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Behind the Scenes
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.Operation Restoration Tales, Twists & Turns
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The middle of the evening. Most families had already eaten at home, their meals sifted through lace curtains scenting the late fall air. I was running to an appointment and cut through the open-air market, now in the last stages of closing for the day. Rotting fruits and vegetables, those that had fallen and were stepped on, combined with the grit of a workingclass market where fish heads were as ubiquitous as chicken feet. There, in the dim light, my eye caught them in the shadows. Older men and women scavenged around the vendors' shuttered stands, a modern-day take on the ancient welfare art of gleaning. They muttered to themselves in Russian, immigrants too poor to buy first quality. My shock turned me into a detective, making the rounds of Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda, Tel Aviv's Shuk ha'Carmel, Beersheva's Shuk Ezra. All told the same story of lack, of need, of hunger. "What is the problem?" I finally ventured to ask one night. "Housing. We need all of our resources to pay for an apartment. There is nothing left for food." From that moment, I determined to become known in the back streets, in the grime, in the raw desperation of those who had done no wrong and would never consider begging. Far from the light and warmth of all that we know, dwell those in darkness, waiting. |
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We pushed open the old gate. Squeaking on its hinges, the vacation seemed like something out of a film. Bougainvillea spilled over the thick plaster wall which kept prying eyes away from this private courtyard-in-a-time-warp. Everything stood as it had been sixty years before...a dusty steamer trunk, the overgrown pomegranate tree, black & white photos in a cabinet, an old water kettle...Could the team transform such a place? Our crisp t-shirts and freshly-laundered jeans brought a wave of optimism to the aging Israeli neighborhood as we hauled bag after bag of debris and broken glass from the property. By mid-morning, Yitzhak & Matthew brought us mountains of puff-pastry bourekas, which we hungrily washed down with mint tea. The fig tree cast its shade over our group & we started envisioning expanded, renovated, renewed homes filled with refugee families. |
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The need exists.
.... The answer exists.
. All that's needed is
further funding.
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The neighbors tried to tell us something in Hebrew. We asked what they were saying, and our director interpreted for us. "They're saying, 'May you be blessed for helping those with no one else to care.'" In every task I did, I remembered and thought, They have no one else. What if I hadn't volunteered? |
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Copyright 2000 - 2007 Operation Restoration All Rights Reserved
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