Chaim Begirov’s life changed instantly on October 7th.
Chaim, a beloved counselor in one of Alei Siach’s special needs homes in Jerusalem, was called up for reserve duty amid the threats on Israel’s northern border.
Every day he participates in intense training while missiles from Hezbollah soar overhead and terrorists in Lebanon are exchanging fire with Israeli soldiers. Fear and danger have become routine parts of his daily life.
“In the first few days, it was extremely logistically difficult and chaotic as the Israeli army scrambled to ensure full protection of civilians and our land, needing to place, house, and feed 360,000 reservists along the northern and southern borders. My personal belongings were misplaced as my unit was moved urgently from one place to another; to this day, they haven’t been found.
We are based on a mountain on the northern border. We have enough food but not the luxury of showers and laundry. It has begun to be much colder here, and kindhearted people donated important supplies and equipment that help tremendously, as well as delicious snacks and winter clothing to warm our bodies and hearts.
These are extremely difficult times; unfortunately, my unit has lost some of its soldiers. But even when we are under rocket attack, we feel stronger knowing that supporters of Israel stand with us.
After a few weeks of fighting in the north, Chaim was allowed a 24-hour break to return home. Usually soldiers use this time to regroup emotionally, refresh (showering, laundry, etc.), be with family, and try to breathe some stress-free air.
What did Chaim do? Chaim knows what he needs to do when he’s on the northern border facing Hezbollah, and he knows what he needs to do when he has a 24-hour break. His feet led him straight to Eliezer Halevi Street, to the Alei Siach home and its residents, who are like family to him.
“I love them,” he explains simply. “I missed them, so even though I had a little time on break, I had to see them.”
The residents and the apartment staff welcomed him with joy and loving hugs.
“I miss them just as much as they miss me, but they understand that I’m doing something more critical right now – protecting them while I protect the Jewish nation and the land of Israel. I can’t wait to return to them on a full-time basis.”
Thank you Chaim for your uncompromising devotion to them and to the Jewish people. You are a true warrior!
Nava is usually an upbeat, happy girl with disabilities. She lives in an Alei Siach home in Jerusalem where she gets the physical, mental, and cognitive support through our health and therapeutic team.
She had returned to her southern community of Sderot to spend Simchat Torah with her family and was having a wonderful time…until 6:00 am on that fateful Shabbat morning. Sderot had been through missile attacks and sirens before, but no one was prepared for what happened that day.
Nava’s mother, Yael, recounts what they experienced – those very difficult and frightening moments, but also the blatant miracles.
Yael recounts: “My husband wanted to go to shul after the sirens stopped but as he was walking out the door, we heard shouts from neighbors: “Terrorists! Terrorists!”
Frightened, we ran for our lives to our home’s safe room, remaining there in silence and darkness until the end of the holiday, when we became aware of the atrocities that had occurred nearby.”
“We were forced to stay in the safe room for another full 24 hours, for fear of terrorists who were still roaming loose on local streets.
There was hysteria and tension in the house for those 48 hours that seemed like an eternity.
We were in a dark and quiet room in a dark and quiet house; from time to time we had to force ourselves to leave the safe room to bring drinks and food.
It was especially difficult for Nava. Although we tried hard to maintain a moderated atmosphere for her, she still suffered from trauma due to a terror attack she had been in, many years ago.
“Nava increasingly was showing signs of greater anxiety: shouting, crying, and having many outbreaks as we remained prisoners in the small,
dark room with great fear that terrorists would hear her. We needed to get her back to Alei Siach, not just to a physically safe place but to receive the mental health support and therapy she needed.
After another very tense 24 hours, we were able to get transported to Jerusalem in a military vehicle. We haven’t seen our home since then.”
While her family is in a temporary housing arrangement living out of suitcases in Jerusalem, Nava returned to her Alei Siach apartment where professional health practitioners and social workers are helping her recover.
With terrorists literally on their street, they understand that being alive today is only because of a miracle.
“If the terrorists had arrived at our city only one hour later, everyone would have already been gathered in masses in the streets and shuls singing and dancing for Simchat Torah,
instead of in our safe rooms. We later saw the itinerary of the terrorists.
They had planned everything in detail, with an intention to hit the police and the emergency response services first and to shut down any ability for the civilians to get help under attack.
In fact, Hamas had detailed information about Sderot, down to the number of homes and number of males and females in our families. Only by a huge miracle did they fail to fulfill their plan. We cannot ignore the hand of G-d.
And Nava’s mother believes that Alei Siach team are angels who are helping Nava work through the latest trauma with miraculous progress.
“Alei Siach is a dedicated, professional, and loving place. They are true life savers for Nava and others with special needs and special souls.”
October 10th – Chagai enters his special Alei Siach apartment panting and dragging a heavy suitcase behind him. His roommates and counselor greet him with excitement and flood him with a sea of questions: “How did you manage to come back? When did the sirens start by you? How long were you locked in safe room?”
The counselor sits Chagai on the soft couch while his friend Yaron serves him a hot cup of coffee. Chagai looks more relaxed. “It’s good to be back home,” he says.
Chagai, a boy with an intellectual disability, came to Alei Siach straight from Be’er Sheva in an emergency admission several years ago.
His mother died after a serious illness and left behind seven young orphans. His father could not bear the burden and chose to disappear from the house for many hours while the children were forced to cope alone, eat whatever was (or was not) in the cupboards and go to bed knowing that another hopeless morning awaits them tomorrow. His brothers and sisters somehow were barely managing, but because Chagai was disabled, he was suffering greatly. Social Services took Chagai out of the house and had him placed in an Alei Siach apartment in Jerusalem.
His life changed completely. He was surrounded by a supportive professional team that helped him improve with the important health treatments and medicine, clothes and shoes that were his size, and caring people to help heal his heart.
Alei Siach helped Chagai build a relationship with his father and brothers, enabling him to go for short home visits. He was there, in Be’er Sheva in Israel’s south, on October 7 when sirens, hysteria, and panic filled the air at 6:30 am.
Chagai’s intellectual disability prevented him from understanding exactly what was happening, but he was extremely frightened they rushed to the safe room hearing “Infiltration! Terrorists! Abducted people! Many killed! Gaza!”
Filled with anxiety, Chagai was desperate to return to his Alei Siach’s home in Jerusalem and his family was unable to cope with his disabilities under the stress.
His emotional state deteriorated greatly and his health was severely compromised. But the city was besieged;
no one was going in or coming out.
It took four days for Alei Siach to find someone willing to risk his life and drive to the embattled southern war zone to get Chagai. Today, he is still recovering, but he is grateful to be alive and in a safe place.
Liza Cohen is a devoted social worker in Alei Siach and a mother of 5 children.
These days her motherly heart is beating at a different rate, beats of apprehension and worry mixed with a singular pride in her family.
Four of her children are serving in the army: A fighter in Gaza, in Jenin, the Givati patrol, and a daughter in intelligence.
Liza radiates joy of life and inexhaustible optimism.
“At the beginning of the war, there was hysteria from the situation we found ourselves in; my sons were immediately called up after the October 7 invasion. We were frightened and anxious, but as always – the heart gets used to things and today we live in a routine of war.”
In the midst of Simchat Torah, Liza’s eldest son was in great danger, but she knew nothing at the time.
Her son was in the standby unit at Kibbutz Magen, which is less than 5 km from the border of the Gaza Strip, when dozens of terrorists were on their way to a massive infiltration of the community.
One of the veterans of the standby unit is a brave man and knows how to fight; everyone calls him ‘the crazy one’ because of his dangerous habit of going up to the roof of his house whenever alarms sound. This time, his habit saved their lives.
This time, too, he went up to the roof, saw the chaos in the area, realized that they only had a few minutes left to defend themselves, and acted at breakneck speed.
He called the standby squad to prepare for battle at the entrance of the settlement and went out himself to the entrance and greeted the terrorists with a heavy barrage of gunfire. He fought fiercely, lost his leg but saved an entire kibbutz from a heavy disaster.
“Thank G-d, at the time we knew nothing and did not worry. Only after he contacted us did we learn about the enormous miracle that happened to him and everyone on that kibbutz.”
Despite having four children in the military, including a married son with two children,
Lisa continues to invest her heart and soul into Alei Siach, knowing that the residents are living under heightened fear and anxiety.
When she comes to work, her focus is on the Alei Siach residents, who need exceptional patience, comfort, and support during these trying times.
Lisa puts the Alei Siach needs first, with enormous love, dedication, and courage, as she prays for her own children’s safety.
This past SimchatTorah will never be forgotten.
The Sabag family from Ofakim hosted their elderly grandmother and their aunt Devorah Sabag, a special girl with cognitive and physical disabilities living in an Alei Siach home.
When the missile alert sirens began to wail, they were completely shocked. They had only a few seconds to run to the public bomb shelter;
there simply was not time to do that with their elderly grandmother and Devorah. Instead, they went to one of the inner rooms in their apartment and prayed for the best.
After several hours came the horrifying rumors about terrorists roaming in the nearby area. Devora’s sister says:
“We were in terrible fear. We were getting snippets of information and didn’t really know what’s going on beyond that we were in the gravest danger ever faced in our lives.
We stayed besieged in the house; every slight noise made us all jump. This lasted for almost a week, where we didn’t leave the house at all but even inside the house, we were in fear and could barely function. We focused on praying and saying Tehilim, and take care of a special 28-year-old and our elderly mother “
After a few days, the security personnel announced that the area was safe. But the terrible anxiety still lingers.
Every knock on the door raises an internal alarm that there could be an armed terrorist coming to murder them.
The first time it happened, there was such fear that some of the children in the home jumped out of a window and hid in the yard. It was only a cousin coming to check up on them.
When they were asked why they think they were saved while so many others murdered or seriously hurt, they respond,
“We were taking care of Devorah. With her special needs, the anxiety of the war that we all had was more exacerbated for her.
We had to have extra patience, offer extra comfort, and focus on making her feel safe and secure. Surely the chessed of taking care of her saved us!”
“Do you know that I used to live in Gaza”? Adi surprises me with a question, when I first started the interview.
“I grew up in an amazing settlement in Gush Katif until the evacuation. I was 8 years old. I remember soldiers walking around the houses, coming to talk to my parents. We moved to Gore Hariel together with a community of evacuees. At the time I didn’t understand much but to this day I still miss the big and luxurious house we had.”
Simcha and Adi are a married couple with ASD who live in the Ofek Marriage Division of Alei Siach.
They have 4 brothers-in-law in the army, in the north, in Gaza and in Hebron.
They are surrounded by family members and friends who are enlisted in the army. They have a strong desire to be connected to the situation, to help the war and be useful. They are not serving, because they are disabled.
Simcha says that most of the members of his class are drafted and he knows at least 100 soldiers who went off to fight.
Since the war began he tried to contact the army and sent many emails so that they would at least allow him to volunteer, but at the moment they can’t use him.
“I wish I could be in the army like everyone else, or at least volunteer and feel connected, like everyone else.”
Adi shares that it is not easy for her, there is tension at home. It is difficult to be in the safe Jerusalem and know that her brothers-in-law are in dangerous areas.
“I have a fear that someone will get hurt. I know a soldier from my parents’ community who was killed in the battles in Gaza, and my heart is full of concern for the soldiers.”
With the guidance of their Social Worker ,Simcha and Adi were able to take part in a different way.
Adi bakes cookies and pastries and sends them to the fighting soldiers.
Simcha says that he gets stronger by praying and studying Torah and, in addition, as part of his workplace activity (Alei Siach Tzitzit factory) he ties and packs tzitzit and packs for the soldiers.
“Making tzitzit takes a lot of time. We have to pay attention to what we are doing and follow every detailed step to produce very high quality and holy tzitzit.”
Simcha and Adi also went to volunteer in agriculture and returned with great satisfaction. They are our Chanukah heroes because even though they are not fighting, they found important tasks they could do with their disabilities.
Alei Siach is a non-profit organization which was set up to provide a solution for disabled adults in the charedi-dati communities. Today Alei Siach has branches around the country and provides a warm, all-inclusive, supportive and professional environment where hundreds of individuals can develop and become integrated into the wider community
Alei Siach carries
the International Standard
association stamp of Iso.
ISO 9001-2015
