Restoring Homes and Hope: Shalem Students Volunteer in Lod
In the wake of last month’s rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, there was no shortage of homes in Beer-Sheva, Ashkelon, and Ashdod in need of repair. Yet when the students who run Shiputz Shalem (a play on words that means “full renovation”), an initiative to make some of Jerusalem’s most impoverished homes livable, decided where to direct their limited resources, it wasn’t south they ended up heading. Rather, they went west, to the mixed Jewish-Arab city that saw the worst of the last month’s violent uprisings: Lod.
“We wish we could help all Israelis affected by the matzav (situation) in the last month, but since we had to choose, we felt it was especially important to repair homes that had been damaged by our own citizens,” says Yarden Meller ’23, one of the eight students in charge of Shiputz Shalem and a co-organizer of the project in Lod. “By doing so, we felt we’d be not only fixing residents’ homes, but also helping in some small way to restore hope to the city’s residents.” In addition, she explained, Lod is the home of Shalem junior Oz Abramowitz, who stayed in the city through the worst of the violence and helped to coordinate the students’ volunteer efforts.
To be sure, Shiputz Shalem has never been “just” about the renovation. For the project’s army of student volunteers, it is also an opportunity to advance neighboring Jerusalem communities. “Students develop a real connection with the families whose homes they’ve repaired,” Meller explains. “It’s not just because we’ve been able to help them, but also because we’ve literally entered their lives and developed a new perspective on and understanding of their experience. It’s just like how we approach a text at Shalem,” she continues. “Directly, without intermediaries, and with a willingness to learn whatever the text wants to teach. That’s what happens when we do our renovation, and that’s why we end up getting as much as we give.”
Indeed, for the nearly 20 Shalem students who volunteered to help repair three families’ apartments in Lod that were damaged by rioting, the project provided a chance to learn about the complex dynamics that characterize a mixed city in Israel and what motivates its newer Jewish residents to call it home.
“Driving through Lod, seeing [the burned-down synagogue] Ohel Yehuda, and then the state of the apartments we had come to fix—holes in the wall, broken furniture, soot and glass and debris everywhere—it was at first very depressing. These families literally had no home to live in that very Shabbat,” says Gila Rockman, Shalem’s director of community and citizenship, who helped coordinate the students’ efforts. “But then we spoke with the family who lived there, these incredible people who are so idealistic and believe that living side-by-side isn’t just necessary, but possible. And the students saw that the only response is to repair and keep building—homes, and also trust.”
Ori Reiner ’23, who oversaw work at one of the three apartments, said that the experience left him with more questions than answers—and to him, that’s a good thing. “I left wanting to find out more about what life is like in a mixed city. It’s a part of Israel that most people don’t know about, including me, and we need to change that. We need to want to learn.”
Meller agreed, adding that the renovation project was also a way to show the Jewish families who choose to live in Lod that other Israelis appreciate what they’re trying to do. “These families are strengthening the socio-economic fabric of the city and living co-existence. For them it’s not just a term or even an aspiration. It’s a reality that they’re creating every day. The students at Shalem who volunteered in Lod support their hard work. Giving them a day’s hard work of our own,” she concludes with a smile, “was the least we could do.”
