On the first Shabbat in September 2024, early in the Fall semester, Parshat Shoftim, we hosted 3 Israeli college students from Emek Jezreel College in Afula, along with their Chabad on Campus Rabbi Eliav Ben-Attar for a full Shabbat with our students. They spoke formally at the Shabbat meals, sharing of their experiences this year in Israel, their tours of duty, their campus hosting displaced Northern families in student dorms, and their impressions of Jewish campus life at UAlbany. And being here all Shabbat, they spent a lot of informal casual time with our students, up late at night and all Shabbat afternoon.
MATAN:
I wasn’t called up for the first two weeks after October 7th and felt that I had to do something. My regular job is accounting for a Big Four firm in Israel and I am/was now back at school to get my masters. My army job is working on food logistics for the army, to make sure bases are stocked with ingredients and food. So I know what soldiers on duty appreciate and I happen to like BBQing myself. I told the rabbi we should make some BBQ’s for some nearby army bases. So we did one, then another, more people and organizations got involved. I got called up, but rabbi and others kept at it. He’s since done over 120 such BBQs for soldiers. They appreciate the good food, the friendship, and the feelings of being thought of and cared for.
When I got called up I was tasked to organizing to work on a team to prepare 5 million ready-to-eat army meals. The army stockpile was low and they had to get it back up fast. We worked in 12 hour shifts around the clock, until a more regular routine was established. Then I went back to my regular routine army duties of food logistics at various army bases to ensure they were stocked and things were being delivered. My wife works in the army spokesperson’s office and we were both called up and yet we have children. It is not an easy time.
I share this with you because it shows that everyone can do something and it doesn’t have to start big. It can be anything, even a BBQ. Each of our efforts is valuable and helpful. Don’t wait until there is something big and “important” to do. Do whatever you can.
AVI:
Sitting around the table here with our rabbi, we realized that this getaway Shabbat to America is the first time we’re sitting at a Shabbat table together since before October 7th. It’s been a very tumultuous year, a very unsettled and stressful time. We don’t have time or headspace to think about it now but there’s a lot of trauma people have to deal with one day.
The feeling of Achdut, of unity, is very powerful. We feel it all the way in Israel. It helps us in Israel a lot to know that from far away, across the ocean that you care, you have our back. America is Israel’s greatest and most important ally, and your advocating for that in a time when it is threatened and undermined is very helpful. Israel can’t be alone in this world.
Perhaps one day some of you will come to Israel, to visit, maybe to live. Nowadays there are many ways you can help. From afar, from up close. Even from America there are many ways to help Israel is burdened, weighted, drawn thin by these terrible attacks and the war that followed. We have lost friends and family. Many are injured. No community anywhere throughout the land is untouched and unaffected. There are things we are not allowed to speak about, there are things we can’t easily talk about even if we could. It is a very hard and heavy time.
EDDIE:
I am the first in my family to have been born in Israel after they emigrated from the Ukraine. I am studying communications and work for the Maariv, an old established Israeli newspaper. In my army service I work in the Air Force. I am not a pilot but work to support and service the aircraft.
As much as it is good to have a positive outlook, I have to admit and be honest with you that I am currently not feeling optimistic. Israel faces many heavy problems from without and within. It is a Jewish trait to worry, to be concerned. It is in our genes. One of Israel’s greatest problems is that its young people struggle with their identity. Many don’t feel a positive sense of Jewish identity. Israel’s has a great bitter divide between religious and secular. I am not religious, especially before meeting Rabbi Eliav, but the identity problem concerns me deeply.
To come here and to see so many Jews gathered together for Shabbat, Jews from all walks of life, despite their differences, all sitting together here at Chabad. enjoying, celebrating, happily together. Jews who care about being Jewish, who feel connected to their Jewishness. This is a beautiful sight to see. This means a lot to me, a lot to us. I think that I will fondly and vividly remember a Shabbat like this for 10 years, for 20 years to come.
RABBI ELIAV BEN-ATTAR:
Our Chabad on Campus is up in the central-north of Israel, Emek Jezreel in Afula. In a way, Afula is like Albany, a smaller city, upstate in Israel. Driving up here, and seeing the lush green mountains alongside the highway we were reminded of Israel’s north in contrast with its more populated coastal areas. And seeing this beautiful spacious welcoming Chabad House gives us thoughts on what we can do, as we have just been allocated a nice plot of land to build a new Chabad on Campus for our students.
When October 7th happened, it was our Simchat Torah. Avi and Eddie, who are here with us on this trip, were staying with us to celebrate the holiday. When the war broke out college was closed and in addition to my own reserve duties in Mishmar HaGvul (border police) we sought ways we can help. Matan came to me with the BBQ concept. The truth is that he’s great with BBQ, I’m not that good in the grill. He got us started with the BBQs for soldiers and then soon after he got called up. Then I got others involved and it became a big project for us. In times like these one has to step up, to do a little more.
Then the displaced families came from the north. Many were resettled, supposedly temporarily, in the dorms of our Emek Jezreel college. The dorms weren’t set up as family dwellings, but one had to make do. These are families who escaped, they were refugees from their homes and jobs, they came with very little and needed both material and emotional support. As a rabbi, the emotional and spiritual support was a primary goal. But its not easy to be encouraging and reassuring. At first we thought they’d all be home for Chanukah, then for sure they’d all be home for Pesach, right!? But no, it’s almost a year and while some have acclimated differently, most are still displaced. It affects everything! Their livelihood, their children’s schooling, their family dynamics and relationships. It adds stress and anxiety and has lots of adverse effects. A lot of what we’ve done this past year has been for these families.