Meet Rabbi Joe and Corinne, parents to three young children and religious community leaders for JLIC Tel Aviv, who have created a safe and welcoming environment for not only their largely Olim (new immigrant to Israel) community, but for the tens of thousands of evacuees who have temporarily been calling Tel Aviv home.
They moved to Israel from New York in September of 2022. It was a year riddled with political unrest, debates on judicial reform which reached a boiling point in the weeks before October 7th, with things becoming violent. The divide between secular and religious Jews in Israel was widening daily. Visibly religious people in Tel Aviv felt uncomfortable. Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, was rife with protest and violence. The experience was traumatic at the time – when Jews in Israel were unsure if it was safe to pray outdoors, or if they could dance with the Torah on Simchat Torah – or would they be harassed (or worse)?
There was a pervasive idea that Tel Aviv represented secularity and democracy, while Jerusalem represented Judaism and religious hegemony, and that everyone has to make a choice between the two. However, despite leading a community of hundreds of young Jewish people, this was a concept that felt foreign and did not resonate with anyone. The vast majority of the community moved to Tel Aviv with no intention to ‘convert’ anyone. They moved because Israel was part of their Jewish journey, and the specifically selected Tel Aviv because it is far more similar to the diverse, cosmopolitan, multicultural communities that they came from which are bursting with life, energy, and culture. It feels far more familiar to them, it’s a place where they could be themselves. And all of a sudden they were sucked into a paradigm where they felt that they had to choose between being Jewish and the other aspects of themselves; that praying on Yom Kippur meant that they were tagged as religious and that they stand against what Tel Aviv is supposed to be.
October 7th was a rude awakening. It was a slap in the face of ‘what are these stupid arguments that we are having?’. On October 6th the religious and secular communities were further apart than they had ever been. On October 8th, everyone mobilized and started working together, regardless of politics, observance, or any other identity divisions. On October 8th we were a nation united.
Rabbi Joe and Corinne knew what to do in a crisis. During the pandemic they were headed JLIC-OU at New York University. What they did in Manhattan was a ‘dry run’ for what ended up happening in Israel. They had done this before. They had experience in running a community of several hundred young people in a city affected by a major disaster; young people with time on their hands and the desire to do something. They knew how to organize and scale. Their role was to act as shadchans (matchmakers) between those who want to give and those who are in need.
Their initiatives scaled dramatically during the early days and weeks of the war. It became very clear that if the lay people didn’t step in and create their own help, things wouldn’t get done. It was all individuals. The needs were endless – from cooking, sourcing accommodations, making sure parents had enough diapers for babies, providing dogs for people to play with when they felt traumatized.
It was state failure, and it was societal heroism.
Within that arose a sense of unity, ‘achdut,’ that on October 6 none of is could have imagined a path to. As visibly Orthodox Jews, they couldn’t imagine having a non-tense conversation, nevermind a civil conversation with anyone who would spot them in a crowd and project their preconceived opinions upon them on what “being religious” stands for, let alone working hand-in-hand, side-by-side, helping each other, figuring out solutions to complex problems together.
The majority of 2023 was alienating to many members in Rabbi Joe and Corinne’s community. They didn’t feel like either side was speaking to them. They would often ask themselves “is this what I moved across the world for – for a society tearing itself apart from within?”
The days that followed October 7th were healing in a sense. “We found our place, our role here.” There were many community members who were serving in the army, but there were also many who were able to be active on the civilian front. Some unemployed members of the community were able to shift into full time volunteering. “One community member messaged us saying that she was upset that she wasn’t aid off work when most of her team was because she wanted to be able to do more meaningful volunteering and was envious of those who could.”
That was the spirit of the moment.
People felt like they were missing out on the opportunity to give back to a place that gave them so much. That they were missing out on the chance to be part of a pivotal moment in our history as a nation. People who were overseas came back to Israel because they were watching the group and felt that they needed to be a part of the response.
On the eve of the war, Rabbi Joe and Corinne’s WhatsApp group had about 350 members in it. It was a community built over the preceding year that they had been in Israel. It was a group intended to build a Jewish community of mainly new immigrants to Tel Aviv that focused on celebrating the sabbath, holidays. Torah learning, creating a vibrant social life, and integrating into the social fabric of the city. The group was already active and engaged and was ready to spring into action.
The infrastructure was as simple as a WhatsApp group. Within days, multiple departments were set up with different department heads that were in charge of everything from providing supplies for children who were evacuated from their homes, to night watch shifts for the families of the hostages so that they could get some rest without fearing their belongings would be stolen from them, to a team dedicated to attending shivas, to gravedigging, to farming, to therapeutic dog visits, to providing music for injured soldiers recuperating in the hospital. The ways to support the people most impacted by October 7th were endless, and Rabbi Joe and Corinne, along with their team of volunteers were prepared for the challenge.
The main WhatsApp group ballooned to over 775 volunteers. Several spin-off groups were created to better facilitate unique initiatives. A group for international volunteers was established, which has over 300 members.
One major point of pride is Rabbi Joe and Corinne’s commitment to the evacuee families that have been relocated to Tel Aviv. They created a ‘match’ program where families were matched with a Tel Aviv resident so they could get answers to questions about life in Tel Aviv. “Where is a good place to buy shoes?” “Where is a kosher butcher that is at my standard of kashrut?” “Where is a nice park to take my kids to so they can play?” They even set up a database for employment opportunities, enabling the evacuee families to earn a living while away from home.
It was of utmost importance to Rabbi Joe and Corinne to encourage the community to not use the term evacuee, but rather ‘welcomed guest’.
The Jewish value of Hachnasat Orchim ( (הכנסת אורחיםhas roots in the book of Genesis, when Abraham opened his tent to guests, and even interrupted his communion with G-d to do so. According to some Talmudic sources, hospitality is so important that even G-d waits while we welcome guests. It Is based on the principle of loving thy neighbor, and insists that every member of the community should be cared for.
This was Hachnasat Orchim on the most massive historical level. It’s not welcoming 5 guests to your dinner table, but rather it was the city opening its arms and welcoming tens of thousands. 5 months into the war – when this testimony was collected – Rabbi Joe and Corinne’s team was still conducting daily activities in the hotels around Tel Aviv. They encouraged community members to welcome their match families for holidays. Since many community members are American, they invited their match families to Thanksgiving – a holiday the guests from Southern Israel had never heard of. They opened their doors to them for Hannukah.
In the short term this initiative was all about helping people.
But the long term implications are so much more powerful. Israel is a small country, but it is a divided one. Different sectors of society never meet, and they probably think of the ‘other’ suspiciously. It is an unthinkable natural experiment. Imagine taking hundreds of thousands of people (millions in North American or European terms adjusting for population size) and move them from their homes to a place with an entirely different ideology from their own and see what happens. This would be the American equivalent of a deep southern state being transferred to San Francisco or New York City – and everyone discovering that there is more that unites them than divides them; that people are actually really nice and that their prejudice and fears of the ‘other’ are for not.
They have witnessed the impact at a micro level with hundreds of people and how transformative it can be for individuals and for society.
One heartwarming example that they shared was that of a bar mitzvah for a boy from Sderot. They hadn’t made any plans for the bar mitzvah and were in an entirely new environment. The match families took care of all of the arrangements from securing the venue, music, catering, and décor. One community member taught the boy his Torah portion. This community member was described as being “the most Ashkenazi person, from Teaneck, New Jersey, but a great Ba’al Koreh (the person who reads the Torah during the service)”. He took it upon himself to learn the Moroccan tradition of reading so that he could teach the bar mitzvah boy his particular portion in his family’s style. These connections will last a lifetime, and without this tragedy these connections and bridges would never have been built.
Rabbi Joe shared a conversation that he had with a father, evacuated from Sderot with his family. He was in tears because it was time for his family to return home. Of course they were fearful and nervous, but he was in tears because of the community that he will miss upon returning home. He built a community within the hotel, he joined new groups of religious learning. He was full of gratitude to those who helped him and his family while in Tel Aviv; to those who took them shopping and brought them food and clothing, those who played with their kids, those who brought religious texts so he could learn. Rabbi Joe assured him that Sderot isn’t too far away and that these friendships will be the blessing that helped transform a traumatic experience. He wanted to thank the community that Rabbi Joe and Corinne built.
In his own words:
To Rabbi Joe and the dear community of JLIC Tel Aviv,My name is N.M. from Sdeort. I’ve been evacuated for 5 months to Tel Aviv. At the very beginning of my time here I met a dear man named Joe that introduced me to your warm community and many fine people who helped us and accepted us like their own families. I want to thank everyone for their help and support and the warm welcome. With G-d’s help we will return to our home and will invite all of you for a meal of thanksgiving. We love you,The M. Family
“You feel like you’ve lived one hundred years in a very short amount of time.”
One community member oversaw the connection to the Chevra Kedisha (the organization that tends to the bodies of deceased Jews and prepares them for burial according to Jewish tradition). He would post messages in the group about the immediate needs in different cities across Israel to find people to dig graves. Within minutes all spots would be filled. A donor earmarked a fund for this cause specifically, so that any volunteer could jump into a taxi and graves. “Imagine being in your early 20s, only in Israel for a few weeks, and volunteering to dig graves.”
A separate initiative involved renting ice cream trucks and touring the hotels to host ice cream parties for the children at each location. “If you ever want to experience pure joy, be an ice cream truck driver for a day.”
The pendulum swing in emotions was extreme.
“We’ve dug graves and we’ve driven ice cream trucks and everything in between. And it can all be on the same day. You can be at a funeral in the morning and then hand out ice cream to evacuee children in the afternoon, and then be painting faces in the evening, and cooking meals for shabbat at night.”
As a community, we have been living in the best time historically to be Jewish. The big struggles were in the past – the swamps had been drained, malaria is a thing of the past. In the West, we were living in fairly affluent, safe communities. We had been promised never again. We were well represented in popular culture. We had reached incredible heights in business, politics, technology, arts, and sciences, heights that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors.
October 7th and the time that followed have shown us that we are still very much a part of Jewish history. It reminded us that the same battles need to be fought again, that history repeats itself. As tragic and horrific and depressing as that is, it is inspiring to see that our generation has risen to the challenge and has led with compassion and love to keep building towards a better future.
Rabbi Joe and Corinne had a unique vantage point to watch the endless strength of the community. “It is inspiring that people haven’t left Israel during this time. They have found purpose despite there being so many reasons to leave. Many people have arrived and continue to arrive. We receive messages daily from people who want to come to Israel.”
The October 7th and aftermath experience has bound the Jewish people together in a stronger way than anyone could have imagined for this generation before the war started.
“Please G-d, this unity will continue after the war. Let this be a reset moment and not a blip. Let people realize that there were yesterdays politics and todays politics and that October 7th was the division.”
Today’s concerns are different – there is a greater focus on the safety and future of diaspora Jewish communities. “I hope that we do not become fixated on questions of security and safety and define ourselves by the people who hate us and want to attack us. This will trap us in a circle of negativity.”
“We have an incredible religion and culture and life and we shouldn’t identify ourselves by a negative self identity. This is the next challenge that we will have to live up to, and I hope that we will.
As dark as this time in history was, there is the potential for a lot of positives to emerge from it. There is the potential for a new way forward for some of Israel’s less integrated communities to find their place within the societal fabric – like the Ultra Orthodox or the Arab communities. This experience can reinforce what it means to be Israeli. But every opportunity can be squandered and every chance can be missed. “Sometimes things need to get worse before they can get better, and maybe this was that moment.”
“It is important for our pampered generation to realize that our grandparents and great-grandparents were brutalized and went on to build beautiful lives, and continued to be so proud of who they are as Jews. We need to do the same.”
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