Dear Friends,

Thank you all so much for your beautiful emails, your prayers and your support. I truly appreciate it.

A few days have gone by since I had a chance to address you all. I am sure you have been receiving updates about the situation in Israel. I sincerely thank each and every one of you for your thoughtfulness during these times and for your great concern for our safety. I just cannot answer 345 emails, so I am writing this letter. My family and I are fine, all of our members are fine as well. Most of them left the city. I am the “captain” so I will remain here. Only two of the 30 Or Hadash workers are working now. I will try to tell you in more detail about the events that took place in this past week.

As you can imagine, we have had the most tense week, with a great deal of confusion, prayers, fear and some hope. After the first Katyushas landed in Haifa on Sunday, the 20 staff members of Or Hadash went home and have not returned to work yet, with Katyushas hitting Haifa all week long.

Since all of the July Bar/Bat Mitzvah families wanted to cancel the ceremony ( and most of them did eventually cancel), my family and I went to Jerusalem for a Bar Mitzvah I performed at the Kotel (for a family afraid of having the Bar Mitzvah in Haifa). We returned to Haifa yesterday night, and were ”greeted” by an unpleasant bundle of Katyushas which hit Haifa. Unlike the Bar Mitzvah I performed in Jerusalem, many Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies that were planned to take place at Or Hadash in July were cancelled, and as sad as it is, it is not a great surprise. The Or Hadash preschools are also closed until further notice and we don’t think the children will return to the preschools any time soon. The same goes for our first-year camp (25 children attend it), which is also closed. Some the parents already asked (politely, I confess) that we return the money they paid for the children’s summer camp. On the other hand, we had signed contracts with the workers in these projects, and mean to pay their salaries as we agreed beforehand. We have already ordered food for 95 children (preschool+ camp), it is a disaster in so many ways. We make most of our income from Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremonies and other life cycle events. All guests who were supposed to visit Israel from abroad, cancelled their trip, and we usually receive donations from these groups. 10 days from now, we will have to pay our staff their salaries, and it will not be easy to do that.

As I am writing this letter, I performed a rehearsal for two Bar Mitzvahs at Or Hadash. Some very brave people decided to have the rehearsal at Or Hadash as scheduled. There were about 20 people, all dressed up nicely for the event. A few minutes after we started, the sirens went on, and everyone went downstairs to the bomb shelter. We continued the ceremony from the bomb shelter. After returning to the synagogue, the sirens went on again. Try to imagine to yourselves such an important event, disrupted by alarms, and the whole family going downstairs (of course by foot) to the bomb shelter.

In half an hour Kabalat Shabbat is supposed to begin as every Friday at Or Hadash, only this Friday for the first time, I am praying for a minyan, a minyan is all that I need, but I am doubtful whether we will have a minyan tonight.

Residents of Haifa have stayed indoors throughout the week, many of them fleeing town. When arriving to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it is almost certain you will encounter what we refer to as “refugees” from the North of Israel, who were trying to get away from the alarms and enjoy summer, as they would have liked to in Haifa. People with young children try to find amusement for their children during summer, and there is almost no choice for them except leaving town.

I think all of us became very good listeners. We got to know many new sounds in the past week and categorize them as positive or negative. Numerous times each day we hear the sounds of helicopters and of plains making their way to the North. The sound is quite scary, but it is categorized as positive, since they take care of our safety. On the other hand, we hear the sound of sirens about 4 times each day. It is a disturbing and aversive sound, one which creates fear even in the most relaxed person. And then there are of course the sounds of Katyushas hitting this area. Some are much louder than others, and you can determine how close a Katyusha has landed by how loud the sound was. We have all become “experts” in Katyusha landings.

In the midst of all this chaos there is a positive side, as families have a chance to reunite and the unfortunate circumstances bring out the best in people, who are most willing to host family members and friends from the North.

As much as we appreciate the concern, we still want to live a normal life without constantly fearing being hurt. People cannot stay at their friend’s or family’s homes forever and many do not have the means to go to other places (the elderly, people with disabilities, the poor etc.). We are extremely concerned about these people, who are not always being heard, because of all the confusion around us. There are people who have been staying in their bomb shelters for over a week and live with no basic sanitary conditions, as well as the extreme heat of the Israeli summer, and of course it is not an environment which fosters people’s well being.

I want to finish this letter with a general appeal. Some of you offered to help. We need this help now. I don’t remember any other time since I was appointed Rabbi of Or Hadash 6 years ago that we were in need of your financial support more than at this time.

If you can, please send your support directly to Or Hadash at: