Project Spotlight: Helping the Elderly in Israel

The Fellowship  |  October 11, 2021

With the compassionate support of wonderful friends like you, we reach the poorest elderly, providing them with food, clothing, medications, visits and check ins, as well as emergency funds for basic needs through our With Dignity and Fellowship program in Israel.

The elderly selected for the program are those who are 80 years old or older, have basic food needs with no family support, and subsist solely from a social security supplemental income and their old-age pension.

We help people like Liza.

God Is Watching Over Her in Israel

Liza was just a baby during World War II in Kharkov, Ukraine, when her family fled to Donetsk. But soon the Nazis occupied the city, and Liza and her family lived for a while under occupation. “They tried to kill us several times,” she says. But a miracle happened. They survived. To this day, Liza sees this as a reminder that God was watching over her.

Years later, after the war, Liza made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) with her son from Ukraine, hoping for a better life. At the time, she’d tragically lost her husband; he died in a car crash during a military training exercise after serving as an officer. So she was forced to raise her only son alone. After he was well into adulthood, another shocking loss took Liza by surprise… her son was murdered and taken from her forever.

Now she leads a quiet, lonely life in the Holy Land. She has no family. She faces huge financial hardships. And she lives with numerous health issues, like diabetes, and desperately needs eye surgery, but worries she won’t be able to afford it, or even the simple cab ride to the surgery appointment.

Just when Liza worried that the world had forgotten her, she learned again that God is still watching over her. This time through The Fellowship and you.

When we visited her just before the High Holy Days, she told us that celebrating them is one of her last remaining joys after so much has been taken from her. Thank you for allowing us to deliver her a box of nutritious food, ongoing support, and, most important, some joy for the sacred season.

With The Fellowship, you can help even more elderly in desperate poverty in Israel like Liza today.