Girls from Rocket-Torn Sderot Find Solace at Boston Summer Camp
by Noa Amouyal – chabad.org
On Oct. 7, 12-year-old Daria Marchevska was huddling with her family in their bomb shelter when they saw terrorists in the garden of their Sderot home. Nine months later, she is frolicking under the warm New England sun and finally experiencing the traditional childhood she deserves.
Marchevska is one of ten Sderot girls who participated in a two-week program at Shaloh House of Boston’s Camp Gan Israel. There, the young girls joined other Boston-area campers for a summer experience focused on healing, unity and Jewish pride.
Their odyssey is not a usual one. The girls all bore witness to the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Their homes are in Sderot, a desert town located less than a mile from Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, and on that fateful day in October, dozens of their friends and neighbors were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
This was not the girls first brush with such danger, either. Since 2001, Sderot has been the target of more than 10,000 rockets fired indiscriminately by Hamas and other Gaza terror groups, the deadly deliveries only intensifying in the aftermath of Israel’s disengagement from the coastal area in the summer of 2005. All this earned Sderot the unenviable moniker of “bomb shelter capital of the world” even before terrorists crept over the fence to murder seniors, women and children on its streets and at its bus stops.
“These girls have been displaced from their homes several times due to the ongoing rocket fire and have been out of school most of the time,” said Rabbi Dan Rodkin, director of Shaloh House and its Camp Gan Israel and organizer of the special program. “This camp gives them a chance to rest, recuperate and enjoy their summer.”
Shaloh House is a Chabad-Lubavitch institution founded in the late 1960s to provide a Jewish education to children who might otherwise be enrolled in public school. Its Gan Israel summer program is likewise dedicated to enriching the lives of children from diverse Jewish backgrounds through a stimulating summer experience by infusing a robust Judaic program with fun summer-themed activities. The camp worked closely with Rabbi Moshe Zeev and Sima Pizem, directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Sderot, in order to provide a warm summer setting for the girls from their community who needed it most.
The girls, aged 12 to 15, took part in a variety of activities such as swimming, chess, art, drama, dance, gymnastics, fencing and other sports. The camp, which serves approximately 150 children from Boston and the surrounding area, integrated the girls into most of the daily programming alongside their peers. In addition, there are special programs aimed at building Jewish pride and fostering unity between Israeli and American Jews.
“We feel we are giving to the children of Sderot, but really, it is we and our children who are so enriched and enlightened by their presence,” said Rodkin. “Spending time with these children strengthens our identity and connects us to the Land of Israel and to the People of Israel.”
A highlight of the program was the girls’ trip to New York City, where aside from sight-seeing they had the opportunity to visit the Ohel, the resting place in Queens of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
“You were able to see this sense of calm and connectedness on the girls’ faces, it was palpable,” Rodkin observed.
Ongoing Partnership
This is the third time Shaloh House and Chabad of Sderot have joined forces with the Boston Russian Jewish Community Foundation (JRCF) to put a smile on the faces of young kids in the town. The three organizations brought 20 and then 110 kids to the Boston camp in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
In the two decades since the original partnership, the JRCF has contributed to various projects run by Shaloh House and when Rodkin inquired about reigniting the program this year following the war in Israel, they were all ears.
Rodkin was inspired to collaborate for a third time after participating in a solidarity mission to Israel in November last year.
“I visited the Gaza Envelope and Kfar Aza. We saw the destruction. And when we went to Sderot we saw the police station that was in ruins. When we spoke to residents, they explained how most of their neighbors evacuated and live in hotels—making any sort of semblance of a normal routine impossible,” Rodkin said. “Sderot was always a town under attack, but what we saw after Oct. 7 was beyond comprehension.”
During that time he worked to put together care packages for Sderot evacuees, but he knew he could do more.
That’s when Sima Pizem went to work, and began calling mothers of several young girls she thought would be good candidates for the trip.
“The mothers were so happy to present this opportunity to their daughters because they knew it would offer them some temporary peace,” Pizem said.
Anxiety and fear is still running high in Sderot, with many still on edge and jumping in fear any time they hear any jarring or loud sounds.
“When we used to hold events in Sderot, we usually had a full house. Now, we have to make individual phone calls and convince people to come out. After sundown, Sderot is a ghost town,” Pizem lamented.
“My daughter, Daria, is the youngest girl in the group,” her mother, Lilach Marchevska explained. “We went through such a traumatic experience. We ran from our shelter thinking we would surely be gunned down by terrorists. We’re now back home, but we live in fear every day. We still haven’t managed to fix the window to Daria’s room that is riddled with bullet holes because there’s a shortage of workers in the area.”
One of their counselors, Tal Ferber, is working at the camp as part of her national community service.
“They were smiling and very thankful. But sometimes we hear the horrible stories of what they experienced,” Ferber said. “One girl said their whole building was destroyed. Another can’t forget the sound of terrorists shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ outside of her window.”
“I miss my home, but I’m so happy to be here,” said Emily Levy, one of the girls from Sderot. “I’ve also met many friends here and I hope we’ll continue to be close.”
The project came at a significant cost, and Rodkin says he’s still some $26,000 short. Yet, he believes every penny has been worth it.
“I wanted to escape reality. I didn’t want to hear the news or rockets or sirens. Our reality at home is hard. I just wanted to be a kid again,” reflected Daria. “That’s what I got in Boston.”
