It was the first Thursday of the war, and we wanted to bring various items to donate to those in need. At that point, there was a certain unease—videos of soldiers noting excessive amounts of toiletry donations going to waste were making the rounds. Were resources just being thrown about blindly, without true knowledge of where they were needed? Not so with Shani Milgram. Within two minutes of meeting her, I could tell she was different. Cool, calm and collected, she pointed to the three different piles where our various donations belonged. “They’re not all going to the same place?” I asked. “No,” came the reply, as she proceeded to where each pile was going, whom she was in contact with, and what their needs were.
Within days of the outbreak of war, this Haredi woman singlehandedly undertook to be the neighborhood coordinator for all outpourings of goodwill from local residents. “Shani Milgram” quickly became a popular refrain in all local WhatsApp/email groups. Cooking food for families sitting shiva? Bring it to Shani Milgram. Collecting supplies for soldiers? Have handwritten cards for soldiers? Household appliances or clothes for displaced families? Shani Milgram. Shani Milgram. Shani Milgram. We are not talking about token gestures of empathy here, but about vast amounts of materials sorely needed by their recipients.
By now, she has established the neighborhood chamal, short for cheder milchama. A situation room. The neighborhood is now housing about 35 families from the South, most of them with more than eight children, as well as multiple yeshivot with hundreds of students combined. A small team of young American mothers works with her to find housing and source clothing, appliances and meal trains. But again, not blindly. The meal trains are only provided based on requests or assessed need, and even then, it’s with the aim that after a couple of weeks the family will once again be stable enough to cook their own meals.
Thinking I would interview her about these neighborhood efforts as part of a larger article, I realized this lady deserves her own profile. It turns out I hardly knew even half of what she does! She has stepped up to be a primary coordinator of the operations of the Dead Sea Royal Hotel housing refugees from Sderot. What gave her the confidence and know-how for this? God set the stage 20 years earlier, helping her parents operate their family-owned hotel in Switzerland. It’s not just logistics, though.
Most people know about the drives to bring food/toiletries/hygiene products to these poor souls in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. It turns out that was the easy part. Many of the Sderot refugees there are elderly, with their kids or grandkids in the army. While hotels are nice for vacations, they’re ill-equipped for elderly refugees.
Forced to abandon their homes under fire while terrorists were still on the loose, they came with extensive trauma and without items as critical as daily medications. Medications and other elderly-specific needs are individual and cannot be helped by a massive Osher Ad trip. Instead, Milgram and others approach each refugee to craft a picture of their personal needs, what is urgent and what can wait. So many supplies are needed, and Milgram asserts it would be impossible to carry on without the generosity of donors from abroad. Detailing the full extent of her operations there isn’t easy, but in a sentence, it’s running a medical clinic, mental health clinic, homeless shelter, alternative medicine/therapies center, and nursing home all in one. It’s not just managing operations, though.
Milgram is a disabilities nurse, and together with her husband—also a nurse and an EMT—they became an integral part of directly managing the medical care needed for these 1,300 refugees. And as she shared almost as an afterthought, it turns out they’re also hosting a family from the South.
This work isn’t easing up anytime soon either. The government has already signed a contract with the hotels to house the Be’eri refugees until April, and Sderot might share that fate as well.
As someone who grew up Haredi and doesn’t have a close relative on the front lines, why put her life on hold for a month-plus to help strangers who are totally removed from her communal orbit? Hardly seeing the need to explain, Milgram suffices with, “We’re all one.” Simple. Straightforward. Powerful.
Chaim Goldberg has semicha from RIETS and a graduate degree in clinical psychology from Hebrew University. Originally from Denver, he now lives with his wife and children in Jerusalem where he teaches at various yeshivot and seminaries. He has written for Jewish Action, Aish.com, YU Torah-to-Go and Intermountain Jewish News.
