How to give to Israel now – eJewish Philanthropy

TEL AVIV — A nurse and midwife who has delivered more than 1,000 babies. A soldier who swapped weekend shifts so that he could attend his brother’s bar mitzvah. A young man attending an outdoor rave with friends. A father awaiting the birth of his third child. The families of four American citizens who believe their loved ones are being held by Hamas in Gaza gathered in Tel Aviv on Tuesday afternoon to deliver a public, emotion-laden plea to both the Israeli and American governments, neither of which, relatives say, have provided adequate support or information about their family members, reports Melissa Weiss, executive editor of eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider, from the press conference.

Something terrible: Rachel Polin-Goldberg, who grew up in Chicago and now lives in Jerusalem, last heard from her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, on Saturday morning. Goldberg had turned her phone off on Friday evening as the sunset ushered in Shabbat and Simchat Torah. After a siren alerted her to a rocket attack near Jerusalem on Saturday morning, she turned on her phone, concerned about Hersh, who was attending the Tribe of Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im. “I turned my phone on, I believe, at 8:23 in the morning,” Polin-Goldberg said. “And when I turned it on, there were two texts in a row from Hirsch at 8:11. The first one said, ‘I love you’ and immediately at 8:11 also it said, ‘I’m sorry.’ And so I knew immediately wherever he was, it was a terrible situation.”

A pogrom: Of the roughly 400 residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz more than half have been killed or taken hostage, according to Jonathan Dekel-Chen whose 35-year-old son, Sagui, was taken hostage as he and other men on the kibbutz attempted to overpower the terrorists who had infiltrated the property. The roughly 160 survivors “call this a pogrom,” the elder Dekel-Chen said. “As such,” he continued, “it seems to me that the United States, my original home, and still a very beloved place for me, always wants to be and must be on the side of good.” He called on the “United States government, to the Congress, to do what they can on the side of good here. We’re waiting to Sagui to come home.”

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