Dear BFL Family,
It’s been another few weeks of incredible growth at Brothers for Life, from a prosthetic delegation to Orlando, 80 members from our running team taking part in the Tel Aviv Marathon, and of course, the historic opening of our Beit Achim in the North, (Thank you again to Bob and Amy Book for enabling this!) My greatest challenge these days with this update is deciding what to share with you as there is so much.
Outside of Israel, we had two life-changing delegations that took place in communities that may be physically quite far from Israel, but emotionally and spiritually, they could not be closer. Rav Yehudah HaLevi wrote, “Though I am at the ends of the West, Libi B’Mizrach, My Heart is in the East.” Twenty of our soldiers experienced this firsthand in the amazing Jewish communities of Melbourne and Johannesburg.
Our first Melbourne delegation, brought to AU by BFL partners Simon and Amy Feiglin, was mind-blowing. The love of the host families, and the hug of the community, were hard to put into words. The photo below is of Ron HaLevi, who lost his right leg in Gaza when a mortar shell exploded next to him, killing five of his friends. An important moment in each delegation is the next photo of the unbreakable connection our soldiers made with our Melbourne host families captures the spirit of this week in Australia.
At the same time, another delegation traveled to the heart of South Africa. Our Johannesburg delegation, led in SA by the Brett and Romy Levy, Lenny and Lexi Rovetti, and Saul and Batsheva Jassinowsky families, was just as healing. I would like to share a thank you letter from one of the soldiers to his host family:
I came back to Israel with a lot of strength. I’m very proud to be Jewish again because there are Jews like you in our nation. Thank you so much for this opportunity to be part of your beautiful family.” Aviram , Medic in the Paratrooper Battalion
The two photos above are of a meeting with our precious Holocaust survivors in Joburg, and the final evening with the host families. These moments are a living embodiment of “One Nation, One People, One Family”. Whether the greeting is “G’day” or “Howzit?”, the connection that is made is beyond words. This creates an environment where our members can do the hard emotional work of looking at themselves and making potentially life changing decisions that will allow them to move forward in their lives.
When we started BFL we had no understanding of how the love and appreciation of Jewish communities from around the world could help our soldiers not only heal but see both their IDF service and injuries in a completely different way.
Shabbat Shalom from Israel,
Yaniv
PS: Mark your calendars for a BFL Global Celebration in NYC, on May 30, 2023, honoring Alyssa and Cliff Greenberg. We will be sending out more information in the very near future.
