During the Sukkoth ("Tabernacles") Holiday the Team held a major happening at the Jamboree Play Center for the children from Sderot and its environs.
Every day about 100 children came and enjoyed the activities with a clown, a workshop for Origami paper folding, additional creative workshops and a wide range of other surprises.

To reveal a world with a different view
“A Jewish Perspective” is an initiative in Jewish education and culture, that is paving its way in the south of Israel to connect between worlds and bring Jewish identity to target populations in kibbutzim and communities in the south of the country.
The primary innovation is in bringing Jewish teachings to populations that appeared to be far from anything holy. To our surprise we discovered that, with the right approach, it is possible to bring the treasures of Judaism to them too.
A central issue in our work is the personal connection with communities and the public parallel to personal connection with individuals. We have emmissaries who live in far away kibbutzim and moshavim, and also connection between congregations, such as the refugees from Atzmona and Netzarim and the Torah community in Sederot, and the communities of kibbutzim and moshavim, and beyond that on the level of the regional councils and the entire area.

In the two years of our activity we have seen the coming closer of communities of kibbutzim and first steps of the clearly secular establishment in the direction of openness and readiness to hear messages of Jewish identity.


The areas of activity are:
Activities for children- children’s houses, in schools and in informal frameworks.
Personal bar mitzvah- putting on tefillin and aliya to the Torah.
Group bar mitzvah.
A network of Torah classes for adults.
Activities for youth- lectures and workshops.
Prayers on the high holidays.
Central public events: second hakafot, selichot tours, megillah reading.
Families of Torah emmisaries living in kibbutzim.

Description of activities in the past year:
Prayers on the High Holidays/blowing the shofar:
In 13 kibbutzim and moshavim we conducted prayers for the high holidays and blowing the shofar, with 350 men and women participating. It seemed that the amount of tears was greater than the amount of rainfall in this area.
Succot activity:
At kibbutz Dorot there was activity for 100 people – parents and children with the musician Mousa Berlin.
Second Hakafot:
The central event was at the regional council Sha’ar Hanegev with 400 participants with a chasidic band.
Chanukah in Kfar Aza:
During the rain of Kassam rockets we offered to hold the Chanukah party of the Torah community of Sederot in Kfar Aza at the pub. Who would have thought of a talk by Rav Dov Lior at a pub in a kibbutz? Members of the kibbutz said we did a big mitzvah to get them out of their homes during the rocket fire.
Chanukah happening:
At the community center of Diuna in Eshkol. 150 people participated in the event.
Lighting Chanukah candles together:
45 families invited residents of the Shalom region to light candles for the third year in a row.
Tour to Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs:
100 people went on three days of tours: men, women, and students.
Activities for children:
Various activities at children’s homes and for groups of youth in afternoons and vacations by girls in Sherut Leumi (national service). So far there have been 50 days of activities which about 500 children have enjoyed.
Personal Bar Mitzvah program:
Yeshiva students give lessons in the notes for Torah reading and for putting on Tefillin. There is a noticeable change in recognition of the prayers and honor of the synagogue.
Group Bar Mitzvah:
At four kibbutzim we carried out a series of Bar mitzvah meetings that included two lectures, a day of volunteering in Sederot, concluding with a Jewish group experience. 40 youth have participated so far and there is much potential in the kibbutzim.
Activities for youth:
Lectures, seminars, and interesting people. Stories of the fighters in Lebanon, stories of Operation Cast Lead, volunteering, tours and other activities.
Megillah reading according to Halacha:
At four kibbutzim for the first time ever there was megillah reading. It was very emotional and they want to do it again this year. In this activity 300 people participated.
Passover Happening:
At the initiative of the Sha’ar Hanegev council there was special activity for Passover for kids, including storytelling and music and a mobile matzah factory. 300 children saw for the first time how matzah is baked and we were asked to open the event this year to parents too.
Cultural events:
We succeeded with Ibim community center of Sha’ar Hanegev to hold three events of Jewish culture, such as Etti Ankri for women only, and Amir Benayoun-in a Jewish spirit, for kibbutz members.
Regular Torah classes:
At 15 different places there are regular Torah classes. Personal spiritual improvement is the most desired topic and Ethics of the Fathers is a good basis for this. 150 people participated in this activity.
Unusual topics:
We held two pidyon haben, one of which was for a four-year-old whose father felt the time had come! We have four requests for help in building or rehabilitating synagogues. In Kfar Aza and Ein Habesor there are emmisary families living in the kibbutz bringing Torah to the periphery.
Southern Wind:
A special project of ‘A Jewish Perspective’ where we work with the social department of Sha’ar Hanegev in a settlement with financial difficulties. We have a Beit Midrash in the settlement. 20 members of the community participate regularly.

At long last after the children of Sderot have been looking forward to it for some time the Center for the Family was opened two weeks ago. This center is located in the enclosure of the "Team for Sderot`s Security".

The "Team for Sderot`s Security" has worked hard to achieve this goal as part of a joint effort with many individuals, including donors from Israel and abroad and with the courteous help of hundreds of teenagers who worked throughout the country on behalf of the city of the Sderot. Among the many activities they organized were meetings to mobilize volunteers, showing presentations, distribution to tens of thousands of people of different materials explaining the complex security situation affecting the city of Sderot and its environs in recent years.

On entering this enclosure we encounter an enchanting and wonderful world with its Jamboree installations, ponds filled with balls, omega installations, canons which shoot balls, a maze with various activities, a special section for preschoolers, a dedicated area where parents can sit around, a birthday room, a walking rope for children, basketball and football sports and many more activities.
Once the children have removed their shoes they begin to run from one installation to the next, they fire sponge balls at one another, slide down into the pond filled with balls, climb up the rappelling wall for children, play hide and seek in the mazes and similar, so that when the time comes to go home it is difficult for them to leave the enclosure.

Afterwards the children can relax in the games area where they can find thousands of Kapla Blocks, build original things with Clicks, Duplo building bricks for the smaller children, etc.

The place is suitable for children from the age of one year up to grade four (although the adults also enjoy shooting with the ball guns and going "wild" in the pool full of balls…).

Rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza lands in courtyard of house in southern Israeli city; no injuries reported, but several people treated for shock

After a period of relative calm in south Israel, a Qassam rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip landed in the courtyard of a house in Sderot Tuesday afternoon, causing slight damage to several adjacent structures.

No injuries were reported in the attack, which occurred at around 5:30 pm, but several people were being treated at the scene for shock.

"We were sitting in the yard when the `Color Red` siren sounded," the owner of the house said. "It surprised us because it`s been a while since we last heard the sirens. We ran into the house and hid in one of the rooms, and then heard a loud explosion; that was when I realized that a rocket had landed near the house.

Fortunately there were no injuries, but we were all very frightened. I hope the neighbors are alright as well, because the homes here are built close together," he said.

At the beginning of the month Palestinian terrorists launched a Qassam and a mortar shell towards Israel, but there were no reports of injury or damage. In April a total of six rockets and two mortars were fired towards the western Negev territory.

Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin went before the Knesset`s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday and briefed its members on various matters concerning the fragile armistice with Hamas.

"If the Palestinian Authority were to hold general elections now, it is highly likely that Hamas would win," he said. Shifting his attention
to the PA`s efforts to fight terror, Diskin noted that despite recent achievements, "Most of the (terror) preventions are ours."

Israel, he added, stands little chance of maintaining viable peace negotiations as long as Hamas rules the Strip. "Hamas will never relinquish its hold on Gaza and the PA will never relinquish the West Bank. A (Palestinian) unity government will form only under extreme international pressure," he said.

Update from last week: Massive bombing towards the settlements surrounding Gaza


In the past few weeks the Western Negev has been under especially difficult attack. This time the terrorists in Gaza have been using mortar bombs as their main weapon of attack. On May 9th, Jimmy Kedoshim from Kibbutz Kfar Aza was killed. On June 5th, Amnon Rozenberg was killed by a mortar bomb while at work in the Nirlat factory in Nir Oz.

Last Thursday and Friday (June 12-13th, 2008) a massive bombing attack began aimed at the settlements of the Western Negev. The residents who live near the security fence where given orders to stay inside during the attack.
Israel was barraged by 30 kassam rockets and approximately 30 mortar bombs. On Thursday, a man was lightly injured when 2 mortar bombs landed in the storage area of the Nirlat factory on Kibutz Nir Oz. On Friday, a woman was moderately injured by shrapnel in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai and was evacuated to the hospital for treatment. The mortar bombs that were shot by the terrorists from Gaza landed, among other places, in the municipality of Sha’ar Hanegev and in the hothouses of Moshav Netiv Ha’asara. Some of the kassam rockets that were fired landed in open areas in the domain of the municipalities of Sedot Hanegev and Sha’ar Hanegev and in the in the area of the local municipality of Hof Ashkelon. The rocket- fire and mortar bomb attack that is being aimed at the settlements of the Western Negev appears to be coming as a response to the bombing that took place in Beit Lehia at the home of the local commander of the military arm of Hamas, where 4 Palestinians were killed.

Note, that at this time there is no advance warning to the mortar bomb attacks, and the settlements surrounding Gaza suffer daily barrages of mortar bombs and kassam rocket fire.
A few days ago the Southern Military command decided to enable the “code red” alert system to warn against mortar bomb attacks in addition to warning of kassams. But in the settlements, word is that this is ‘too little, too late”.
The security situation in the south has changed from a threat of attack to reality. Today we are not talking about a small settlement or isolated city that is under attack, but about an entire geographical area that includes municipalities such as Hof Ashkelon, Sedot Hanegev, Sha’ar Hanegev, the settlements surrounding Gaza, and Sderot.