UJA ShinShinim are young Israeli leaders who have just finished high school and who come to the GTA for one year to volunteer in our community. They are hosted by local Toronto families and engage more than 12,000 Jewish community members each year with cutting-edge programs focusing on contemporary Israel.

As you all already know, the situation in Israel is tough. ‏I want to share with you a little bit of my feelings. I am currently suffering from mixed emotions: on the one side, everyone I know ‘knows someone’ who was murdered or kidnapped. ‏On a personal level, I know a soldier, Noam, who was murdered by Hamas while performing her military duty…‏This situation makes me feel like I have a stone in my heart, a feeling‏ I assume will stay with me for a long time. ‏

A little before I wrote this davar Y’Israel I talked to my older sister. She is a reserve officer of Saiert‏ Tzanhanim ‏(This basically means that she is the one who ‏takes care of calling all the reservists of the unit). As we spoke, she showed me the road near her base that was full of cars of people who ‏volunteered for the war.‏ 

This leads me to the other side of this tough situation: the people of Israel.‏ Somehow in this heavy situation, all of Israel contributes and tries to do as much as possible so that we win. The people in Israel give me hope personally that we as a Jewish people will win it because we have no other choice.