The Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago is sending aid to help rebuild the Jerusalem Yeshiva where eight young students were murdered by a terrorist March 6.
JUF has made a special, $15,000 Israel Emergency Campaign grant to Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, leaving it to the Yeshiva’s discretion as to how the funds will be used to address the effects of the attack.
According to news reports, the entrance to the Yeshiva is riddled with bullet holes and repairs are needed both in the dorm where the terrorist entered and in the library, where volumes of the Talmud and other holy books also must be replaced.
“We cannot know the pain of the families of your young students,” JUF Chairman Harvey Barnett wrote to HaRav Ya’acov Shapira. “We cannot know the suffering into which your sacred community of Torah scholars has now been plunged. We can, however, let you know that you are not alone. We are with you in your time of trouble.”
When JUF contacted the Yeshiva to ask if funds were needed to help restore the library, Rabbi Ephriam Rosenfeld, the Yeshiva’s Chief Financial Officer, said that he was “overwhelmed to know we are in the hearts of Jews in Chicago,” and that he is “thankful that someone is thinking practically while we are still in pain.”
This funding is just one result of JUF’s Israel Emergency Campaign, which was launched just days after the Second Lebanon War began in July 2006. By the end of 2007, more than $43 million had been raised in Chicago to provide humanitarian aid, social services and economic assistance to Israelis under fire.
Read the statement issued by Steven B. Nasatir, president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, following the terror attack.
Read the letter sent to HaRav Ya'acov Shapira, Rosh Yeshiva of Mercaz HaRav Kook by Harvey J. Barnett, Chairman of the Board, and Steven B. Nasatir, President, JUF/JF.
