Yeshiva Beth Yehudah Special Edition NOVEMBER 3 • 2024 | 17
J
N

I 

recently returned from 10 
days in Israel as a partic-
ipant in the Yeshiva Beth 
Yehudah’s Partners Detroit 
Dembs Mission. Named 
for Ryan Dembs, a Detroit area 
businessman and philanthropist 
who passed away suddenly two 
years ago, and 
funded in part 
by his family, the 
Dembs Mission 
was composed 
of 41 exception-
al women from 
across the Metro 
Detroit area who 
came together to volunteer, 
bear witness, connect with our 
Israeli brothers and sisters and 
experience our homeland in a 
post-Oct. 7 world. 
 The theme of the trip was 
Faith Over Fear, a credo we 
lived every day, for while we 
did experience much of the 
wonder that Israel has to offer, 
this was no simple holiday. 
How could it be? Israel has suf-
fered a tremendous trauma, as 
has her people, and she is still 
in the height of crisis mode as 
she fights a physical and polit-
ical war at home and a public 
relations war around the world. 
 Now, several weeks after 
the trip’s conclusion, I am still 
struggling to figure out how 
best to describe the experience 
— ironic coming from a writer 
and wordsmith. It’s definitely 
taking my brain some time to 
catch up, and I can’t possibly 
describe everything we saw 
and heard. 
 That all said, the word that 
best encapsulates my expe-
rience — and the one that 
seemed to come up most often 
for the participants throughout 
the trip — is juxtaposition. 
 Israel itself is an uncanny 
blend of the old world with 
the new, the secular with the 
religious. Now, mix in the post 
Oct. 7 contrasts of beauty and 

destruction, humanity and 
depravity, pride and shame, all 
merged together, and you get 
one of the most wonderful yet 
difficult trips I have ever expe-
rienced. 
 It was astounding to see 
how the very best and the very 
worst could exist simultane-
ously, and we experienced all 
of it, a true emotional roller 
coaster that took me from the 
highest of highs to the lowest 
lows in less than two weeks’ 
time.
 One of the most profound 
examples of this contrast was 
the day we went down to the 
South of Israel. We began the 
day volunteering on a farm 
called Michaeli Organic Farm, 
located in Zikim near the Gaza 
border. This particular farm, 
like most of Israel’s agricultural 
industry, has taken a tremen-
dous hit since Oct. 7 due to a 
lack of labor and resources. 
 We spent the morning pick-
ing lettuce and cabbage. It 
would have been easy to be 
swept into the beauty of this 
idyllic setting and the satisfac-
tion of physical labor in the 
warm sun. However, every few 
minutes, the ground would 
shake as the sound of rocket 
fire erupted nearby. Although 
we never felt we were in dan-
ger, the experience was cer-
tainly unsettling and sobering. 
 Later that afternoon, we 
went to Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of 
the kibbutzim that was raided 
by Hamas on Oct. 7. 
 The kibbutz has not been 
cleaned up, but rather left as 
something of a memorial. I 
won’t describe in depth what I 
saw here. All I can say is that it 
would break the hardest heart 
in two. Yet on this beautiful 
spring day, amidst the 
destruction and remnants of 
death and suffering, the birds 
were singing loudly while the 
flowers were flaunting their

Marni Raitt
Executive 
Director

continued on page 18

