I arrived in Israel in 1984. I didn’t speak or understand Hebrew, didn’t have a job and didn’t have a friend. In my pocket I had the name of the one person I knew in the entire country: a middle-aged Israeli American woman I had heard lecture on contemporary Hebrew literature at an Orthodox synagogue in Berkeley. After her talk, I mentioned to her that I would soon be moving to Jerusalem. She scribbled down her address and told me to come by for Shabbat.
She had a daughter my age, Shulamit, with blonde hair and green eyes. Shulamit spoke English, Hebrew and Italian, and I was certain there was no more perfect woman in the world for me. She asked me if I wanted to volunteer with her one weekend at a place called Beit Hagalgalim. I didn’t know what that meant, but I didn’t care.
We took the bus up to a small, simple house in a quiet neighborhood in Herzliya Pituach, about 20 minutes north of Tel Aviv. I noticed a makeshift ramp that led to the front door.
We walked up, opened the door, and I looked at a room full of children in wheelchairs — galgalim (wheels). Shulamit introduced them to me, they said “Shalom,” I said “Shalom” back, and that was the extent of my Hebrew vocabulary.
Beit Hagalgalim was started in 1979 by Miriam Schwartz, a Jerusalemite of commanding energy, intellect and compassion, who noticed that in the press of Israel’s security and economic crises, the needs of its most vulnerable — its disabled children — were being grossly neglected.
The program, run by a nonprofit called the Shai Society, relied on volunteers to spend Shabbat and summer vacations with the children, tend to their needs and have fun with them. The kids had a variety of conditions: muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, spina bifida. They were from all different backgrounds — while Israeli society separated the healthy by neighborhood, income, religiosity, Arab and Jew, the handicapped didn’t get to revel in such distinctions. They were all in the same boat, and we volunteers — one for each child — were there with them.
During the week, I took Hebrew classes at a Jerusalem ulpan and wrote articles for different English-language publications. But each weekend I followed Shulamit up to Beit Hagalgalim, where my education really began.
At night the children called out to us from their rooms — many were unable to turn themselves in bed. My Hebrew was weak, so I would lie in bed praying another counselor would leap up first, saving me from having to communicate on my own. One night, a boy named Yossi, who had spina bifida, called out, and no one moved. He called out louder, “Help me!” but I seemed to be the only one who heard.
I walked into the boys’ room, and he gave me a command in Hebrew — “turn me,” one phrase I already knew from experience. I turned him, tucked him in and began to walk away. He called out again. This time I froze — I had no idea what he was saying. I asked him to repeat himself. He did. I asked him to say it slowly. He did, loud and slow. I didn’t get it — was his colostomy bag full? Was his windpipe clogged? He raised his voice.
“What?!” I said, breaking out in a cold sweat. “I don’t understand.”
Finally the boy next to him, who spoke a little English, roused.
“Robert,” the boy translated. “He just said good night.”
I worked like a dog to improve my Hebrew, becoming fluent so I wouldn’t inadvertently kill a child.
Shulamit and I never gelled — another Zionist dream shattered — but I returned to Beit Hagalgalim to volunteer every month, and for much of my summers. The volunteers I met there became some of my closest Israeli friends — smart, generous and idealistic — simply the country’s finest.
The children were the toughest Israelis I met, in a country whose true religion is toughness. I was once wheeling a thin, pale 11-year-old girl named Elisheva through a busy Tel Aviv mall when she finally had had enough of the pitying stares. We passed a group of chachchachim — Israeli gangstas.
“What?!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “You’ve never seen a wheelchair?! What am I, in a zoo? Mind your own f—-ing business.”
I hustled us to an elevator as she continued to attack.
I often wondered how my feelings and thoughts about Israel were shaped by the fact that I came to know the country first through Beit Hagalgalim. My Israel was a place of intimate struggles, of the heroism of kind hearts and the pettiness of staring, judgmental eyes. It was not One Big Story but many small ones, all complicated, each one a universe.
Since I left Israel in 1987, Beit Hagalgalim continued to flourish. Today, in addition to the original house, there are centers in Jerusalem, the Negev and the Galilee. The four centers provide activities for 300 children, teens and young adults ages 12 to 30, using 300 volunteers.
This week, one of the counselors I’ve stayed close with e-mailed to tell me that Beit Hagalgalim, like so many charities, is facing a severe funding crisis. Most of the money the group raises comes from Israel — the families of the children themselves pay a nominal fee — but the group could use some American benefactors as well.
For me it’s a no-brainer: Beit Hagalgalim is Israel at its most beautiful.
For more information, visit http://www.beitgalgalim.org.il.
To read a 2002 Jewish Journal article on Beit Hagalgalim, click here.
