A few months ago, Annie Altman went with her mother Jordana on the Mother/Daughter Bat Mitzvah Mission to Israel with Englewood’s East Hill Synagogue’s Rebbetzin Chana Reichman. Throughout the many amazing experiences and inspiring moments throughout the week, Jordana was on the lookout for an idea that could create a meaningful chesed project for Annie’s upcoming bat mitzvah.
The group participated in a Shabbaton with displaced families from Sderot that really resonated with Annie as she saw girls and boys just like her dealing with unimaginable situations. The mission also tried to meet up with families from Netiv HaAsara, a moshav of 300 families less then a kilometer from the Gaza border which has partnered with the Englewood and Tenafly communities in a program called בְּיַחַד נִבָּנֶה/Rebuilding Together, in conjunction with the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey.
In a silver lining moment, the mission group’s flight back to the U.S. was delayed and when they checked into their hotel in Tel Aviv for the night, it turned out it was the same hotel where Netiv HaAsara families had been staying. Participants were able to meet in the lobby, connect and get to know each other.
The בְּיַחַד נִבָּנֶה/Rebuilding Together program aims to help the Netiv HaAsara community while they are displaced as well as when they eventually return home. That serendipitous hotel lobby meeting was the perfect opening for the planned bar/bat mitzvah joint program among the Englewood/Tenafly community and Netiv HaAsara. The program, aimed at fostering connections among the communities’ youth, offers multiple ways for families to participate, from fundraising ideas to virtual connections and in-person celebrations.
Jordana heads the committee for the bar/bat mitzvah initiative and as such the Altman family became the first to spearhead this new effort. This past Thursday, Annie and her family held a bake sale at their home with proceeds going to Netiv HaAsara families. The bake sale also included raffle prizes and featured jewelry vendor The Velvet Box. Annie baked for weeks and got all her friends to join in the fun. Annie said, “I feel really grateful to have gone to Israel on the East Hill Mother/Daughter Bat Mitzvah mission and get to see for myself how children my age are being affected during the war. We were very lucky to briefly get to see the Netiv HaAsara families during our last night of the mission and I realized then how hard it is for them to be displaced from their home they love so much. I’m really happy to raise money from my bake sale to make sure the bar/bat mitzvah kids from the moshav have a fun and happy celebration.”
For more information on this initiative, contact [email protected].
Michal Rosenberg is associate editor at The Jewish Link.
