Do Gooders

Forget Florida, a bunch of Brooklyn students spent their winter break in Israel on a chesed mission.

The writer, top left, and friends enjoy playing with a baby.

by Sophia Braha

It was amazing to see that things that seem so trivial to us like toys, scarves, clothes, electronics, games and even food were a big deal to the people we visited. We’d give a child one small gift and the biggest smile would spread on his or her face. We’d give a mother some beauty products and she would thank us almost endlessly. We think nothing of small things that can brighten a person’s day.
Giving to others was all in a day’s work on our chesed mission. The trip was started six years ago by Rabbi Naftali Besser, the dean of students at Yeshivah of Flatbush. He said that he had a dream of going to Israel and giving out gifts to make children

happy. When he mentioned this dream to one man he gave Rabbi Besser $1,000 to start funding the trip.
“If I could raise a thousand dollars without even asking imagine how much I could help if I really try,” Rabbi Besser said. “I want to instill in your minds that chesed can be cool. It’s not only that you have to do your 40 hours for school; chesed can be fun. It’s a hard thing to do with teenagers, but when I hear a student say that this was the best vacation, better than a typical trip, I know that I did my job.”
Rabbi Besser and Susan Franco, a Flatbush alumni and mother, led the trip during winter vacation in January. A group of 30 students from Flatbush (and two from Magen David Yeshivah High School in Brooklyn) spent their winter vacation doing chesed, good deeds, in Israel instead of going on vacation to relax. Items were donated for us to hand out such as toys and clothing for children, scarves and gloves for soldiers, and much more. The Tzedakah Commission in school also raises money for the trip.
We visited hospitals, army bases, homes for abused women, children’s homes, soup kitchens, and centers for disabled children. We felt very good about doing all of this volunteer work and giving back to Jewish people in Israel.
One of my favorite places was Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel. It’s an enormous, beautiful children’s hospital located in Petach Tikva. “The decorations were so nice we felt like we were in a really happy place, not a hospital,” said Rita Tobias, a sophomore at Flatbush. “There were colorful balls hanging from the ceiling and huge stuffed animals on the floors looking down at the main lobby.”
Before entering the first patient’s room, some of us were nervous. It’s not that easy to approach a stranger, give them a present for their sick child and try to talk to them in Hebrew. After the first few visits, though, we got used to it.
We entered each room in groups of two or three. At first, the people sitting there must have been wondering why American teenagers carrying toys were approaching them. We started to talk to the parents and child in Hebrew, telling them to feel better. We gave them a present, based on the child’s age and gender, and the children’s faces lit up. If the child was sleeping, we gave a present to the parent for when the child woke up. We also gave some parents presents to keep them occupied while they were in the hospital with their child.
The reactions were so heartwarming. The kids got very excited and happily started ripping open the toys. Many times the parents sighed, got out their wallets and asked us how much the toys cost. Once we explained to them that they were free, they smiled and thanked us.
“When we went onto the hospital a small group of us went into the cancer ward,” said Margot Gardin, a sophomore in Flatbush. “In one room, the father of a little boy told us how his son heard of what we’re doing and was waiting for us. We weren’t allowed to go into his room, but the father gave his son the gift and his eyes lit up and we saw him thank us from the window.”
Besides giving presents, we tried to interact with the patients and their families. They were in disbelief that we traveled all the way from America just to visit them. One woman was sitting with her granddaughter when a few of us went to visit her. She didn’t believe us, so more people came in and told her about our trip. She believed it when 15 teenagers were standing there talking to her granddaughter, but she was still shocked.
One student stayed in the room with a little boy and his mother for about half an hour. The little boy was so touched he named the stuffed animal that we gave him after this student.
We met some parents from America and some even knew Rabbi Besser. The parents told us about their children, why they were in the hospital and what happened. It was sad to hear about what happened to all of these children, but their parents told us how much the toys and our visit helped. We wished them “refuah shelemah” (a full recovery for their child) and said Tehilim.
“It was the most amazing experience to see how happy the kids were when we visited them and we were teaching them how to use the Game Boys that we gave them,” said Joey Sasson, a Flatbush junior who went on the trip in 2007. “Their faces lit up when we visited them and they asked us so many questions about why we came and why we’re giving them presents. One girl was in quarantine and Susan [Franco] put on all of the doctors clothes just to go give her a doll; she got so happy.”
The trip was filled with meaningful experiences. Soldiers thanked us for visiting them at midnight and giving them scarves and gloves in the bitter cold. We peeled potatoes and carrots in soup kitchens. We made Tu B’shevat projects with autistic children and helped at a music class for disabled children. We went to a children’s home and danced with the children after a family from the community dedicated a Torah to the home. We even had the opportunity to go to a wedding of a couple without much family and we were the main guests.
When the vacation ended with many of us close to tears nobody wanted to get on that plane to America. We realized how lucky we are and how much we have. Seeing others less fortunate than us made us appreciate everything so much more — from our family, our possessions, our lifestyle to the fact that we were even able to go on this trip. When you see someone get so excited over an MP3 player that you would barely look at, you appreciate your iPod much more. When people thank you for serving them food at a soup kitchen, you appreciate your lunch much more.
Many would not consider this an ideal trip, going around Israel and helping people who aren’t as lucky as we are, but I would definitely go again.
Sophia Braha is a sophomore at the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization