Author: sabra

Dear friends,
Like every year we make poor school children happy with beautiful new school bags, including all the necessary equipment and books.
Especially this year parents are having a harder time. Many of them lost their source of livelihood.
A poor child going to school and seeing their friends with new bags, that are tidy and having all the equipment and books they need; can you imagine how he will feel?!

You have the ability to do a mitzvah: to make this child happy.

We are committed to starting as early as June with ordering bags, stationary and books, bag preparations, and to deliver them to the students.
Dear friends, everyone whose heart motivates him will give a hand.

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so.
Proverbs 3:27

Thanks and many blessings.
Your brother,
Mordechai ben Yakov
Director Sabra Foundation

Shalom and blessings dear beloved friends.
As usual on Yom HaShoah (Remembrance Day of the Holocaust) we invite the Holocaust survivors. We want to be together with them while they remember this very sad and painful part in their lives.
Normally we have guests in Sabra from all over the world. This year they were not possible to come, because of the Covid-19, but the Holocaust survivors where so happy and touched to see the people who they know so well to be with them by Zoom. That they found the time to be with them and comfort them even when it was on a screen.
It is beautiful day, today and we decide to have the Memorial outside in the garden. The team had been busy the whole day, preparing food and to make the tables look nice.
At this touching meeting we invited local guests, the Head of the Aliyah Department Ina and her secretary. She was excited and emotional and she was full of thanks to Sabra that we organize these special days and give the opportunity to the people to tell their stories and comfort them.
We recite some prayers and ask Holocaust survivors to light a candle, six candles one by one. This is a special, touching moment and you can see on their faces what is going on in their mind. They cannot hold their emotions, they are crying.. After that we give them space to tell their stories, what they crossed in their lives.
Comfort, comfort My people Isaiah 40:1

We do this already 16 years and every year we hear something new. Horrible stories about what they crossed. To see a lady, already far in her eighties, lighting a candle for the memory of some members of her family and after so many years she is lighting a candle she is telling with tears in her eyes what she and her family crossed in the time of the Holocaust.
This year people also begin to tell what happened to them after the war. After being so happy that they were liberated and returning home from the camps or the hiding places, again they had to face horrible experiences. The Anti-Semitism rose up in their cities.
A man told us his story; in those times he was a little boy. He returned to his city and went to his home, where already another family had taken possession of it. They didn’t even allow him to come in, but was sent away with mean and nasty words and a terrible beating…

to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Sabra’s work in Jerusalem
In Jerusalem we continue to be active in visiting and helping Holocaust survivors and girls and young ladies who lost their way in life. We gave them the opportunity to celebrate Passover and the Seder night.
We gave poor families vouchers, to buy themselves what they need to celebrate Pesach. And you could see their face lighting up when we gave them the vouchers.
Our volunteer in Jerusalem (Hannah) has touching stories about her work. It is wonderful to hear. The Holocaust survivors whom she visits are asking her when she is planning to come back.
It is not easy though to start the work in Jerusalem. There are so many needy people, but if they don’t know you they are very suspicious. We need a lot of prayers for the work in Jerusalem, because we feel that our Creator really wants Sabra to be active in the Holy City Jerusalem.
Sabra Foundation

Love and blessings,
His servant Mordechai ben Yakov

Shalom and blessings my beloved friends,

On Thursday the 10th of June Sabra was invited to join the celebration of the Bar (Bat) Mitzvah of 19 boys and girls from the boarding school we are helping. We went there with a part of the team.

According to the Jewish Roots, when a boy turns 13 years old and a girl turns 12 years old, they receive the responsibility regarding faith and following God. They still need guidance and learning, and their elders need to teach them, but it has a deep meaning for a boy or girl to become Bar (Bat) Mitzvah.

Sabra had the immense privilege to give a hand and to make it possible for these children to arrange a happy celebration that marks this important step in their young lives. We also gave 19 gifts to each of them.

Psalm 100:4

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.

The principal of the boarding school thanked Sabra in front of all the guests for helping them so much. Among the guests were the mayor and the vice mayor of Afula, including Rabbis and students of Yeshivas.

A special guest among them was the main inspector of the Ministry of Education of the religious boarding schools in Israel. During this event we started a conversation, and the inspector asked me to visit another boarding school, only for girls, in the south of the country. Not far from Sderot and Netivot.

Coming Tuesday with God’s help, I will be in that place to meet the staff, the principal and the inspector. Can I please ask you to pray for this visit?

It was really touching to celebrate together this important moment in the lives of these children. While celebrating with them, we could feel that all our friends who are praying and supporting were there together with us.

Thank you so much!

Your brother in faith,

Mordechai ben Yakov

Director Sabra Foundation