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Fifty-eight teenage girls from the Habad Hassidic movement visited Yad Sarah on Sunday - as their leader put it - "to see giving."
The girls, aged 15 or 16, were mostly from the United States, but some were from Britain and Australia and one was from Venezuela.
The girls arrived in Israel from the Ukraine, where they had been visiting the graves of the revered rabbinical sages who founded the Habad movement in previous centuries.
At Yad Sarah, volunteer guides showed the girls a few of the many services which the organization provides for the sick, the elderly and the handicapped, free or at very low cost.
Mushky Greenwald, aged 15, who is from Brooklyn, said that in the United States people have to pay for such services. "Here you can see that in Israel people really care for each other," she said.
Mushkay Rosenboum, also aged 15, said she was really impressed by the ingenious devices developed by Yad Sarah to make disabled people more independent and self-sufficient. "Yad Vashem spares no effort to see the situation through the eyes of the infirm and the disabled, and to understand their special needs," she said.
Mushkay speaks faultless English, but she is also a Spanish speaker, because she lives in Caracas, Venezuela, where her parents are Habad emissaries.
The girls visited Yad Sarah's Emergency Alarm Warning Center, which thousands of elderly or infirm Israelis call when they need help, or an ambulance, or if they are afraid, or just lonely. The center's computer has the medical history of every person on its register, and is connected to a wide range of volunteers who are prepared to go to the person's home at any hour of the day or night, and to give whatever aid is needed.
Sixteen year-old Devora Frank, from Brooklyn, said she was particularly impressed with a bracelet worn by users of the alarm service, with a button which enables them to talk to the Emergency Center even if they cannot reach their telephone. "That's very advanced Israeli technology," she said.
The girls' group leader and counselor, Myriam Swerdlov, from Brooklyn, said it was important for the girls to see the large-scale volunteering which makes the work of Yad Sarah possible. "I think girls have to learn that you don't just get. You also have to give," she said. "The Dead Sea is dead because everything dies in the water. When you don't give, you're dead, so we're here because we want to see giving, not just getting."
Yad Sarah is Israel's biggest volunteer organization, with 6,000 volunteers. It helps approximately half a million people each year, regardless of their religion or race. More than half of the families in Israel have been helped by Yad Sarah, which has been appointed by the United Nations Organization as an advisor to the UN Economic and Social Commission. Yad Sarah's budget comes entirely from donations. It receives no government funding, even though it saves the government four hundred million dollars per year in hospitalization costs.
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