While the winds of crises continue to rage in our country, some Israelis are quietly engaged in building bridges with Palestinians by volunteering in a variety of ways. Two initiatives particularly warmed my heart and reminded me how Judaism teaches us to act and extend a helping hand.
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One involves transporting Palestinian patients daily from checkpoints in Gaza and the West Bank to hospitals throughout the country. Volunteers help patients who are in need of transplants, cancer treatments, and other conditions that cannot be treated in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority.
The non-profit is called The Road to Recovery and is headed by Yael Noy. Patients are driven from the border to the hospital, such as Sheba Tel-HaShomer Medical Center in Ramat Gan, and sometimes even all the way to the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
If necessary, the volunteers wait for the patients to finish their treatment and take them back to the checkpoint, or another volunteer will be in charge of the way back.
Food and drinks are also provided for the road to make the journey for the patients as convenient as possible. According to volunteers, without their work, patients can get stuck for hours at checkpoints, exhausted.
One of the volunteers, Shachar, wrote on Facebook that he joined the non-profit during the pandemic when he couldn't travel abroad for business. He spoke of the special relationship he developed with one of the children, Kasem, who underwent a kidney transplant donated by his mother and who must now attend more appointments for kidney rejection treatment. Another patient – Mahmoud – he wrote, has a serious genetic disease and at just 10 years old, he has to undergo dialysis four times a week.
"A year ago, his mother turned to me for help to go through a preimplantation genetic diagnosis so that she could give birth to a healthy child... I couldn't say no."
Shortly after, the couple told Shachar that they were expecting. He later received a photo of Mahmoud with his newborn brother. "I feel like half a grandfather, and the child is healthy and has no genetic diseases," Shachar wrote.
Another organization, called Nashot HaYam (Women of the Sea), has volunteers from all over Israel, who in the summer organize buses with mothers and their children from the Palestinian Authority for a fun day at the beach. For most children, this is the first time they see the sea and swim.
There are no words to describe the happiness of the children as they jump into the water and refuse to come out for hours. The volunteers look after them and provide them with food, water, transportation, and care.
Both organizations are prime examples that when it comes to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, there is another way.
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