HOW HAS BRIDGES FOR PEACE HELPED?
SOME RECENT TESTIMONIES
A message to donors
I have just finished my final university assignment.
As of today I am no longer a student. So too my time with Bridges for Peace is coming to an end.
Your donations have helped me so much in the last year. To know that my food and transport
was already organised has been a huge weight off my shoulders. It has freed me up to
concentrate on my studies and has made my last year in university much more pleasurable.
Even more than that it has encouraged me to be a more creative cook, as I encountered new
foods and then had to work out what to cook with them!
As an “olah
chadasha” - a
new immigrant - it
is important to find
the support you
have left behind.
As God said to
Abraham ‘go from
your land and
form you
birthplace and
from your father’s
house to the land
that I shall show
you’ (Genesis
12:7).
Well, I did what
God instructed,
but it is still
important to be
Bridges for Peace Jerusalem Food Bank
able to see Israel
as my land, my
birthplace and my father’s house. My friends have become my family, my flat is my home and
Israel is my country. Bridges for Peace has taken my life here a step further, making me feel
secure and supported.
I look forward to my future in Israel. I can never thank you enough for your contribution to my life
here.
Story of a lady from Kiev (Ukraine)
It was difficult life that made me to make my mind to go to Israel. Both my husband and I were reduced
from work and we lived in terrible hardship. Now I am very happy that through situations like this I will
live in Israel on the Land of my ancestors.
All my relatives: old grandmother, aunt who that time was only 18 years old was killed by
Germans in the Babiy Yar that is in Kiev. My mother all her life mourned over their death. She
stayed alive only because she was sent to the front. My father’s relatives also were killed in the
Babiy Yar.
Since early childhood I got to know what does it mean to be Jewish. If people did not like
something about us they called us jid. With me this happened everywhere in school, on the
street.
My Ukrainian literature teacher even called my jid and other insulting words right in the classroom
in the presence of all students. Living in Ukraine it is always was shameful to a Jew; these people
always were guilty in everything and the worse people in the
country.
In spite of this my parents did not changed their nationality as
most Jewish people did.
After the school I entered Technical school. One of teachers
was very anti-Semitic. She shout at me called me mentally ill
person. I had to leave the school.
I began working at the confectionery factory. The situation
there was not better.
Once in the canteen during lunch time one lady called me dirty
Jew, I failed to control my temper and beat her. There was
serious problem and I even was about to be dismissed from
factory.
My son also had to suffer from anti-Semitism but he always
hid his insults in order not to upset me.
Making aliyah
I decided to go to Israel because my mother all her life
mourned over the lost of her relatives to Germans.
I am so very much grateful to Ezra for all their moral and financial help. When I decided to go to
Israel I did not have any money at all for this as for a long time I was unemployed. I am so
grateful to Ezra for their understanding of my situation and provided help. I was so touched by
attitude of Ezra’s representatives.
I still cannot believe that there are people who are ready to help. Thanks to Ezra’s help I am
leaving for Israel, my son will join me later.
The ‘Smart Classroom’ installed in the Levine Primary School, Beit Shemesh
In March 2009, at the cost of 18,500 shekels, purchased from the non-pledged donations of the
Bridges for Peace Feed a Child Program, a so-called ‘Smart Classroom’ was installed at the
Levine primary school in Beit Shemesh.
In a classroom given over completely for use in computer-assisted teaching, is a specially treated
white-board and a computer linked to an overhead projector. Downloaded from a Ministry of
Education site, the teachers use specialist software interactively.
The students are immediately responsive and, although somewhat noisy, are highly motivated, as
they too can interact with the teaching media using the cordless mouse/pen. Strong firewalls are
built in for security and protection.
I observed a second-year class of 27 students learning some basic facts about insects. They
were fully absorbed, and many were able at the end to correctly label the anatomy of an insect,
which they also finally copied into their own notebooks.
Throughout the lesson, there was group vocal participation, until success was achieved (picture 3
below).
Lesson preparation is done at home,
and is intense for the teacher. She is
able to send a group email to the whole
class of work to follow-up, or tests to
complete. Results are recorded of
attempts and final scores for each
student. Children without home
internet access can use the school’s
computers, or work together with
friends.
Further lessons would reinforce this
day’s learning – craft-work and fieldwork.