In the days and weeks following the Oct. 7 massacres in Israel, the impact went even beyond the indiscriminate murders and kidnappings. For those lucky enough to survive, they were left homeless—their towns and villages now a military zone.
The survivors—all with family and friends they would never see again—sought places of refuge to feel safe, regroup and attempt to begin the process of healing and recovery. As it has so many times throughout history, help came from their brethren in America.
“Our community quickly decided to concentrate our efforts to help as many families as we could,” explains Rabbi Menachem Gurary, co-director of the Chabad-Lubavitch Israeli Center in Atlanta.
Since October, the community has welcomed tens of scarred Israeli families to Atlanta. Chabad Israeli Center provides these families with daily meals, a weekly stipend, as well as various educational and entertainment programs held daily at the Chabad center for the younger children.
One boy became a man as he celebrated his bar mitzvah during his stay in Atlanta.
