KARMIEL, Israel –  Five rabbis from Greater Pittsburgh left behind their pulpits this week and went to Israel to survey the damage from this summer’s war on the Jewish state, starting off with Pittsburgh’s Partnership 2000 sister city of Karmiel.

The Pittsburgh rabbis joined 20 others from across the United States on a five-day United Jewish Communities Rabbinic Cabinet Israel Emergency Campaign solidarity mission that also is scheduled to take them to Haifa, Safed, Nahariya, Sderot and other Israeli cities hit by rockets. Pittsburgh sent more representatives to the mission than any other city.

The rabbis saw the impact of the 200 rockets that hit Karmiel during the month-long Hezbullah bombardment from Lebanon. The overwhelming majority of the 800 homes that were damaged by the rockets have already been repaired, but scars still remain as evidence of the first time that the city had ever come under attack.

Rabbi Mark Mahler, of Temple Emanuel of the South Hills, said he was amazed to see how quickly Karmiel had rehabilitated itself after the war. He said he visited south Florida in January, three months after Hurricane Wilma had struck, and the damage there was much more evident.

Mahler has had a track record of visiting Israel during challenging times. He was in Israel when the 1973 Yom Kippur war broke out, during the first Palestinian Intifada that began in 1987, ahead of the second Intifada that started in September 2000 and after the June 1, 2001, attack on the Dolphinarium discotheque that killed 21 young Israelis.

“It was important to come here and continue my presence in Israel in problematic times,” Mahler said. “This is my vacation week from work, but I decided this was the thing to do.”
Rabbi Aaron Bisno of Congregation Rodef Shalom, who is president of the Greater Pittsburgh Rabbinic Association, said his goal in coming was to get a sense of what transpired during the war, what impact it had on the people of Israel and to see what the UJC was doing to help people through it.

“Being here has made a big impression on me,” Bisno said. “The sense of resilience of the community here is what I am taking away from here. They know there are friends back in Pittsburgh who are doing what they can to show solidarity and help them. The people here take pride in living here.”

Bisno said that upon his return to Pittsburgh, he would convene the rabbis of the GPRA to inform them about what he saw and what has to be done and to “give a human face to the story” in Israel. He said the story of Noah in the Torah portion of the week proved that “we are all in the same boat and we need each other for the future.”

Rabbi Stephen Steindel, of Congregation Beth Shalom came to Karmiel not only as part of the mission, but also to visit his daughter and son-in-law Shiri and Josh Friedman, who are temporarily living in Karmiel, and his son Avi, who is serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
“It is important to see and feel the situation in Israel in the post-war period and bring back a personal message on what is being done to meet the needs of and improve the quality of life of people who have suffered so much,” Steindel said.

Rabbi Alex Greenbaum, of Beth El Congregation  of the South Hills, compared the post-war period in Israel to the days after a mourner completes sitting shiva.

“After the shiva is over, family and friends leave and it is time to rebuild,” Greenbaum said. “Sometimes that’s when people need us the most. It’s important for Israelis to feel they haven’t been forgotten. I think rabbis are in a unique position to show support for Israel on behalf of their congregations and then go back home and report about what’s happening here.”
Greenbaum said the time after the autumn Jewish holidays end is usually a time for rabbis to get their lives back together but he decided he had to first come to Israel. He said he is planning to return on a congregational trip in July.

Rabbi Jamie Gibson of Temple Sinai came even though he had already been in Israel in July and will bring his congregation in December. Gibson said he was in Israel when the war broke out and he helped put together packages for the soldiers in the front:
“When I was here in the summer, people were panicking because the missile attacks had become part of their lives,” Gibson said. “Now the streets of Karmiel are full and I see a city determined to move on.”

Gibson said he would tell his congregants about the strong connection between Karmiel and Pittsburgh. He said he came to strengthen the bond and to listen to the people of Karmiel.
“I am here without expectations just to listen to people talk about their lives,” Gibson said. “By coming here, I can bear witness as a rabbi with the national rabbinic cabinet of UJC.”

One of the Karmiel residents who the rabbis came to listen to was Rabbi Avraham Zvi Margalit, who runs a religious school whose dormitory was hit by a Katyusha rocket. He described how seeing so many support packages arrive in Karmiel from Pittsburgh proved the Jewish tradition of kol Israel arevim ze lazeh (all Jews are responsible for one another).
“Even without wars, it is beautiful to see the way Diaspora Jews can help the country,” Margalit said.

Shula Menachem, the director of social services in the Karmiel municipality, gave the rabbis a report on the state of the city: She said that Karmiel mayor Adi Eldar encouraged residents to leave during the rocket attacks and thirty percent left. She said the city provided food, water and supplies to the 70 percent of the city’s 50,000 residents who remained in Karmiel’s 600 bomb shelters.

Menachem said that people also came to Karmiel to entertain residents in the shelters and United Jewish Federation provided the people of Karmiel with flak jackets and helmets. She said that all donations were distributed immediately to the people.

“Our friends in Pittsburgh helped us through the war,” Menachem said. “We felt we had warm families that were hugging us and thinking about us and I thank the people of Pittsburgh for that.”

Menachem said that in the wake of the war, children in Karmiel were still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and doing poorly in school. She said many children still get frightened every time a car alarm goes off, reminding them of the sirens during rocket attacks.
Karmiel Director-General Hannah Kovel, who recently visited Pittsburgh, said the rocket attacks harmed the city’s efforts to attract new residents. She said Karmiel had a mission to enlarge the city, which with the exception of the nearby Misgav regional council, is surrounded by Arab towns in a region that is 80 percent Arab.

“Because of the mountains surrounding us, Karmiel has been compared to a Swiss village,” Kovel said. “Until this war, missiles never reached Karmiel. Only in this war, did we realize how close we are to the border.”

Kovel said her top goal now was to ensure that all 600 shelters in the city will have proper electricity and water. She said the city hired an engineer to visit every shelter and evaluate its needs, just in case there will be another war any time soon.

“The residents here are very frightened,” Kovel said. “Today our main business is to promise the people appropriate shelters for the next war because people here believe that within a year, there will be another war.”

UJF President Jeff Finkelstein thanked the rabbis for coming to Karmiel and praised the city’s leaders for “doing a wonderful job in holding this city together.” He said he was proud that the mission started in Karmiel, perhaps due to the strong participation from Pittsburgh.
“The Federation subsidized the trips of the rabbis, because we wanted them to come to Israel and connect,” Finkelstein said. “The fact that more rabbis came from Pittsburgh than any other community in the country shows they care.”