We invite you to join us for our second Bergen County unity mission to Kerem Shalom on Monday, August 5, through Thursday August 8, in partnership with Mizrachi and Sulamot. The mission will be led by Rabbis Elliot Schrier, Daniel Feldman and me.

Since December 2023, we have been privileged to partner, through Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon, shlita, and his remarkable organization, Sulamot, with the exceptional community of Kerem Shalom, the community in Israel closest to Gaza and Egypt, directly opposite Rafah, whose story of heroism and bravery on October 7 has been an inspiration to us all.

Kerem Shalom is a model community in Israel, in which the religious, and those who do not identify as such, live together with mutual love and respect. It was this unity which literally saved the kibbutz from the Hamas terror onslaught on October 7.

Many of us took a mission there this past February, and participated in their delegation last month to Bergen County, when four of the heroes of Kerem Shalom spoke of the miracles and mesirut nefesh (self-sacrifice) which they experienced on that day, during which we were able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars towards the $1 million we are investing in rebuilding Kerem Shalom.

As a community, we will never allow the Nazis of Hamas to leave a Jewish community judenrein (free of Jews), and we know that if Jewish people cannot live safely in Kerem Shalom, we will not be safe in Tel Aviv, Ra’anana and, in truth, Teaneck, Bergenfield and Englewood as well. In doing so, we will fulfill an aspect of Ramban’s understanding of the mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisrael (settling the Land of Israel), which requires us never to leave it desolate, שלא נעזבנה לשממה, and to do all in our power to cultivate and develop the Land of Israel.

The mission will open on the afternoon of Monday, August 5 with Rav Doron Perez at the kever of his son Daniel, HY”D on Har Herzl, amongst the graves of those who have given their lives as the Jewish people fight what I believe is the Second War of Independence, in which the very notion of the legitimacy of the Jewish state is being threatened, militarily, diplomatically and politically.

We will continue on Tuesday with a visit to the site of the Nova festival and an in-depth tour of Kerem Shalom, including the battlefield of October 7, followed by a visit with the evacuated members of Kerem Shalom in their temporary homes in Ashalim.

B’ezrat Hashem, we will make a siyum of Seder Kodashim in Kerem Shalom at the location where Amichai Weitzen and Yedidya Raziel gave their lives, as kedoshim, to save the kibbutz, and then make a second siyum on Seder Zera’im in Ashalim to signify the rebirth of the People of Israel and Land of Israel.

We thank all of those partnering communities who are learning for this special siyum from throughout Bergen County: Ahavat Achim, Beth Aaron, Beth Tefillah of Paramus, Bnai Yeshurun, Chabad of Teaneck, Jewish Center of Teaneck, Kesher, Netivot Shalom, Ohr Saadya, Young Israel of Fort Lee and Young Israel of Teaneck.

On Wednesday, we will do joint tours with our friends from Kerem Shalom, exploring the newest excavations in the Kotel area, as well as have many volunteering opportunities to help those who continue to bear the impact of the war. This will enable us to deepen our connection with our dear friends from Kerem Shalom, as well as to our people’s millenia-old history in Yerushalayim, something, of course, which our enemies brazenly deny.

On Thursday, we will have the opportunity to volunteer to help families displaced by the war, and to meet with the families of those who have had loved ones taken into captivity and held these last nine months.

We look forward to a most meaningful mission for the Nine Days. On the one hand, we will experience, firsthand, the terrible loss and destruction which Zion has suffered. On the other, we will begin the great process of restoration in front of us, as we rebuild Kerem Shalom. May it be a modest but meaningful step towards the redemption for which we all yearn.

To register for the mission, please do so here, https://form.jotform.com/241831865732461. For questions regarding the mission, contact Rabbi Daniel Fridman at [email protected]. Registration deadline is Thursday, July 18.

Rabbi Daniel Fridman is the rabbi of The Jewish Center of Teaneck.