Spirited Event Never Loses Sight of Sederot

June 26, 2008 - Michelle Mostovy-Eisenberg, Staff Writer

On a recent spring evening, while a large crowd of Jewish National Fund supporters gathered at a home on the Main Line for a barbecue, more than a dozen of their children ran around a vast yard lined with trees, playing catch and jumping on a trampoline.

This bucolic scene was a poignant moment, in some respects, considering that the barbecue was a fundraiser to help build a playground for children who reside in the besieged Israeli border community of Sederot.

Sederot's children can't play outside and must remain close to a bomb shelter, mused Andrea Gottlieb, the community campaign co-chair of the Eastern Pennsylvania chapter of JNF, since nearly every day, rockets fly from Gaza into the Israeli town. That's something Gottlieb said she doesn't have to think about when she sends her three children outside to play.

JNF will be converting a large warehouse in Sederot into a 20,000-square-foot indoor playground, complete with recreational and exercise facilities, a soccer field, basketball court, rock-climbing wall and more -- including a bomb shelter.

Gottlieb's drive to "save these kids" was not lost on her children, either. Over the Memorial Day weekend, two of them -- Gracie, 11, and Charlie, 7 -- were joined by several of their friends on the boardwalk in Ventnor, where the children set up a lemonade stand. Beach-goers could hear the group as they called out, "Buy lemonade and help keep the children of Israel safe!"

The six youths raised $180 over that weekend, which has since been matched twice over by two anonymous donors. The grand total -- $540 -- will go to help with the construction of the playground.

On June 11, about 200 people gathered at the Gladwyne home of Michael and Kristin Karp, whose family hosted and sponsored the fundraiser. Michael Karp noted that here in the United States, we "don't know what it's like to have a rocket coming on 15-seconds notice."

JNF supporters and their families munched on kosher hot dogs and sipped beverages while they participated in a silent and live auction, gathered around a campfire and participated in a sing-along. The evening raised more than $100,000 for the playground project.

A Farewell Tribute

The evening also was an opportunity for JNF to thank and say farewell to Israeli Consul General Uriel Palti and his family, who will be returning to Israel at the end of the summer.

Since September 2004, Palti has served as consul for the Mid-Atlantic region, based in Philadelphia.

Marina Furman, JNF Eastern Pennsylvania regional director, commented that Palti "lives every moment protecting Israel ... with his incredible heart," before she presented Palti with a personalized Sixers jersey.

The consul noted that to understand the bond between the Jews of the United States and Israel, a person has to look no farther than the blue JNF tzedakah boxes, which have been around since JNF's beginnings at the fifth Zionist Congress in 1901.

The evening's keynoter, Philadelphia native Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, stated that the lessons of the 1930s can be applied today.

Hoenlein explained that under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the United States knew what the Nazis were doing "and did nothing." Earlier this month, he added, Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again called for the destruction of Israel. Just as Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf in 1924 what he was going to do, Hoenlein added, so, too, is "Ahmadinejad telling what he is going to do."