Hair for kids: Woodmere cousins clipped for cause

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A pair of Woodmere cousins more than a decade apart had simultaneous haircuts this month to donate their long growing locks to an Israeli charity.

Rachel Schreiber, 20, a student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Kayla Hercman, 8, a student at Shulamith of Long Island, sat for their bobs at Hewlett hair salon Fairy Tales, to have the long hair tied off and snipped and the remaining hair styled into similar cuts.

The clipped ponytails and braids will be taken along on the Schreiber family trip to Israel this week, where the family will visit Zichron Menachem’s main center in Jerusalem to tour the facility and donate the hair. Zichron Menachem, literally Menachem’s Memorial, is an organization based in Israel founded in 1990 to assist and support children with cancer, and now adults with cancer, and their families.

The organization is named for Menachem Ehrental, z”l, who died of leukemia at age 15. Menachem’s parents and friends pooled the knowledge and experience gained during his 15-year battle with cancer, begun in his infancy, to help other children with cancer and their families. Physicians, rabbis, government leaders, and musicians have lent support to the award-winning organization.

The Schreiber family is steeped in chesed, from great grandparents Esther and Irwin Weber volunteering with Kulanu and Israeli soldiers, mom Debbie Schreiber, involved with food collection and donation, and Kayla’s mom, Daniella delivering food twice monthly to hospitals in Nassau County.

Rachel is a HAFTR graduate and spent this summer working at Camp Koby, a camp for Israeli children who have experienced the trauma of terrorism with the loss of a family member. She flew back from Israel with some of the American counselors, got her hair cut with her cousin and returned to Israel for additional time there and to meet the rest of her family the following week there.

The Schreibers, Debbie, dad Michael, Adam, 18, Benjamin, 12, Haley, 15, are traveling to Israel for Benjamin’s first time putting on Tefilin at the Kotel. Adam will be staying in Israel after the trip to learn for the year at Yeshivas Toras Shraga.

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