month. It really would be a meaningful shlichus. We’re very much looking for staff—caregivers, preschool teachers, all kinds of allied health professionals looking for work, and—

47:56 Speaker 8 This is the place.

47:57 Speaker 2 This is the place.

47:57 Speaker 8 All the staff here walk around looking so relaxed and happy.

48:00 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem.

48:00 Speaker 8 There’s such a good atmosphere.

48:01 Speaker 2 A very, very good atmosphere. It’s enjoyable, and it feels like family. I want to tell you that not long ago we ran a campaign to finish equipping this building, which we put up during COVID. As you mentioned, the government wasn’t so willing to continue funding us. The entire staff, all the women who work here, joined together to raise the money, and boruch Hashem we reached our goal. There was such happiness, such encouragement, such willingness to help, such joy.

48:32 Speaker 8 They’re part of the place.

48:33 Speaker 2 They really are part of the place. That night, when we reached the goal, we connected with all the homes over Zoom throughout the evening. We danced here, everyone danced, and the next day we had full celebrations because we’d reached it. The encouragement was incredible. This is a home for the staff, too.

48:52 Speaker 8 You come here and become part of the family.

48:55 Speaker 2 Definitely part of this family.

48:57 Speaker 8 Wow. So there are ways to help, to get involved, and…

49:03 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

49:03 Speaker 8 Listen, we wanted to talk about another subject, one that’s a little harder. The children dealing with all kinds of conditions, including those who need nursing care—children across the whole spectrum—fall into two groups. Some were born with a condition.

49:22 Speaker 2 That’s how it goes. Some children were born with various syndromes, and some, may we be spared, became ill with a disease that left them with a disability. But we also have a fairly large—and frightening—number of children who were injured in accidents.

49:42 Speaker 8 That’s what we want to guard against.

49:43 Speaker 2 That’s what we want to address. I feel so strongly about it. This is our shlichus, and all my daughters, all my daughters-in-law, our whole family, including my brothers and sisters, have taken it upon themselves: to warn people and prevent these accidents as much as possible. Hakadosh Boruch Hu must protect us. My grandmother, of blessed memory, used to say, “An angel goes with every child.” But even so, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sends that angel, and the family and parents also have to do their part. Protecting a child is a tremendous responsibility. Every child is a soul, and we have to guard them with the utmost care. We have children here who nearly drowned, may we be spared—families went to vacation spots, weren’t watching, and the children fell into pools. Or it happens in home pools. A boy came to us from a very wealthy family in Savyon, with a magnificent house and an enormous pool. He was the seventh child in the family. They lacked nothing; they traveled abroad countless times a year. At a year and a half old, he wasn’t being watched and crawled into the pool. Today he is severely impaired. The family is shattered, truly shattered. His mother came to me and said, “Hania, I have everything in the world. None of it means anything to me.”

51:03 Speaker 8 I think people really are less aware of this, because what we hear in the media is about a child, G-d forbid, drowning and dying, and that’s the end of it.

51:10 Speaker 2 Yes. And when it ends in death, that’s terrible too.

51:13 Speaker 8 Of course.

51:13 Speaker 2 It’s the end. People need to understand, a child—

51:15 Speaker 8 You don’t hear about all the…

51:16 Speaker 2 It can happen in bathtubs, even in a bucket of water.

51:19 Speaker 8 Even if a child hasn’t fallen, but…

51:20 Speaker 2 Even in a bucket of water. Leaving a bucket of water and stepping away for a moment, or leaving a child in the bathtub to go get a towel, or leaving a child on a changing table while you get the cream—and, may we be spared, the child falls. We have to be aware of this. Don’t take your eyes off a small baby for even a moment. Once I went to a wig stylist to have my sheitel combed. There was a sofa in the room, and her tiny baby, a month and a half old, was lying on it unattended. I said to her, “Why? Because he doesn’t roll over? You never know when he’ll start.” My son, the one who helps us with the management today, rolled over at six weeks old.

52:06 Speaker 8 You can’t know what moment it will happen.

52:07 Speaker 2 You never know when it will happen. Just imagine: he rolls over. What would you do? He rolls over and you’re not beside him, Hashem protect us, and he falls off the sofa. Or leaving a child completely alone and going out. I once heard about a woman who said, “I leave my child for an hour, an hour and a half, and go to the gym.” I told her—I don’t want to say her name—“Don’t do that.” You never know. A baby could cry and, G-d forbid, choke, or get caught between the bars of the crib. We once heard about a child who got caught between the bars of his crib and was in distress. Surely he cried beforehand, but no one was home to help and save him. Or putting a child on a sofa: a child came to us who had been put on a sofa bed. It had a sort of guard to keep him from falling; he was an older child. But there was a gap between the guard and the mattress. The child got his head into that gap. He screamed and cried, and no one was home to save him.

53:09 Speaker 8 Oh, that’s terrible.

53:11 Speaker 2 That’s one thing. Second, when you take children to the playground—and you should take children to the playground—don’t send older children to watch the younger ones. Those older children want to play at the playground themselves. There needs to be an adult watching them. Don’t let them climb where they shouldn’t. You know, children specifically want to climb over the slide.

53:33 Speaker 8 Yes, we think the equipment—

53:35 Speaker 2 Over the posts.

53:35 Speaker 8 Has safety certification—

53:36 Speaker 2 Exactly.

53:37 Speaker 8 And so we assume…

53:38 Speaker 2 Right. They climb over the equipment, over the posts, and if there’s no one there to tell them, “Get down from there…” Or take young girls: once my daughter saw a nine-year-old girl come to the playground with about five younger children. Of course, she went to play too—she was nine. One of the little ones ran toward the road next to the playground. My daughter arrived and immediately realized a child had wandered off. She recognized which family he belonged to by his clothes—they all wore matching clothes. She asked him, “Where…” The child couldn’t speak at all. She asked, “Where’s your mother?” He couldn’t answer, but she took him back into the playground and found the girl. She went over to her, and the girl said, “Oh, that’s my brother.” My daughter told me, “I don’t know who she is, but she was nine years old.” Friends, if you had a diamond ring, would you give it to a nine-year-old girl to look after and tell her, “Make sure no one takes it from you”? A diamond can get lost; nothing terrible happens. At most, you lose money. But a child—Hashem protect us. Think about it very, very carefully. Think about it carefully. Before Pesach, as someone once said, “My children are not the Pesach sacrifice.” Clean the house a little less, do a little less of everything else; the main thing is to protect the children. Don’t leave cleaning products in a drawer. We once took in a child who drank one of those products, and no one was there in time to save him. He was harmed by it. Really, think about these things. Think.

55:10 Speaker 8 You see it with your own eyes, and—

55:11 Speaker 2 A child crawls on the floor, and there are Lego pieces and all sorts of things there. You have to sweep, mop, clean. A child crawling on the floor is like a little broom.

55:26 Speaker 8 A vacuum cleaner.

55:26 Speaker 2 A little vacuum cleaner, exactly. A little vacuum cleaner. Everything goes into their mouth—everything, everything, everything. And we aren’t aware enough of it. We think, well, children grow up this way. We see it at the neighbors’ houses, everywhere.

55:39 Speaker 8 My older children grew up fine, so this one will too.

55:41 Speaker 2 Don’t think, “It won’t happen to me.” Another thing: when you’re driving, put babies in infant car seats and older children in certified safety seats. Buckle them in. Don’t let them run wild during the drive. First of all, you’ll keep having to turn your head to see why a child is acting up or bothering someone, and that puts everyone in the car in danger. And second, one sudden stop is all it takes. We had a child come to us whose mother told me, “He was born a typical child. When he was two, we didn’t buckle him in. We were riding in a minibus, and he fell forward. I didn’t see anything wrong,” she said, “but they asked all of us to come to the hospital for a checkup. Today, that child has a disability.”

56:30 Speaker 9 Oh, how terrible.

56:32 Speaker 2 She would always tell me, “Hani, stress this to parents: buckle your children in properly. It’s not just about the law, and it’s not just about whether a police officer sees you. Don’t tell the children, ‘Quick, quick, quick, the police are coming.’” It’s not about the police. It’s about us, our health. My whole family has truly taken it on as a shlichus to warn people, to keep warning them. You have treasures in your hands. Please watch over them so that, truly—

57:00 Speaker 9 To get out of that automatic mode.

57:02 Speaker 2 To get out of that automatic mode.

57:03 Speaker 9 You know, we once had an accident here in Israel. My husband and I were in the car, and our daughter, who was just over a year old, was in an infant car seat in the back. Before we set out, I don’t know why, but I said to my husband, “Tighten the belt holding the car seat in place a little more.” Half the car was badly damaged, all the windows shattered, and we got out without a scratch. And I said, Hakadosh Boruch Hu—you can’t know. How could you know something was going to happen on that drive, and—

57:30 Speaker 2 You have to buckle up.

57:32 Speaker 9 Tighten it a little. Think.

57:32 Speaker 2 But at the same time, we have to open up to Hakadosh Boruch Hu an opening the size of a needle’s point, and then He will open it wide for us and protect us.

57:40 Speaker 9 Don’t set out on a drive on autopilot.

57:42 Speaker 2 Exactly.

57:43 Speaker 9 Let’s take a second to make sure everyone is safely in their place, and...

57:47 Speaker 2 There’s one more thing I wanted to say. If, G-d forbid, a child with a disability is born into a family, it affects both the immediate and extended family. No one committed some sin that caused this child to be born. No one did anything wrong. We can’t understand this shlichus. We don’t understand why Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave them this child. There’s no need to be ashamed. Please, instead of putting all your attention and energy into hiding it, do the opposite. Use that energy to share it with your family and with others. Look for help. Today there are so many people and organizations that can help you learn how to accept it, how to help, how to provide rehabilitation. I’m not saying every family can manage it. Some families can’t, and there are foster-care systems and institutions. Each family should do what suits them and what is best for them. But don’t hide it, and don’t hide yourselves. You haven’t done anything wrong to anyone.

58:47 Speaker 9 On the contrary, you’ve been entrusted with something, and...

58:49 Speaker 2 It’s not an easy privilege. A mother once came to me with a daughter, after she had already raised nearly all her other children, and then this child was born. She said, “What did I want? Just a little sweet.” But the sweet turned out a bit sour. Still, there’s sweetness on the outside that can make it sweeter and help. So we shouldn’t take all the blame on ourselves or beat ourselves up. We’re hurting enough; we don’t need to hurt ourselves even more. Instead, we should ask for help. We once had a mother whose three children had a terrible illness called dysautonomia. I told her, “I admire the way you come and ask for help without being embarrassed, and insist on getting the help you need.” Because parents in that situation often don’t want help: “I’ve always been one of the givers, not one of the receivers, and I don’t want to become a project now.” I told her, “You should tell other parents about this.” She said to me, “What? Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave me this child, but He also gave me strength and help from others. I need to use it.” That was her approach.

59:50 Speaker 9 With every challenge Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives, He gives the strength to meet it.

59:53 Speaker 2 Exactly. He gives the strength and help from others. That’s why it says in so many places to help widows and orphans—and people with disabilities, and anyone who needs help.

1:00:05 Speaker 9 So besides the families themselves not hiding and seeking help, there’s also everyone else—the whole community.

1:00:11 Speaker 2 Right, the whole community.

1:00:12 Speaker 9 All the neighbors.

1:00:13 Speaker 2 To keep their eyes open, and not whisper among themselves, and not...

1:00:17 Speaker 9 Stare.

1:00:17 Speaker 2 Stare, or run away when something like this happens. Just the opposite. With care, of course—not everyone wants to be open about everything. But carefully. I think if each person showed a little...

1:00:30 Speaker 9 Sensitivity, sensitivity.

1:00:31 Speaker 2 Sensitivity, they would know how to help and support a family member, a neighbor, whoever needs it. And that’s really very important.

1:00:39 Speaker 9 It could make an enormous difference.

1:00:41 Speaker 2 Very much so.

1:00:42 Speaker 9 A huge part of the difficulty is wondering, “Where do I fit into this whole world?”

1:00:47 Speaker 2 Right. Right. At first it’s so hard, and once people understand that and offer help, it makes things so much easier and helps so much.

1:00:56 Speaker 9 Even just being there to listen.

1:00:58 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:00:58 Speaker 9 Everything, everything helps.

1:00:59 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:00:59 Speaker 9 Once you develop sensitivity, you can help.

1:01:03 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:01:04 Speaker 9 You just have to find the way. Wow. Hania, if you had every possibility in the world—all the money, all the power, all the time—what’s your dream? What would you do with it?

1:01:18 Speaker 2 My dream—first of all, there are many children we simply can’t take in, because of space and other limitations. But my dream is that we’d be able to get the support we need, including from the government. These days I spend a lot of time working on legislation and helping families get what they’re entitled to. I do a lot of work on that with the Knesset and the government, so families, daycare centers and institutions can receive as much as possible and develop everything the children need. So my dream is that we’d be able to receive that support graciously, without having to fight for it. Then we could give these children good, sweet lives and help them progress as much as possible, so they can take part in society in every way they can—whether that means joining regular classes or kindergartens, or simply taking part in social life. They shouldn’t have to feel ashamed or be hidden away, or face difficulties getting on a bus, going on an outing, going to the beach, or doing anything else that would help the family and...

1:02:42 Speaker 9 It’s really maddening to see something that could seemingly be solved with money.

1:02:46 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:47 Speaker 9 And the money isn’t there.

1:02:48 Speaker 2 Absolutely. For example, when I go to the beach now, I see how much accessibility is lacking. I see people bringing children and people with disabilities in wheelchairs. There should be accessible access, and it really is possible. With a little willingness, the authorities could make these places accessible, so that a person with a disability could enjoy them too. I go to the beach—I’m crazy about the sea; I love it so much—and I’m sure someone with a disability could also get close to it, go in and enjoy it. The same goes for swimming pools, gyms and all sorts of places like that. And outings, where we could bring the people we care for and let them enjoy everything life has to offer.

1:03:23 Speaker 9 Absolutely. You’ve been in this field for decades now, and I’m curious: from your perspective, do you see a broader change? Is there more awareness and more discussion?

1:03:35 Speaker 2 Definitely. First of all, people hide their children much less. They’re much less ashamed, and they come to ask for help. There are more and more institutions and places opening up and offering help and support. There’s also much more awareness of the need to help, including on the part of the government and the Knesset. There are still battles, I’m not saying there aren’t. But clearly, in recent years we’ve learned this, brought it into the conversation and begun to internalize it. We need to keep internalizing it. There is life after the tragedy.

1:04:12 Speaker 9 Wow. Tell me, waking up every morning to a shlichus like this—what does that feel like? It must bring so much fulfillment.

1:04:19 Speaker 2 Ah, yes. It’s very, very fulfilling. There really are difficulties along the way and everything, but it’s so fulfilling, and believe me, it gives you a lot of strength to get up and keep going. For example, this Wednesday there’s another committee meeting about how to integrate children properly—children with special needs, high-functioning children. I’m working together with other organizations and other mothers of children like these. Now it’s vacation, and there’s no government, and we’re feeling rather down about it all. We wondered, what do we do? One woman said, “No, we’re going.” I asked my husband, “What should I do? Sign up?” And suddenly I said, yes, yes, I’m going to sign up. If I can accomplish just one more thing that will let them integrate one more girl... You were here; you saw how she simply told you that it’s possible to integrate the girl. If one more girl can be integrated into a regular kindergarten or daycare, I’m going to do it. I’m going to get up and travel there, even though it’s vacation, even though it’s so hot, and we’re feeling down, and there’s no government and nothing’s in place. We’re going to do it. And truly, all these things give me so much more energy. The family, too—the family and everything going on around us.

1:05:26 Speaker 9 Are the grandchildren involved?

1:05:27 Speaker 2 Yes, very much.

1:05:28 Speaker 9 Do they know what’s going on?

1:05:29 Speaker 2 Very, very much. In this fundraising campaign we just did, my children and my grandchildren went door to door in the buildings where they live.

1:05:36 Speaker 9 Wow.

1:05:37 Speaker 2 They explained what ALEH is, and you should know, they collected hundreds of shekels. One of my granddaughters is twelve. She collected almost 250 shekels just from the buildings in her neighborhood. She told everyone about it. She said, “Do you know how many people listened to me? Do you know how many people didn’t even know there was such a thing?” Of course, everyone knows there are children with special needs. But when an innocent young girl comes to them and they’re exposed to it, it was—

1:06:04 Speaker 9 Listen, the way they’re being raised is amazing.

1:06:06 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:07 Speaker 9 You don’t need to explain it to them. They simply see it with their own eyes...

1:06:10 Speaker 2 When my daughters were little, in the kindergartens they attended here in Bnei Brak, the teacher was aware of these things. In every class, she had two or three children with developmental delays, and she taught the other children how to help them, how to wait for them, all of it. My children grew up with that from the very beginning.

1:06:28 Speaker 9 Wow. It’s essential. I really think every woman listening now works at something different. No one is necessarily going to leave her job tomorrow and set up an organization. Maybe someone will. But really, whatever each woman does, she needs to find her own point, her shlichus.

1:06:44 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:06:45 Speaker 9 First of all, because that’s what we were created for. And second, because it really gives you strength and meaning, and—

1:06:51 Speaker 2 Right.

1:06:51 Speaker 9 And you do things so much better.

1:06:53 Speaker 2 Here’s something I want to tell you: neighbors, pay attention. Sometimes, when you see a child with special needs, ask whether the family needs to go away for a break and whether you can help them, or whether they need to go to a wedding and you can help. Do you know how many parents of these children tell us here, “Do you know why I was able to go to a particular wedding? Because my neighbor knocked on my door and said, ‘I’m happy to watch her for a little while,’” or, “‘I’m happy to send my daughter over to babysit for a bit’”?

1:07:15 Speaker 9 Circles of support that really save people.

1:07:17 Speaker 2 They save the families.

1:07:19 Speaker 9 For a parent, sometimes a single hour is oxygen.

1:07:21 Speaker 2 Exactly. Exactly.

1:07:23 Speaker 9 Just offer. Don’t be afraid.

1:07:26 Speaker 2 And there really are families we call host families, who do it so graciously and with such joy and generosity. They make the other person feel, “I’m genuinely happy to do this.”

1:07:42 Speaker 9 Wow. Don’t be afraid to offer, and don’t be afraid to accept help.

1:07:46 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:07:46 Speaker 9 And may we always merit to remember that, in the end, we’re one family.

1:07:50 Speaker 2 Right.

1:07:50 Speaker 9 All of the Jewish people.

1:07:52 Speaker 2 Right.

1:07:52 Speaker 9 And just as someone leaves their child with you, we should be able to turn to you, too.

1:07:55 Speaker 2 It will bring us together. So the future is ahead of us.

1:07:59 Speaker 9 Truly amazing. Let’s finish with how people can donate, so we don’t forget.

1:08:03 Speaker 2 First of all, there are many ways. There’s a website called ALEH, aleh.org.

1:08:09 Speaker 9 We’ll also put a link wherever we can in the description.

1:08:12 Speaker 2 A-L-E-H dot org. There’s a phone number, 03-617-1888, where someone answers and guides you. You can use Bit, too. You can also call 1-800-60-66-66; there’s an option there that tells you how to donate.

1:08:32 Speaker 9 A switchboard.

1:08:32 Speaker 2 A switchboard, where they tell you how to donate. And truly, every single shekel counts. When we ran this campaign, some families said, “No, I can’t.” I told them, “Fifty shekels, twenty shekels, ten shekels.” As I told you, my granddaughter went door to door and managed to raise money. Every single shekel—

1:08:48 Speaker 9 One contribution joined another.

1:08:49 Speaker 2 Here and there, and we managed to reach our—

1:08:53 Speaker 9 I remember seeing your—

1:08:55 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:55 Speaker 9 Charidy campaign, and—

1:08:56 Speaker 2 Yes, Charidy.

1:08:57 Speaker 9 The pressure is incredible.

1:08:58 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. It really is. I reached out to everyone—friends, all my friends. It was so beautiful to see people sharing it, and every single shekel counted. At first, people thought, “What? I can’t cover the cost of supporting a child—that’s 7,200 shekels.” I said, “No. Every penny counts. Everyone can give.” Truly, every single penny made it happen.

1:09:18 Speaker 9 Everyone can have the merit of giving.

1:09:19 Speaker 2 Right, exactly.

1:09:20 Speaker 9 Because a person sitting at home who doesn’t have time right now to volunteer and help can still give. It says in Tanya that when you donate money, you’re giving your own energy, because you worked for that money.

1:09:33 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:09:33 Speaker 9 In the end, you’re giving something of your life, even though it looks like just a banknote, or even just a click.

1:09:38 Speaker 2 And it gives us strength, too. It gives us strength as caregivers. Look, people are with us. They may not be able to come and help me with this, but they’ve helped me so much.

1:09:46 Speaker 9 They’re taking part, truly.

1:09:47 Speaker 2 They’ve helped me. They really, really have.

1:09:49 Speaker 9 It’s an enormous merit, and you’ve given so many options that I don’t think anyone can say, “Oh, there’s no practical way for me to do it.”

1:09:56 Speaker 2 Anyone who can and wants to, can. We’ll truly be grateful, and we’ll bless you that everything should go well for you.

1:10:03 Speaker 9 Yes, and the help itself—you can see the children right here, with your own eyes, and—

1:10:06 Speaker 2 Absolutely. You’re all invited. Anyone who wants to is welcome to come and visit.

1:10:09 Speaker 9 You’re invited.

1:10:10 Speaker 2 You can knock on the door and come visit. We have a director of the kindergartens, a director of the daycare center and a director of the school. Any of them can give you a tour so you can see it all, and see what the help you give us makes possible.

1:10:25 Speaker 9 Right, and gain strength. Coming here gives you strength, too.

1:10:27 Speaker 2 Absolutely. It gives you strength.

1:10:28 Speaker 9 Wow, Henya—

1:10:29 Speaker 2 And perspective on life.

1:10:30 Speaker 9 Yes. What an inspiration.

1:10:31 Speaker 2 Thank you, Chani.

1:10:32 Speaker 9 Thank you so much.

1:10:33 Speaker 2 Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this, and I hope you enjoyed it.

1:10:37 Speaker 9 I’m sure they did. I’m sure. Thank you, Henya.

1:10:41 Speaker 2 All the best.