16 year old Bar is an avid Liverpool FC fan. Last year his dad bought him tickets to a match, but sadly they went to waste. On October 7th 2023, Bar’s father, aunt and step-grandmother were murdered in three separate attacks in their moshav. Bar, his mother and sister survived by hiding in a safe room and were later evacuated to a hotel, where they lived for eight months until it was deemed safe to return.
Tragically, there are thousands of young people in Israel with similar stories. Our staff at World ORT Kadima Mada (WOKM) are doing everything they can to support these students as they come to terms with their losses and attempt to process their grief. As well as delivering 1:1 and group therapy and resilience workshops, WOKM is also offering some of the worst affected teens a respite trip to a country within the ORT network.
“Israelis are not suffering with PTSD because we haven’t reached that point. We’re still in the trauma phase,” explains Dr Moshe Leibe, Deputy Director General & Chief Pedagogy Officer, WOKM. “The respite gives the kids something to look forward to. We’re out, we talk, we do fun things, they connect with families. They’re happy. When they’re away they process the trauma. It’s part of the healing process, building resilience.”
Last week, WOKM in collaboration with ORT UK, flew Bar to the UK, along with his cousins Itay (18) and Ohad (15) as well as Polina (18), who made aliyah from Russia aged seven.
All four attend or have recently graduated from ORT’s Kfar Silver Youth Village near Ashkelon, close to the Gaza border. They travelled with Dr Leibe and Moshe Cohen, a Kfar Silver staff member, and stayed with host families in London and Manchester.
This is the fifth respite trip led by Dr Leibe, who has witnessed just how much the teens gain from being welcomed into the homes of families in the Jewish community.
“They need 360 degree support from families so they can get to know the diaspora,” says Dr Leibe. “It’s very important. We don’t teach that at school. The kids can see they’re not alone and they’re taken care of. They are connecting with the families on a really deep level, its amazing.”
When word spread that ORT UK needed help from the community, we were inundated with offers. When one host’s boiler broke, it took less than 12 hours to find another family to open up their home!
“There is support from the world,” Moshe continues. “When you host a kid and they’re having fun and they laugh and you know their history, there is an incredible sense of support and giving. Sometimes we think in Israel, everybody hates you. And you hear ‘don’t go to London’ because you have demonstrations and you have people that don’t love you. The kids get to know the community, they get to understand that they’re loved and it’s part of the process.”
Finding Liverpool tickets for Bar proved challenging, but the group did manage to take a tour of Anfield and attend four other football matches. They also visited students at King David High School in Manchester, celebrated Itay’s 18th birthday in a traditional English pub, shopped on Oxford Street, visited the National Gallery, took a trip to Winter Wonderland, went for an icy swim in Hampstead ponds and enjoyed a delicious Friday night dinner with a local family. Luckily, they also found time to join ORT UK and World ORT for lunch at ORT House, where we were thrilled to hear how much the teens had benefitted from the programme.
“I really liked the Shabbat dinner on Friday night with a Jewish family,” said Itay. “The kids were 17 and 18 and they were very nice to talk to. It was like being with friends and we didn’t talk about what is going on in Israel.”
While Polina told us: “It’s been a unique experience and it’s a nice break from home. The National Gallery made a big impression on me and if I stayed longer I would like to visit all the museums! The Jewish community here is very welcoming, warm and friendly.”
London host David commented: “It was a such a pleasure having the kids here from Israel. The aim was to give them an opportunity to have a positive experience, but what we didn’t realise was what a wonderful experience it would be for our family too. The connection between our community in Israel and our community here has never been more important. Thank you ORT for the wonderful work you do.”
While ORT UK Chair, Annette Kurer said: “It’s been wonderful to work together in pure collaboration with the World ORT global network and the UK community to deliver such a meaningful opportunity to students from ORT’s Kfar Silver Youth Village. ORT UK is committed to helping students and staff across Israel, by supporting educational and therapeutic programmes such as this respite trip, as they process their trauma and build hope for the future.”
Now back in Israel, the work continues.
“In the past year we’re working with 12,000 students, including 1100 students at Kfar Silver,” says Dr Leibe. “We’ve been working all across Israel giving workshops in evacuation centres, in hospitals, in evacuee schools. Now everybody wants us to come into shelters. Staff are going into active war zones in places which are being bombed constantly, because they want to help these students build resilience. It gives them a kind of mental quiet when they do activities, other than sitting and waiting for the next missile to come.”
If you would like to make a donation to help young people in Israel through WOKM, please visit Make a donation | ORT UK
