04/07/2024
Getting back to my time in Israel……The following 2 weeks included volunteer opportunities in and from the Tel Aviv area. It was challenging to get to the correct locations by public transportation and later, fortunately, my cousin generously lent me a car!
This included Eran’s Angels where volunteers sorted the many donations for families who were evacuated from their homes located in danger zones in the south and the north. Many donations came from Israelis and organizations and people from abroad. New products were also donated from corporations such as Zara and others. I helped crafts people with projects at the many hotels where these evacuated families were housed - in this case it was at the Dan Panorama in Tel Aviv and 2 women from Atlanta, GA who brought lots of beads and accessories to make jewelry. The displaced mothers and kids loved this activity - a great distraction to living in a cramped hotel room without your own things and no clear timing to go back home!
There was always agricultural assistance to the farmers picking produce before it spoiled. Their usual labor either went home to Thailand and other countries or were in the military during this time of war.
Finally, I did join the demonstration against the Red Cross who never checked on the status, health or well-being of the Israeli hostages brutally taken to Gaza on October 7th 2023! Their office was in a beautiful high-rise building in Tel-Aviv. We approached them from in front of the building as well as from behind on the top floor of the parking structure hoping that the megaphone could better reach their office. Sadly, it was not a great turn-out with a smaller showing each week. The constants were the leaders and of course family members of the hostages and a few volunteers. They demonstrate twice a week. I understood that the group was invited to the office of the Red Cross but nothing came of it. the group asked why they never asked about or visited with the hostages despite traveling weekly into Gaza. It goes against their raison d’être!
