A Seed Grows in Israel

By Shani Rosenbaum

In the weeks leading up to winter break, friends and family had begun to ask me what I’d be doing in Israel. I told them I was participating in a JDC Short-Term Service Program with Brandeis Hillel to Kiryat Gat, a small, largely Ethiopian-Israeli development town. We’d be doing physical work like painting in the mornings, and working with the local youth in the afternoons. “Oh! That’s so nice,” they’d say, and I agreed, it was “nice.”

True, the 20 Brandeis students embarking on this trip had chosen a service trip over bumming around in our pajamas; true, we were hoping to have not just a “good time,” but a meaningful experience. Still, we would be in Kiryat Gat for less than ten days. What kind of impact could 20 American kids have on a town plagued with poverty in such a short time? If anything, I felt, we were there primarily to learn about major social issues in Israel; our participation in the movement to change them would be slim to none.

Enter Gar’in Hineini, one of the most incredible groups of people I’ve ever encountered. The word “gar’in,” Hebrew for “seed,” is being used in recent years to refer to small groups of socially conscious Israelis who build communities surrounding a common interest or cause. In 2006, with the support of JDC, a group of young Israeli families and singles came together with an eye toward addressing the problems of poverty, neglect and despair within the Ethiopian community in Israel.

Many were Ethiopians themselves, looking for a way to give back to their communities. Others were simply motivated by the desire to live meaningful lives and build the country they loved. They committed to addressing the problem from the inside; to build their lives in Kiryat Gat, to mobilize the local population by being a part of it, to foster a sense of community and empower that community to lift itself up. Thus was born Gar’in Hineini, a community within a community, a group of awe inspiring individuals who would make our short trip to Kiryat Gat more meaningful than we could have imagined.

Of the whole week we spent painting and hanging out with the beautiful people of Kiryat Gat, two incidents stand out in my mind that indicated we may have achieved some lasting impact. Both took place while we painted the courtyard of a formerly dreary and graffiti-ridden apartment complex. One morning, we were painting a stairwell and an elderly Russian immigrant walked down and asked congenially where we were from. “Me’artzot ha’brit,” we told her, “from the US.” The woman stared blankly at us for a moment, then cocked her head and gave us a sly smile. “Nu, be’emet!” she demanded, “No, really!”

It was a reaction we would get numerous times throughout the trip, a sort of delighted puzzlement as to why we had come. Americans? In Kiryat Gat? Why on earth would any American care about Kiryat Gat? But throughout the week, the bewilderment began to give way to beaming smiles, as the residents of Kiryat Gat began to take pride in our being there.

By no special merit of our own, as foreigners and especially as Americans, our very presence sent a powerful message to the people of Kiryat Gat: because we cared, they were suddenly that much more inclined to believe that they were worth caring about. As long as we continue to go to Kiryat Gat, no matter how many buildings we paint or how deep our connections to the people, just showing up will continue to make a difference. The second incident was, for me, the most powerful. Some of the high schoolers we worked with in the afternoons went to school nearby the apartment complex we were painting, and they came to visit us while we worked. After some spontaneous singing and dancing (in English, Hebrew, and Amharic) and general goofing around, the girls stood back to watch us paint. “Is it fun?” one of them asked. “Sure!” I said, and held out my brush. “You wanna try?”

The girl took the brush hesitantly and then began to paint. Within minutes, several of the other girls were begging for paintbrushes, wanting to join in on the fun. They came back almost every morning during their break, often bringing other friends with them, and each time, another girl picked up a brush. The image of those girls painting with huge grins on their faces will stay with me for a long time. Whatever we accomplished in that short week, the true success of our trip will be what continues to happen following our departure. The members of Gar’in Hineini are fully aware of this; they are committed to “empowerment” and encouraging the residents of Kiryat Gat to employ their own talents and strengths toward building a strong and vibrant community.

Brandeis students and participants from the Gar’in-led youth leadership program prepare to entertain elderly residents of a nearby old-age home.

As our Hillel director Larry pointed out to me, the Gar’in was using us as leverage – they had carefully placed us in situations that had the potential to motivate the citizens of Kiryat Gat to take the development of their town to the next level. There is no reason why those enthusiastic teens shouldn’t continue the work we started – and with the determination, hard work, and profound vision of Gar’in Hineini behind them, I believe that they will.

Shani is an alum of the January 2010 JDC Short-Term Service Program with Brandeis Hillel in
Kiryat Gat, Israel. Check out the Brandeis group blog at jdcinservice.org!