How Hand in Hand's School and Communities Respond to Crisis

It’s been a profoundly challenging time. 

But it’s also been a time when all the investment in relationship building and community building has paid dividends. Hand in Hand’s foundation of mutual support meant that we knew how to respond during this crisis, and here are some of the highlights from the recent weeks when schools and many institutions were closed:

Schools were closed for five weeks, but the teachers worked incredibly hard to teach remotely and keep students feeling connected.

Hand in Hand staff are known for going above and beyond, but there were some truly extraordinary moments during the war. A team at Hand in Hand Kfar Saba prepared and hand delivered care packages to each member of the staff.

Hand in Hand Galilee teachers took it even a step further, bringing care packages to every single one of their 341 students. Children in the north of Israel have been particularly affected by the wars of the past few years, and getting a visit and a hug from their teacher during these terrifying weeks provided an incredibly fortifying boost.

And of course there were many, many online classes, and special activities like a Jerusalem school-wide holiday quiz competition with questions on Eid al-Fitr, Passover, and Easter. And to close the event, everyone turned their microphones on and sang the school anthem together.

And in Wadi Ara, the student government leaders organized and ran a school-wide holiday quiz of their own too!

The Communities Department staff quickly created a whole new workplan after the war began, with everything from surveying families to find out what people needed to arts and crafts to activities for adults like film screenings and lectures.

Our Jerusalem community organizer, who is herself a working artist, ran these wonderful stop motion and digital animation workshops where kids learned new ways to bring their creations to life.

And in Haifa, where students are still unable to be fully at school due to the fighting with Hezbollah (at the time of recording), the local community organizer has been arranging series of meet ups for families to get together in nearby parks—all within immediate proximity to a bomb shelter—for picnics and moments of sanity and connection. This week, preschool teachers have been gathering groups in museums and dance studios, and even children’s homes.

Kids in the Jaffa community enjoyed a circus workshop, learning juggling and balance tricks, which one mother poignantly noted was a good metaphor for what we’re all trying to do these days!

We couldn’t run our community Iftar events this year, a much beloved, main event in the Hand in Hand calendar. But despite the hardship our families were going through, several Hand in hand communities still ran their annual Ramadan fundraising drive for families in need, like in Jerusalem where parents raised over 7,000 shekels which paid for hundreds of food staple packages that were distributed for Passover and Eid al-Fitr. We even received this beautiful note of thanks from a young recipient.

Lastly, the University Student Communities began their second semester of programming online. While sessions over zoom can’t compare to in-personal meetings, facilitators adapted programming so participants could maintain their meaningful, yet still delicate bond during this hard and divisive time. But we’re glad to end on a positive note, because on April 15th, one of the groups was able to meet again in person!

When this latest war began, the wisteria vines on the Hand in Hand Jerusalem campus were still bare. But after five and a half long weeks away, staff and students were welcomed back to campus by vines once again in full bloom.