OUR COMMUNITY
continued from page 12
ON THE COVER
14 | JANUARY 4 • 2024 J
N
since the first grade, and now he’s
an only child,
” Shahaf said. “
And
we know another family with two
cousins who were murdered at the
festival.
”
Erela added that her swim teach-
er and the barber of the moshav
were also killed.
“Getting the news of everything
while we were here and not with
our moshav was really hard,
”
Shahaf said. “Everybody knows
someone; it’s really true.
”
POWER TO IMPACT
Within a few days, their feelings of
helplessness from not being home
to grieve with family and friends
transformed into an understand-
ing of their even greater purpose,
responsibility and potential impact
in Detroit.
“To have gone back to Israel,
we would have been just another
Israeli. We all have the same story.
But here, you’re the Israeli,
” Erela
said. “People want to hear what
you have to say. People are looking
forward to hearing from you; and
when you talk and show your pain,
you have more of an impact and
ability to connect people to Israel.
Here, we have much more power
to impact people than in Israel.
”
A main objective of Shinshinim
is to encourage Israeli engagement
that ultimately builds a bridge
between Michigan and Israel, lead-
ing to relationships that will endure
for a lifetime. Since Oct. 7, the
Detroit Shinshinim quickly real-
ized the goal of “bringing Israel to
Detroit” would be more important
than ever.
Since Oct. 7, the Shinshinim
have worked tirelessly to make sure
Detroit understands what they’re
going through, what Israel is going
through, and to build a bridge that
will last forever.
Each week, the Shinshinim have
main worksites, along with a few
synagogues where they work at
TOP: The Shinshinim at
the March for Israel in
Washington, D.C.
BOTTOM: One of the
most difficult tasks they
took on was reading
each name of the hos-
tages held by Hamas at
a vigil at Adat Shalom.