Personal Tragedy

Helping families victimized by terror.

HARRY KIRS BAUM

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5/21

2004

64

DETROIT JEWLSII NEWS
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JN

St4fTWriter

0

mer Keat still has trouble
sleeping at night and waking
in the morning. The family
man from Jerusalem constant-
ly thinks of what could have been.
First, he buried his oldest son after a
2 1 /2-year illness. Then, on June 22,
2001, his middle son, Ofir, was killed by
terrorists when his Jeep got stuck while
on patrol in the G272 Strip.
"I just want to see my two boys," Keat
said about his thoughts upon waking
every morning. "I know it's impossible,
but I dream."
After the second tragedy, his wife,
Dina, twice attempted suicide, but
Omer said she began to heal when she
volunteered at One Family, a Jerusalem-
based organization that offers help to the
victims of the second
Palestinian intifada that
began in September
2000.
Omer was touring
North America with a
small group of One
Family volunteers and
staff members, and
stopped by the
Bloomfield Hills home of
staunch Israel supporter
Ann Newman on May 5.
They had appeared in
Los Angeles, and were on
their way to Chicago,
Toronto and Montreal to
raise money for the
organization that has dis-
tributed more than $10
million for immediate
and long-term needs that
the government agencies don't provide,
such as sending volunteers to every hos-
pital and house of mourning to see to
the needs of terror victims or their fami-
lies, and also setting up an orphan fund.
Keat said his wife began to heal when
she started to voluteer.
"She hears the problems of other fam-
ilies and automatically she understands,"
he said. "Our [youngest] son is older
now; he's the reason why my wife and I
continue to live, continue to hope."
"It's very difficult. I know we were five
in our family and now we are just
three," he said. "The story is so heavy

and so sad."
"Ninety percent of the money goes
only to benefit victims or their families,"
said Daphna Feldman, a Hillel Day
School of Metropolitan Detroit teacher
who learned of the organization on a
trip to Israel with fellow teachers Faye
Krut and Malka Littman, all from West
Bloomfield. "We established a bond
with them, and when we came back we
realized that we needed to continue that
by raising funds."
Feldman said that through their
efforts, local shuls and schools, such as
Congregation B'nai Moshe and Hillel