Rebuilding Gush Katif

Posted

by The Jewish Star Staff

Issue of January 22, 2010/ 7 Shvat 5770

13 college students raised over $22,000 for Gush Katif.

The students were part of the Quest fellowship program run by Yeshiva University over two college semesters with the goal of training the next generation of Jewish leaders. The first semester of the program was devoted to helping students gain a broader understanding of Jewish leadership. Students learned how to give speeches and learned about teamwork from an ex-NFL star.

During the second semester the students were given a far harder task: become a Jewish leader by raising over $20,000 for the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

The students were divided into two groups. The first ran a comedy night at the Schottenstein Cultural Center which raised over $4,000 for the JNF. When a second event, a battle of the bands, among high school students failed to pan out, the second group turned to individual fundraising.

“It became a little scary,” explained Sippy Laster, A Queens College alumni who joined the fellowship. “But as we progressed we kept on building up the numbers. It was a lot of connections; Facebook was utilized, we had a webiste that tracked our number; it became half-colloborative.”

After the money was collected, the group decided to give the money to Shulamit, an undeveloped town that is part of the Chalutza collective composed of Gush Katif refugees.

“In ten years it’ll be a community,” said Laster.

Afterward the program ended the group spent a week in Israel visiting different cities and towns far off the usual tourist stretch, including Sderot, Yeruchan, and Be’er Sheba.

In Be’er Sheba the group painted the wall of an apartment building; in Sderot, the group toured the indoor playground.

“We planted a garden for kindergarten kids, we cleared fields and picked peppers for charity,” explained Sammy Steiner, a junior at Yeshiva University from Lawrence. “We met the people with the vision and the drive to make that miracle happen, and their example will continue to inspire me.”