A year of encounters between Holocaust survivors and high-school students in Karmiel reached its high point in a shared outing to Hula Lake Park in northern Israel. These green surroundings provided the perfect backdrop for time spent together in a slightly different atmosphere and a deepening of the relationship on both sides. These activities are organized jointly by the "Connected" Project, the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, the Israeli Ministry for Social Welfare and Social Services and KKL-JNF.
“Our objective is to relieve the loneliness from which many Holocaust survivors suffer by creating a social bond between these elderly people and high-school students,” explained Director of the Connected Project Liat Goren. Every week high-school students participating in the project visit the survivors in their homes, talk with them, listen to them and help them to learn to use the new computers with which the project has provided them. “The students learn a lesson about life that no school subject could teach them,” said Director Goren.
Hundreds of high-school students and Holocaust survivors throughout Israel are taking part in this unique encounter project. The excursion to Hula Lake Park was attended by a group of about thirty students from Karmiel’s Ort Psagot School and by Holocaust survivors from the Eshkolot Day Center in Karmiel.
“These elderly people look forward all week to the day of their meeting,” said Miri Halbani, Director of the Eshkolot Day Center. “The knowledge that others are thinking about them and taking an interest in them strengthens them greatly. The students, for their part, are discovering that elderly people, too, can be full of the joys of life and eager for social contact.”
Before setting out for Lake Hula they all sat in the lobby and chatted, drank coffee and enjoyed the sense of togetherness. The event was further enlivened when volunteer Boris took out his accordion and began to play familiar and well-loved Israeli tunes: both young and old joined in the singing and clapped their hands in time to the music.
“I was drawn to this project because I wanted to hear people who had experienced the Holocaust tell their own stories, as that’s something very different from reading about them in the history books,” explained sixteen-year-old Shai Cohen, who is in touch with ninety-year-old Ilana, who immigrated to Israel from Hungary. “This relationship has taught me a lot, it has given me a great deal of satisfaction and, most important of all, we’ve become real friends,” said the high-schooler.
“This is a marvelous project and the children are wonderful,” said eighty-two-year-old Anna Schmokler. “I’ve learned to use a computer, and now I can keep in touch with my grandchildren on Skype.”
Roni Inbar, a literature teacher who accompanied the Lake Hula excursion, regards this unique project as an opportunity for the pupils to give something of themselves for the benefit of others. “There is no doubt that both parties benefit a great deal from these relationships,” she said.
“These are people who have been through so much in life, they deserve a helping hand now,” said sixteen-year-old Yael Rabizinovitch.
As the group members set out to tour Hula Lake, they listened to explanations about the site provided by guide Moish Levi, who described how the State of Israel had drained the lake in the 1950s in hopes of developing new land for agriculture. Instead, the drainage project caused ecological damage and impaired the quality of water in the Kinneret – and in the early 1990s KKL-JNF was called in to re-create the lake.
KKL-JNF has since developed the lake with the help of its Friends throughout the world, and today it is Israel’s foremost birdwatching venue and one of the world’s leading ornithological sites; it is a prime example of how nature, agriculture and tourism can be successfully combined. The stars of Hula Lake are, of course, the cranes, but these impressive visitors are not found at the site at this time of year, as they are already well on their way to spending the summer in Europe.
However, as some three hundred varieties of wildfowl have been observed at the lake, together with numerous mammal species, there is always something interesting to see there. The members of the group were particularly impressed by (among other things) a mother duck who led her progeny on a swim across the lake; an especially friendly aquatic turtle; beautiful, brightly-colored bee-eaters (Merops apiaster); a glimpse of a rare francolin (Francolinus francolinus); and even a wild boar calmly crossing the lake.
“It feels good to get out on a trip to enjoy nature and the birds together with our companions from the center and our good friends from the high school,” said Nina Weiss (87).
“Many elderly people find it hard to get out on trips like this on a regular basis,” said Miri Halbani. “Today has given us all an opportunity to get out into the open air, enjoy the marvelous scenery and enjoy ourselves together.”