Hi, my name is Chaya. You probably don’t remember me. I should have written to you years ago but I didn’t.
This year as my family and I were lighting the Chanukah Menorah. I was thinking about the orphanage. Please accept my gratitude and a donation which I know will help the girls just as you helped me when I was there!
Forty years ago, my father died in an ambush in the Sinai during the Yom Kippur war. My mother had passed away from a brain tumor a few years earlier. Nobody in our extended family was able to care for me. I came to Lev Lalev just before Chanukah. I was a frightened young girl, all alone in the world.
While the beginning was very hard for me I soon felt the love and care in my new home. My anger was replaced with a sense of hope and purpose. When I graduated from high school the orphanage gave me money so I could study dental hygiene. I have worked in this field ever since I graduated. Also, I was so happy and relieved to receive a sizable amount of money from the Lev Lalev Bridal Fund when Yossi and I married. When all the girls from Lev Lalev came to dance at my wedding, I knew just how lucky I was that Jewish charity had helped me reach this stage.
I am doing so well that nobody would know that I was raised in the Israeli Orphanage. I want you to know that you made a huge difference in my life. I feel very special and blessed that was small crack didn’t break me, it meant I was tested and with the help of Israel charity I didn’t fall apart.
