Fifty-eight years ago, on a day etched into the soul of our people — Yom Yerushalayim — the world watched as young Israeli paratroopers wept at the Western Wall, reclaiming the spiritual heart of our nation. Among the crowds who rushed to the newly liberated Old City was a 20-year-old yeshiva student named Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman.

What he experienced that day — the unshakable faith, the euphoria of return and the aching hope for unity — ignited a flame inside of him that would never dim. But instead of settling into a rabbinic post in Jerusalem, Rabbi Grossman turned his sights to an unlikely destination: Migdal HaEmek, a struggling development town in Israel’s north plagued by poverty, crime and despair.

It was the late 1960s, and the town was filled with disillusioned youth, many second-generation immigrants from Morocco, Yemen and other corners of the Diaspora, who had been brought to Israel with dreams of a brighter future, but found themselves marginalized and abandoned. Rabbi Grossman, in full chassidic garb, walked into the local discos, nightclubs and hangouts on the streets, not to judge, but to listen. To love.

This approach earned him the affectionate and now legendary title: “The Disco Rabbi.”

What started as one man’s mission soon evolved into Migdal Ohr, a national movement and one of Israel’s largest networks for at-risk and orphaned children. Over the next five decades, Rabbi Grossman’s influence would touch tens of thousands of young lives, impacting Israeli-born youth who were abandoned, abused or caught in cycles of poverty and crime. He also reached new immigrant communities — from the Ethiopian aliyah of the 1980s to the mass wave of Russian and Ukrainian Jews in the 1990s — offering not just education, shelter and food, but identity, dignity and hope.

Today, these very children, once dismissed as “lost cases,” are the beating heart of Israel and are among the individuals strengthening and shaping the fabric of Israeli society. They serve in elite IDF units. They heal as doctors, advocate as lawyers, teach as educators, build as entrepreneurs, and legislate as Knesset members. They volunteer in their communities. They raise families rooted in security and purpose.

They are a living testament to what happens when someone believes in a child who the world overlooked. Their strength is a direct result of one man’s refusal to accept the status quo.

I recently heard about a boy named Eliyahu, who came to Migdal Ohr as a frightened Ethiopian child in the 1990s and is now a compassionate pediatrician in Be’er Sheva. Stories like his are not the exception; they are the outcome of a vision lived with unwavering commitment.

But perhaps nothing captures this journey more powerfully than Yosef.

Yosef, a 24-year-old from Kiryat Ye’arim, grew up surrounded by hardship. He carried a criminal record that once excluded him from military service. But at Migdal Ohr, for the first time, someone believed in him. Rabbi Grossman and his team saw past his mistakes and recognized his spark. They helped him rewrite his story.

Yosef not only enlisted — he excelled, serving as a paratrooper in Gaza. His courage and dedication earned him the President’s Award, one of the most prestigious honors in the IDF.

How poignant — how full circle — that a young man once told he had no future would follow in the footsteps of those paratroopers at the Kotel 58 years ago. That from the tears shed by soldiers at the Western Wall on Yom Yerushalayim, a path was quietly being paved. A path that Yosef, a new kind of paratrooper, would walk decades later, this time not just reclaiming a city, but rebuilding a life. A nation.

This past Pesach, Yosef married his wife, Rivka, and together they are building their own Jewish home: physically, spiritually and emotionally. They are studying, working and contributing to Israeli society with pride and resilience. Their story is one of thousands made possible by Migdal Ohr — and by people like you, who believe in the power of second chances.

Because this is not a story of charity. It’s a story of nation-building.

It is about transforming despair into strength, marginalization into leadership, and pain into purpose. It’s about raising up the children no one else would and watching them become the adults who hold our country up.

This is the ripple effect of courage. Of kindness. Of one bold step.

Migdal Ohr’s legacy is not measured in buildings or numbers. It’s measured in moments — like Yom Yerushalayim — when one person decides to act.

When a 20-year-old yeshiva student stood at the Western Wall and made a choice that would transform generations. It’s measured in lives like Yosef and Rivka’s, once children without direction, now proud builders of Israel’s future. It’s measured in every Eliyahu, whose quiet transformation into a healer began with someone seeing his spark.

These are not just stories. They are living proof that one act of faith can change a nation.

And this is our call.

That ripple begins with us.

With people who don’t look away. Who doesn’t settle for admiration. Who believe in the power of one.

One day. One child. One act of courage that changes everything.

As we reflect on 58 years since that miraculous day in Jerusalem, we must ask ourselves: What legacy will we leave behind? Will we only admire the lights of Jerusalem? Or will we be the light, for those still finding their way home?

This is the spirit of Yom Yerushalayim. Not just reclaiming the stones of the past, but building lives for the future.

Atara Solow is the executive director leading the transformation of the American Friends of Migdal Ohr from a legacy nonprofit into a household name. Migdal Ohr is one of Israel’s largest social service and education networks, raising 10,000 orphaned and underprivileged children a year to become engaged citizens of Israeli society. Before moving to America to assume her position, Atara held leadership positions at Nefesh B’Nefesh and The Hartman Institute.