Kiryat Moshe, Jerusalem—One of the biggest misconceptions in the modern world involves death. In the United States, the biggest causes of death are believed to be heart disease (597,689 in 2010) and cancer (574,743 in 2010). In Israel, there is also terrorism, the highly publicized unnatural killer which claimed 107 lives in the past year.
With all of these higher profile causes of death, self-inflicted abortions can often take the back burner. In the United States, 765,651 legally induced abortions were reported to the CDC, 128% more deaths than heart disease and 133% more than cancer. What sets these prenatal passings out from other causes of deaths is their ability to be prevented—studies have shown that 21% of abortions in the U.S. were performed because of a mother’s inability to support the child (AGI study, 1987). In Israel, this is just as much of a problem, with the high poverty rate leading many mothers to consider abortion before even looking into other solutions. It is for this reason that EFRAT was founded to combat these cases of rushed abortions by providing care, counsel, and support to mothers to help them consider other options.
EFRAT was founded shortly after the Holocaust by Mr. Herschel Feigenbaum, a survivor who had reached an epiphany rare for his time. From his perspective as one who had unfortunately witnessed so much destruction, Feigenbaum realized that the future of the Jewish people is its children. He founded a small organization dedicated to helping increase Jewish children in memory of the 1.5 million who were murdered in the Shoah. His young organization, which started out with only a few volunteers, was put to the test in 1977, with the passing of a law in Israel legalizing abortions. With this, abortion rates skyrocketed as any expectant mother who did not want to proceed for any reason now had an all-too-easy exit out of having her child. Thanks to the help of its president, Dr. Eli Schussheim, an Argentinian-Israeli surgeon who found his calling in saving lives, EFRAT focused their efforts on stopping unnecessary abortions and quickly expanded to fight this uphill battled, having saved over 57,000 lives to this day.
EFRAT offers two distinct services to expectant mothers who approach them. They employ over 3,000 volunteers to speak to women who approach EFRAT asking for help. These volunteers are professionals who can give emotional and practical advice to a woman with nowhere else to go, and this counsel is perhaps the most valuable thing they offer, because many times the best antidote for a woman considering an abortion is a listening and sympathetic ear. This help is often enough to save a baby’s life.
Aside from advice, EFRAT also offers ways to defray the cost of raising a baby for those who have fiscal concerns about letting their baby come to term. They offer a host of different products and care packages, free of charge, to expectant mothers, including food packages, baby clothing, cribs, and baths, and other basics (pacifiers, bottles, etc.). However, perhaps the most helpful financial commitment to parents is the 24-month supply of diapers. “The parents are always so thankful for the diapers,” said EFRAT’s chief social worker Ruth Tidhar, while giving a tour of EFRAT’s Yad Chava warehouse in Jerusalem’s Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, “It’s often difficult to realize how expensive they are and how quickly they add up.”
EFRAT sends out an average of 3500 packages each month, helping expectant mothers avoid abortions, by showing that, with help, they can financially support their baby.
Thus, between the counseling and financial help, EFRAT saves over 4,000 babies every year. “When it comes down to it, not a single woman who approached us ever regretted her decision to not abort her child. We even get thank you letters every year with pictures of the babies whose lives we helped save,” Schussheim said, pointing at a wall in his office full of pictures of children.
In recent months, the abortion issue has been back in the news in Israel with the government deciding to allocate 16 million NIS from its lifesaving drugs budget to help fund abortions for women between the ages of 19 and 34. With abortions becoming easier to get, and now easier to afford in the Jewish State, it is becoming harder and harder for EFRAT to reach expectant mothers before they go through with this deadly procedure. However, even with the low overhead costs of an organization consisting of mostly volunteers, at the cost of $1200 to save a child’s life donations are always welcomed, especially for such a worthy organization which is unfortunately growing every day.
“In the future, we hope to close EFRAT because it will no longer be necessary,” said Schussheim. “In the meantime, I can say with full confidence as both a doctor and a Jew, that EFRAT is one of the most important causes for any Jew in the Diaspora who wishes to donate money to Israel. We need to be saving lives, not decreasing the population.”
For more information on EFRAT, please visit their website http://www.efrat.org.il/english/ or visit the EFRAT Facebook page (Hebrew) https://www.facebook.com/Efrat.Aguda.
By Tzvi Silver
