Sidebar "I cannot find the words …"

A stack of thank-you notes from wounded Israeli soldiers is pouring in to a North Caldwell couple whose charitable funds helped provide needed aid after the 2006 war in Lebanon.

The monies came from the Leah & Edward Frankel Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest NJ.

The Frankels matched $200,000 in challenge grants to help the Jewish Agency for Israel provide funds for the injured and the families of those killed in action.

Saying they made the gesture to “show support,” Edward Frankel said from his Jupiter, Fla., winter home last fall, “We feel this military action was a terribly stressful thing for the people of Israel, particularly for the families of the soldiers who gave their lives.”

After a “quite complex” procedure involving “leg work, sensitivity, and patience,” the Jewish Agency allocated grants to 100 soldiers, wrote Maya Neiger, JAFI’s director of donor relations, in an e-mail accompanying some of the soldiers’ thank-you letters.

In one, 27-year-old Tomer Weinberg – who was seriously wounded by three bullets and shrapnel in the hand, leg, and back in an attack that killed three of his friends – wrote that he had “no words to thank you” for a donation that “caught me by surprise.”

Weinberg said he is improving after undergoing “intensive rehabilitation.”

Amihai Hillman’s tank unit was en route to rescuing other soldiers in Lebanon, when he was injured.

“I was bedridden for a long time and I underwent all kinds of treatment and operations,” he wrote. “I had to face challenges for which I had to be trained – like eating, walking, showering, or going to the bathroom. In one deafening moment I turned from a soldier fighting on Lebanese soil into a bedridden hospital patient.”

As he undergoes a lengthy recovery process and period of rehabilitation, Hillman said, he is “fighting to attain some kind of routine in my life.”

“I have no words to express how important the aid is that we have received from people like yourselves. I cannot find the words to describe my gratitude.”

Yehudah Amitai, whose wife gave birth to their third child two weeks after he was wounded, wrote that he “was delighted and excited to receive your wonderful gift during the holiday.

“You discerned the daily needs of the soldiers who fought in the last war and were wounded,” he wrote to the donors.

Asael Lubotski, a platoon commander, wrote that he was learning how to walk again after being seriously wounded by a missile.

Expressing “great thanks,” Lubotski told his American benefactors he was planning to begin studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem.

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“I cannot find the words…”

Amihai Hillman is a resident of Moshav Nov in the Golan Heights. Below are excerpts from his letter of appreciation to the Leah and Ed Frankel Fund and UJC MetroWest:

I was wounded during the Second Lebanon War while driving a tank which hit a powerful booby trap in Lebanon. We were on our way to rescue and support other soldiers who were taking part in fierce battles at Bint Jabal.

I was bedridden for a long time and I underwent all kinds of treatment and operations and had to face challenges for which had to be trained – like eating, walking, showering, or going to the bathroom. In one deafening moment I turned from a soldier fighting on Lebanese soil into a bedridden hospital patient.

At the moment I am undergoing a long rehabilitation and recovery process, and I am fighting to attain some kind of routine in my life. I have no words to express how important the aid is that we have received from people like yourselves. I fought on foreign soil, in order to protect the wellbeing and security of people in Israel whom I did not know but nonetheless loved and for whom I was willing to sacrifice everything. Now I am receiving your generous assistance, from people who live in a foreign country and whom, unfortunately, I do not know at all although I feel your support and concern for my wellbeing and the wellbeing of many other soldiers in a similar condition.

I cannot find the words to describe my gratitude….

Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News