Courtesy Stacey Lustig and Sophie Krentzman

The University of Massachusetts Jewish student organization UMass Hillel, in partnership with Brandeis Hillel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, spent eight days over winter break volunteering in Northern Israel.

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Eighteen of the students involved in the program were from UMass, and throughout their visit they worked on a variety of community service projects in the city of Ma’alot-Tarshiha. Ma’alot-Tarshiha was hit with almost 700 Katyusha rockets during the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.

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Students spent their mornings split into three groups working on different projects in a variety of low-income housing neighborhoods. Stairways and lobbies were repainted and cleaned, park benches were refurbished and fading shrubbery were replanted. Students also got the chance to work alongside a local artist to transform an old concrete outdoor bench into mosaic artwork.

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Throughout the trip, locals of Ma’alot began to wonder why the students devoted their free time to come help their community.

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‘An older man stopped by and asked us why we were in Israel. When we explained that we came from America to help out in the community, he reached into his bag and gave apples to our students and the neighborhood children,’ said Rabbi Saul Perlmutter, a UMass trip leader. ‘Despite the fact that he was struggling to make ends meet, he, like so many in the neighborhood, opened their doors and their hearts to us, doing whatever they could to let us know how much this meant to them.’

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Afternoons were spent bonding with the community of Ma’alot. Groups split up time between a home for the elderly, a battered women’s shelter and a children’s afternoon daycare held in a local bomb shelter.

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‘Working in Ma’alot was a wonderful experience. For me, it was incredible to learn the personal stories of the teenage girls who I worked with at the women’s center and to interact with the community,’ said UMass senior Sophie Krentzman.

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Three days before students set off on their short-term community service trip, Israeli F-16 strike fighters launched a series of attacks in the Gaza Strip, which borders southern Israel. An Israeli ground invasion of Gaza followed a few days later.

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‘I felt completely safe despite the war raging in [southern Israel]. The people of Nahariya were living their lives completely normally despite the possibility of an impending war. I think by example they taught us all to do the same,’ said Brandeis sophomore Naomi Iser.

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Although no students were harmed during the visit to Israel, three Katyusha rockets landed in Nahariya the day the trip ended. Nahariya was the city in which both the UMass and Brandeis students stayed during their trip.

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‘The trip is an experience I will remember for a very long time, and I know the work we completed in the city will make an impact for years to come,’ said Krentzman.

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Each student paid for a portion of the trip’s cost, while the rest was subsidized by Hillel’s Ride to Provide fundraiser.

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Josh Walovitch can be reached at jwalovit@student.umass.edu.