thejewishweek.com: Happy Campers, Unhappy Memories

Evyatar, a kindergarten student in Israel 13 years ago, sensed that something was wrong when neither of his parents picked him up from school. An uncle showed up a few hours later and told his nephew what had happened – Evyatar’s parents had been attacked by terrorists at an Israeli toy store; his father was dead, his mother injured. Ben Borgia, a voice-over actor in Australia, heard his tragic family news at 7 a.m., Sydney time, seven years ago.

His phone rang. His mother and 13-year-old sister, he learned, were among 202 people killed, 88 of them Australians, in a terrorist bombing the previous night in an Indonesian nightclub. Bali that day became Australia’s 9/11. For two recent weeks, Evyatar, a 19-year-old Jew, and Borgia, a 29-year-old Catholic, and several other young Jews and Christians, shared their common experiences as victims and survivors of terrorism.

At a weeklong camp sponsored by the One Heart Global organization (oneheartglobal.org) at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, and during a subsequent week of touring here, they shared their stories of loss, comforted each other, laughed and cried together, and talked about common interests in music and sports. “People” who have escaped a terrorist attack or lost a family member to terrorism “don’t get to share their stories very much” with others who have gone through the same experience, says Evyatar, a recent high school graduate who asked that his full name not be printed. For him and the other participants in the One Heart Global activities – including teens from Spain, Liberia, the United States and Northern Ireland – the camp’s therapy sessions and conflict resolution lessons, leadership training classes and entertainment downtime, were a rare chance to unburden themselves or simply keep their feelings to themselves with peers who understand either choice.

The camp was co-sponsored by Tuesday’s Children (tuesdayschildren.org), a family service organization founded by family and friends of 9-11 victims. “It helps. It helps a lot,” Evyatar says. He and Borgia, who is working on an oral history project with other victims of terrorism, discussed the discomfort they feel, or which friends feel, when the subject of parents come up. “When people talk about their mothers, it’s a very difficult experience,” Borgia says. He feels his loss especially at those times. He and Evyatar discussed how they coped with losing a parent, suddenly, to terrorism. Evyatar, then still a kid, would keep his emotions inside. Borgia says he took up drinking. “For a long time I had to escape.” And they talked about the ongoing impact of terrorism on other members of their families. Borgia says he joined the One Heart Global group as part of his mission to help fellow victims of terrorism, particularly needed in a country like Australia that does not offer the network of support services for victims of terrorism available in this country and Israel.

“I’m trying to find my purpose,” he says. The organization includes the training and conflict resolution sessions in its annual camp in order “to promote the idea of global peace” among the people most affected by hatred, says Sarri Singer, co-founder of One Heart Global. “This is the next generation. These are the next leaders of their countries.” Singer, a native of New Jersey and assistant director of career services at Touro College, was injured in a terrorist bus bombing in Jerusalem six years ago. The blast killed 17 people, including everyone around her on the bus, and injured 100 more; she spent more than a week in the hospital. She and Jacob Kimchy, a Sabra whose father was killed in a terrorist attack in Rishon Lezion seven years ago, established One Heart Global to help other victims of terrorism heal.

The organization’s motto is “Healing victims of terror and their families around the world.” “Terrorism does not discriminate,” Singer says. “It’s not just one country’s problem. It’s not just Israel’s problem.” The pain of losing a parent is “always there – it’s a scar for life,” even if it is not always discussed, says Kimchy, who helped found One Heart Global as a memorial to his father, Rami. In New York, Kimchy and Singer and the participants in this summer’s activities told their stories, some hesitantly, some more confidently, during meetings with Israel Consul General Asaf Shariv and Gov. David Paterson. The governor, who talked about government efforts to assist workers who became ill after working at the World Trade Center terrorism site, said he was inspired by young people who had lost relatives to terrorism but are working to help other people. “I’m afraid [you] would have become jaded,” he said.

“There is a fight you can wage with a spirit.” The group’s itinerary here included shopping and sightseeing, and meetings with other politicians and One Heart Global donors. The subject of each person’s loss to terrorism came up during the two weeks, but not all the time, Evyatar says. “My whole life is not about that.”

Via http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/happy_campers_unhappy_memories_1

tlvfaces.com: Israel Releases 26 Terrorists; What about the Families of the Victims?

26 terrorists were release from an Israeli jail last night. These 26 murderers left the families of the victims with a hole in their heart and a lifetime of pain. It’s a kind of pain that follows you everywhere and stays with you for years, even in the happiest of events.

I lost my father to a suicide bombing during the second Intifada. And while the terrorists being released had nothing to do with my father, their release has hit home and is an unbearable turn of events.

But more importantly for the victims, there is a need to prepare them for the fact that those who murdered their loved ones are now free.  Even more disappointing than the release is the fact that the Israeli government has failed to do this. Most of the families heard the news from friends or surfing the web, not from the government or through psychologists deployed to help prepare them for this torturous day.

It is accepted that when a soldier is hurt or killed in battle, a group of psychologists and government officials, will go to the parent’s home to tell them the news. So why is the release of a murderer not equal to this? It is a second loss for the family and they need, now more than ever, the government’s full attention to help them recovery. It is like sitting a second “shiva”.

After speaking with many victims of terrorism over the last few days, and based on my own experiences through my organization, One Heart, which I founded to help victims of terrorism, I know all too well that this event touches the hearts of many, and the help that the Israeli government needs to provide is even wider. The release of these 26 terrorists causes a new pain to the thousands of Israeli victims of terrorism. One cannot imagine what we see when we close our eyes, and recent events have only brought those to the forefront once more.

A release should be well thought out and looked at from many angles. After all, for many victims, today it feels like our loved ones have been killed all over again.

Via www.tlvfaces.com

nysun.com: WTC Survivors To Meet With One Heart, Group for Terror Victims

After the terrorist arracks of September 11, 2001, New Yorkers tapped into the vast reservoir of experience to terrorism that Israelis possess.

The experience-sharing will continue – and flow both ways – at a meeting on June 26 between the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network and One Heart, a two-month old organization that hopes to provide survivors of terrorist attacks who may have psychological trauma with emotional support. Although not limited to victims of terror in Israel, all of its initial members fit that bill.

“One of our goals is to use our experience to help other survivors,” said Richard Zimbler, an organizer for the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, which has 750 members. “When we first started out, the survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing gave us advice,” he said, and now September 11 victims are passing it along to others.

One of the two founders of One Heart, Jacob Kimchy, said, “It’s important to bring survivors from different places to one table, to one forum.”

The main purpose of One Heart is to make both group and individual psychological therapy available to survivors of terrorism who may be experiencing long-term trauma, and for relatives of those who have been killed. “Usually people who want to help focus only on immediate needs,” said the other founder of the organization, Sarri Singer. “Nobody thinks into the future.”

Another area of support is providing survivors with the resources to receive plastic surgery for deformities stemming from their attacks-an area that Ms. Singer said directly relates back to psychological trauma-.

In addition to the meeting with the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, organizers of One Heart hope to have monthly meetings. A first meeting two weeks ago drew 15 to 20 people.

“There’s something about finding people who had the same experience as you that’s therapeutic,” said Barbara Chasen, a Ph.D. psychoanalyst who voluntarily led the first meeting and hopes to lead a few more. “In the talking there’s a bonding experience,” said Ms. Chasen.

Ms. Chasen offered testimony that sharing personal experiences could be therapeutic. She was stuck in an airport when the February blizzard hit New York City. She had overheard a man talking with an accent and asked him if he was Israeli. Mr. Kimchy responded that he was. They started talking about the latest terrorist attack in Israel, and Mr. Kimchy responded that he was in America to begin One Heart, and he said that he had lost his father in an attack. She soon told him that she had lost her 12-year-old son 13 years earlier after he was hit by a car.

“He took out a picture of his father, and I took out a picture of my son,” she said. “There we were two stranger sharing our deepest pains.”

Via http://www.nysun.com/new-york/wtc-survivors-to-meet-with-one-heart-group/34176/