Yad Sarah, Israel’s leading volunteer-staffed health-care and social-services organization, mobilized dozens of volunteers today to assist attendees at Yom Hazikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) ceremonies held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem and Kiryat Shaul in Tel Aviv.
Visitors were greeted by youth volunteers offering wheelchair transportation to the gravesites of their loved ones and physical assistance at the cemeteries, which have many stairs and other challenging terrain.
This year’s effort at Mount Herzl was led by students from Netiv Meir and Himmelfarb high schools in Jerusalem. They dedicated their contribution to the memory of Rabbi Avi Goldberg, a cherished high school teacher at Himmelfarb and a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces. He had coordinated Yad Sarah’s Himmelfarb’s Yom Hazikaron volunteer efforts for a number of years, including last year’s ceremony, and fell in battle in Lebanon later that year.
The loss of Maj. Goldberg, who was the first casualty from the military rabbinate to fall in combat since the Yom Kippur War, was felt deeply, particularly among the Jerusalem and Anglo-Jewish communities.
“Volunteering was something Rabbi Avi truly believed in and embodied,” said Erez Hazom, a 12th-grader at Himmelfarb who participated in the initiative this year and last. “After he was killed, we took it upon ourselves to carry that forward and do even more good deeds in his memory.”
Avraham Lebel, the volunteer coordinator for the Himmelfarb students, said: “Wherever there’s a need, I show up with a smile. To me, that was Rabbi Avi’s spirit, and volunteering here today, we truly felt it.”
Moshe Cohen, CEO of Yad Sarah, said the agency works year-round to make Israeli society more accessible for all.
“As an organization with many members who have been directly impacted by the ongoing war, there is a particular meaning in supporting those who have lost their loved ones, who sacrificed so much for the nation, on Yom Hazikaron,” he said. “Everyone deserves the ability to mourn, commemorate and take part in our national day of remembrance with dignity.”
Yad Sarah, the leading volunteer-staffed organization in Israel, provides a vital array of compassionate health and home care services for people of all ages. Founded in 1976, Yad Sarah has 126 branches throughout Israel staffed by more than 7,000 volunteers. Although the organization is best known for its extensive lending service for medical equipment, its volunteers also drive wheelchair-accessible vans, reach out to the homebound, advocate for the elderly at risk for abuse, provide in-home geriatric dental care, staff its play center and more.