Orna Rayn, Upper Galil director

August 16, 2006

It has been exactly five weeks since the war started, a war whose official name I am still not sure of. As the third day since the ceasefire begins, I try to collect my thoughts, the moments, the experiences, the people I have met throughout the days of the war in order to hang on to the intensity of my experience and the feeling of accomplishment.

As one who was born in the region and spent most of her life in the Upper Galil, I have lived through a number of wars and military operations as a child and an adolescent, as a mother and as an adult where I served in various roles in the community.

For the past six years I have lived in Metula, in a small neighborhood that overlooks the “fence” between Israel and Lebanon. It used to be “the good fence” and beyond it, I could see villages, where I always believed people with the same desire to live, to raise their children in peace, to work the fields, to see their crops grow, lived.

On Wednesday five weeks ago, in a split second, my personal security and that of all the residents of the region was turned around. Our physical and emotional well being was at once replaced by fear. Now as I stand in front of the breathtaking view from my house, I see how truly deceptive that “fence” is. The picture from the last day of the war where I saw a Katyusha rocket launched from the village in front of me into Israel has distorted my belief in peace with my neighbors. Luckily, I am still left with a bit of naiveté and some optimism.

This war has led me to encounter a new arena of community and social work, and the coming together of the Jewish world for the citizens of Israel. My work as the representative of the Federation radically changed overnight; I found meaning in it that I could not have imagined. At once, all questions relating to the essence of my work, its implementation and importance were erased and the phrase “All of Israel is responsible for one another” suddenly found greater meaning.

Two days following the break of the war, the first phone call I made was to the heads of the municipalities where I expressed the concern of the San Francisco community for the citizens of the region. I conveyed the care of our extended Jewish family. In the telephone conversation I made it clear that we, the Federation, were here and would stand with them through this crisis. The immediate response of the Federation to meet the needs of the Galil was moving, heartwarming and supportive.

“You were the first that showed interest in our situation and lent a helping hand,” said Benny Ben Muchar, head of the regional municipality Mevot Hevron. In every one of our conversations over the past few weeks, Haim Barbiavi, mayor of Kiryat Shmona, and Aaron Vilensy, head of the regional municipality Upper Galil, constantly stressed the importance of our immediate response accompanied by openness and flexibility to understand the needs of the first days of the war and the continuing support, ability to listen and help throughout the war.

A feeling of great responsibility accompanied me from the minute I took it upon myself to try and connect the needs of the people of the Galil during the war with the impressive motivation of the Federation to get involved and help in such a distinctive manner. It may be difficult from afar to grasp this uniqueness, since there are many organizations that worked to assist the citizens of the Galil, but there is no doubt that the Federation’s advantage was in its immediate and direct response and our ability to maintain a direct connection with the heads of the municipalities, their professional staff on the ground and the residents of the region. These relationships enabled us to identify the needs on the one hand and to respond immediately on the other.

The war brought with it many difficulties and challenges, seen by the ways in which how each community dealt differently with the crisis. There is no doubt that Kiryat Shmona was the community that was hit the hardest — there is almost no part of life there that was not impacted. From a personal perspective, I can say that it is so sad to see how the city has been emptied of residents and has so many wounds from the Katuysha rockets. And it is even sadder to see how the most vulnerable populations had to stay and deal with the conflict — with their fears of the shelters, the continuous sounds of artillery firing, smoke covering the city, the lack of food, the closed shops and the mood that became gloomier with each passing day.

During the four weeks of the war, thousands of people from the region wandered around the country in an effort to save themselves from the nightmare of living in the shadow of fear and anxiety. The feeling of being a refugee, the wandering, being away from home and of course the economic insecurity of each family will stay with us in Israel for some time. But the desire to return home was so great that even before the IDF authorized people to return to a normal routine, cars and traffic filled the road leading up North.

Kiryat Shmona is beginning to gather the pieces to start to rebuild; the road will be very long. Yesterday, we could already start to see a glimpse of sanity and the return to everyday life when store owners whose businesses were not damaged opened their doors, people returned to the streets and greeted each other, albeit with a smile mixed with sadness. On the one hand there is the desire to return to normal life, and on the other hand 300 families no longer have homes to return to and are living in hotels. The homes of 1,500 families were badly damaged and need renovations while they try to maintain a sense of normalcy. This is a community that fell apart and will need help in rebuilding and reuniting.

This is the time for us to see how we can help in the complex and fragile process of rebuilding this community. This is a process that starts here and now, and I know the Federation will be a huge help in that process.