Doing, Not Just Donating: Volunteering in Israel After October 7

Early in August I went to Israel, yes just me!! Ever since the October 2023 massacre and ensuing wars I’ve wanted to do “something”. Donating and fundraising was useful but for a “doing” person like me it wasn’t enough. Then back in February a member of our community group posted an advert for an LGBTQ jewish volunteer trip to Israel run by Birthright Israel and Tailor Made . The age limit for volunteer groups has been raised to 50 and with just 2 months until I turn 50 at the time of the trip it was a definite sign that this was it, this was my “something”.

My initial reaction was not without my wife Jo but I pulled on my big girl pants and filled my application. A few friends along the way said they’d join me and while I’d love to have gone with someone I know I was undeterred. I completed each step and was accepted! There was a shaky month during the Iranian conflict that it might not go ahead. But that just made me more determined to go.

We carried out a variety of volunteer activities, visiting key sites related to October 2023 as well as a range of cultural and educational activities. We had plenty of time off but equally we were kept very busy too.

Volunteer Activities:

• Packing boxes for Latet (to give), one of Israel's largest national non-profits that supports impoverished Holocaust survivors, and anyone in poverty including war related displaced families. While we were only there a few hours we felt like we'd made a difference. We helped make 1000 boxes full of cleaning products including washing powder, bleaches, shampoo, dish soap etc. Other groups were making boxes of canned foods etc.

• Packing food boxes at the Jaffa Institute, so a very local organisation. It is a private nonprofit organisation that assists severely disadvantaged children and their families living in impoverished neighborhoods in Israel, including in Greater Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Bet Shemesh. Obviously this was on a much smaller scale than the previous organisation and much more hands on. After building 50 boxes we formed a human chain filling them with essentials which I’m happy to report did include cake and chocolate milk powder!!

• Arts and Crafts at an all-female day centre for the elderly in Holon along with another Birthright group of Americans and Canadians. We spent the morning doing mosaic making with the ladies as well as just having fun. They haven’t had volunteers in a while so to have two lots in one day was super exciting and they’d gone all out preparing fruit and baking cakes for us all. The mosaic work was fun chopping up tiles and helping them place them. Our guides and other staff helped translate when needed and soon we were all busy. Music was put on and it started to get a little crazy with half the ladies getting up to dance with the guys. It was so fun to watch, there were some good-looking guys in our group, and I think more than one of the ladies got a twinkle in their eye!

• Painting bedrooms at Beit Dror, a shelter for LGBT 12-18s at risk. Every year they hostel over 80 youth who had to leave their homes, either due to lack of acceptance of their sexual or gender difference, or for other related reasons. At Beit Dror they receive a temporary emergency home for a up to a few months. Beyond offering shelter, Beit Dror offers counselling, including family therapy. Whilst we were no experts the rooms were definitely fresher and cleaner than before we started. More importantly we spent time with the kids chatting with them, finding out their interests and getting to know them. We all had a lot of fun and everyone at BD were thrilled that out of all the things a group of adults from the UK could do we chose to be with them.

• “Tree planting” for a nonprofit called Good Energy. After an informative session in the classroom we were taken to plant trees. It turns out we weren’t actually planting trees, we were literally potting plants. One plant between 2 of us. It was absolutely silly and ridiculous but we had fun and a lot of laughs that it made it the perfect end to a very heavy day (at the gaza envelope).

Educational Activities:

• We met with Gili Roman, brother of Yarden Roman-Gat, a released hostage from the October 2023 massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri. We’ve seen the videos, read the stories but nothing prepares you for hearing the first-hand hour by hour account from a family member. Gili’s sister sacrificed her own safety to ensure the safety of her 3-year-old child and was taken into captivity. She was one of the lucky ones that was released in the first wave of releases but not before being held in a domestic home in Gaza by herself for 54 days guarded by 3 armed terrorists. Miraculously her husband and child did manage to escape although having heard how I don’t know how it was possible. Sadly, her husband's mother and sister were both shot in the head not far from their home. If you want to read more about Yarden’s story it is here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/.../Kidnapping_of_Yarden_Roman...

• We were very fortunate to have a lecture on geopolitics by Neil Lazarus (an internationally acclaimed educator in the fields of the Middle East, Israel's public diplomacy, and effective communication training). I’m not known for my knowledge in anything geopolitical but with skill, humour and clear explanation he made the subject very understandable. It’s given me a greater understanding of what’s currently going on here in Israel, what happened in 2023 and what led up to these two points. (Instagram @awesomeseminars)

• Visiting the head offices of a charity called IGY. Originally Israel Gay Youth it’s grown and expanded and is now home to thousands of LGBT teenagers. They have 4,000 participants. It’s a significant social space for every LGBTQ youth in Israel. They also have a vocational college on site offering 6 courses from hair dressing / beauty to fitness instructor to train teenage and young adults a qualification that will ensure employment rather than slipping out of society and worse. Although only there an hour it was fascinating to learn about this significant charity that does so much on such a small budget from government and donations.

• Lecture by Hillel Meyer, Jewish educator about how the LGBTQ community and the Jewish religion coexist. He kindly shared his life story with us reflecting the changes in the world over the past 4 decades and we had many questions to aid our understanding. Having seem him lead services in synagogue on Shabbat night and listening to him it was clear how passionate he is about all his identities as an Orthodox Jew, a gay man, a father and an educator. We were very lucky to have him volunteer his time to spend with us today.

• Graffiti Tour of Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is famous for its graffiti street art and I’ve done a tour before but this one was very much based on the 2023 massacre and subsequent feelings about the hostages. Graffiti street art is a living breathing thing with it being changed fairly regularly but anything to do with the hostages remains untouched and offer powerful insights into the feelings of the local residents.

• Tour of Tel Aviv with our guide. It started like any normal history of TA tour on Rothschild Boulevard which I’ve done before and quickly got to the point - the gay history of the city. Ours was an LGBT group volunteering in the most inclusive city in the Middle East. It’s important to know the history of the city and its inhabitants. Our leader knew his history and studded the tour with personal anecdotes and stories, many of them positive but others with tragic endings.

Undoubtedly the hardest day of the whole trip was the day we visited the Otef, the gaza envelope. We made 4 stops – Kibbutz Mefalsim, Tkuma car memorial, Sderot town and the Nova festival site.

• Mefalsim kibbutz is on route 232 (road to hell as it’s now known where three people who live and work there told us their personal individual October 7 stories minute by minute, hour by hour through that day. The whole time we were there, we could hear ballistics in Khan Younis some of which shook the building and rattled the glass windows that we were leaning against. That was a bit of a shock for us but was totally normal for them which is sad in itself. They all had to evacuate the Kibbutz and their homes for 10 months. All of them returned there when they were able to. There were many losses to the community and injuries that will take a long time to heal from. The majority, at least 90% of the community have a level of PTSD that requires medical intervention. But above and beyond all of that were the stories of heroism that that shows the real strength of the people, the literal fighting not just for their lives but for the lives of everyone around them and for their community.

• Tkuma Memorial which was just harrowing. Please read more here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Car_Wall. There were thousands of vehicles there, please do read the link if you can just to get a greater understanding. I’ve never seen so many bullet holes in all my life. The destroyed vehicles, the burned out ambulances are not just the very physical evidence of unbelievable massacre and slaughter that took place everywhere along route 232 but also the story of how the charred remains and victim pieces had to be reclaimed from each ruined vehicle to be properly identified and buried was excruciating. One mother only received 3 teeth from her daughter back to bury.

• Re’im, the small town where the Nova festival massacre took place. Thousands of young people, young vibrant adult adults and teenagers who just wanted to dance. Imagine all the festivals we have Glastonbury, Y not, tramlines etc and just picture it being flooded with terrorists spraying bullets into the crowd, chasing them in cars and throwing grenades into groups. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no one to help them. The bars are still in situ, now part of the memorial. There are photos of smiling young people every where, little memorials at each one. Trees have been planted and there's a star of David in ceramic anemone, the national flower.

Route 232 goes for miles and miles and communities all along the route were targeted. I’ve marked on a map all the kibbutzim that were all attacked at 6.30 am. I

can’t even fathom how hundreds or thousands of heavily armed terrorists loaded with weapons, RPG and grenades were coordinated to make a multi-pronged attack.

Sderot, a larger town where the police station was before it got destroyed and heard stories about what happened there. Stories of survival and heroism that defy belief. The battle was sustained and brutal. Please do check the “battle” section here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sderot and think about your own town. What’s shocking about this is this particular town has had the most rocket attacks over history because of its closeness to Gaza. As you drive around you see that every child’s playground has a bomb shelter. It’s just something they live with that you can’t even imagine living somewhere else.

Other Activies:

• Shabbat dinner - Our guide had arranged a proper Friday Night Meal for us. One of our group did Kiddush (Jewish blessing recited over wine to sanctify the Sabbath), Dan did hamotzi and I lit the Shabbat candles and as a group we enjoyed the meal together. It was also the start of Tu B’av (the Jewish day of love) so our sweet guide bought heart shaped cakes for dessert. A quick clear up and many of us headed to the synagogue together where our group was made very welcome.

• Visit to Jerusalem – After the heavy day in the gaza envelope on Thursday many of us wanted to go to Jerusalem to ground ourselves. There we split into smaller groups and my group when to the Kotel followed by a Kotel tunnel tour and explored the shuks.

• Beach day - Shabbat was spent at the beach along with all the locals and it was fabulous listening to the sound of matkot, dozing and swimming. The water was 31° warm as a bath, absolute bliss

• Hostage Square - Saturday night we went to Hostage Square with pretty much everyone else in Tel Avi to protest and campaign for the release of the 50 remaining hostages. There were 60- 80,000 people there. It was the most beautiful joyous thing to stand in the middle of this huge crowd and see nothing but a sea of Jewish/Israeli flags being waved. The group all said we had no idea how constantly being bombarded with Palestinian flags everywhere in England was getting us down, the constant worry and threat of hate and danger is a weight. We all felt so free and safer than we have in a very long time.

Reflecting on the last week my biggest worry before going away, the one thing that nearly tipped me over the edge of cancelling was the group. We were a small group, far smaller than we were supposed to be - and it was all guys. This was an LGBT group so what did nearly 50-year-old me have in common with a load of younger gay guys ranging from 19-42.

I was still worried up until the second I arrived at the airport and Jo handed me over.

I couldn’t have asked for a nicer group of guys to spend 8 days with. I’ve hung out individually and in groups with all of them. I loved their different personalities, their sassy attitudes and their quiet individuality. I feel like I gained 8 brothers who made me laugh, teased me endlessly, looked after me and supported me on tough days and most importantly turned me into one of them.

I had such a variety of experiences, and I feel truly blessed and lucky to have gone on this trip. It was a privilege to work with the charities even in a small way, to spend time exploring Tel Aviv and to meet such wonderful people everywhere we went.

I came home with new friends, new understanding, and a heart full of gratitude.

This trip gave me more than I could have ever asked for. It was a privilege to give even a little, to bear witness, to learn, and to be part of something bigger than myself. I went to Israel searching for “something.” I found so much more.