This past summer, Maytal Abehsera,17, from New Rochelle, who attends SAR High School, participated in Kol Hanearim, a program where American teens volunteer at homes for at-risk children in Israel. Acting as camp counselors, they spend their time playing and forming connections with the children. However, when Maytal and her group arrived in Israel, they discovered that the children at their assigned home were on break for the first week. To make the most of this time, the program organized a week-long camp for the American teens together with displaced teenagers from Sderot.
Despite the language barrier, Maytal quickly bonded with a group of girls from Sderot, forming deep friendships in just one week. “They are teenagers, just like me,” she reflected. “We laughed and danced and had an amazing bonding experience.” Several months later, during Sukkot, Maytal visited Israel with her family. She left her Jerusalem hotel during Chol Hamoed to stay with her new friends in Sderot. “I felt the explosions [from within Gaza] while their homes shook. I began to think how scary it must be for them.”
Maytal realized that her new friends had never been to America. Most had never even traveled outside of Israel. “I wished I could give them a break from the war,” she said. This thought sparked an ambitious idea—to bring four of them, Odeya, Gefen, Ayana and Hila, to America.
After she returned home, Maytal worked to raise the funds, and ultimately succeeded. She brought the four girls to the U.S. for over a week. In addition to getting away from the war for a short time, they were able to see some sights, and they also spoke at SAR High School to the Ivrit and Modern Israel classes, sharing their stories.
Each of the four girls had been displaced multiple times since October 7, relocating from relative’s homes to hotels and in some cases, to temporary apartments. Their experiences, though different, shared a common thread of upheaval.
Odeya was at home on October 7, 2023 with her eight siblings when a rocket struck their house. As the rocket exploded, her family huddled together in their mamad (reinforced safe room) while their home was destroyed around them. Miraculously, they were unharmed, but the psychological toll was immense. “It was very hard,” Odeya recalled. “We heard the whole house get hit. Everything shook, it went dark, we were yelling.” Unlike the others, whose displacement lasted six months, Odeya and her family were without a home for over a year while it was rebuilt.
Gefen faced a different kind of struggle. “I have a large family with many siblings, and we were all in different places,” she explained. Her father stayed in Sderot to volunteer at a help center; her mother took the younger children to a dormitory in Petach Tikvah; and her older siblings were in the army or in national service. “I felt like I had no place to be. I really suffered. For a month, I was going around with a bag with my clothes and basic necessities. I would spend one night with Ayana where she was staying, the next night with Hila, and then with Odeya. I felt very lonely.” Eventually, her family was relocated to a hotel in Jerusalem. Though it was small, overcrowded and noisy, it offered a sense of community. “Almost every night, there was a night activity for the kids to enjoy together. It made a big difference.” Gefen still wears a ring she crafted at one of those activities.
Ayana and Hila were luckily placed in the same hotel and sought to make the best of their situation. They began volunteering to do laundry for the displaced families and were eventually paid for their work. “We folded the underwear of the entire hotel,” Hila recalled, laughing. “We would see people wearing their clothes and say to ourselves, ‘I folded that shirt!’”
Despite the hardships, the girls found strength in their friendship. Having grown up together in Sderot, they had always been close, but their shared experience of displacement deepened their bond. “When you are going through the same hard things, it bonds you,” Ayana said. Gefen added, “In the end, your friends understand you better than anyone else.”
After months of uncertainty, returning to Sderot was a moment of triumph. “When we got to move home … wow,” said Hila. “Finally, I was back home. The kids were running around in the streets again, and my beloved city of Sderot came back to life.” The return also brought back simple pleasures—having their own rooms again, and eating whenever they wanted instead of having to wait for mealtimes.
“Only when you’re home can you breathe easily,” Gefen remarked.
However, the return was also met with fear. “It didn’t feel totally safe, and we had to get used to that feeling,” Ayana admitted. “Even though we grew up with sirens, nothing like October 7 had ever happened to us. So, mixed with the joy of returning home was also a feeling of fear and insecurity.”
Hila added solemnly, “That’s right. Hamas hasn’t forgotten about us.”
Their trip to America provided a much-needed escape from the constant anxiety of war. “Here I sleep well. And if I do hear a loud sound, I know, ‘Ah, it’s OK, we are in New York,’” Ayana said.
“In Sderot, the sound of a motorcycle scares us. But not here. Here, we are only nervous about antisemitism.” Gefen said.
When asked about their experience at SAR High School, the girls were enthusiastic. “We felt so much love and felt strengthened from talking with the students,” Hila remarked.
Gefen added: “I love Americans. They are so nice to us. The students asked us questions, like, ‘How do you have hope?’” Ayana explained that they responded to this question by saying, “Am Yisrael has been through so much over the years. But we always become stronger from it. October 7 is the same. We are a nation that is forever. Nothing breaks us.”
“Before I met Maytal and the others in that camp, I had never felt any connection with Americans,” said Gefen. “But once we spent that week together, I saw that they care about us and think of us as family. We realized that we’re really not alone. The Jews in the world care about us.”
