When helping Survivors of Terror, ATZUM is not alone. We share this privilege with our supportive friends, donors and partners. We cherish this encouragement and support which enables us to make a difference in someone’s life.
We have limited means and a great many needs to fulfill while helping the many Survivors of Terror who touch our lives.
Our assistance is crucial, leads to positive change and recovery, and is appreciated by those we help. Below are some of the recent thank-you notes we have received.
April 8, 2014
Just want to say thank you
Dear donors and devoted workers of ATZUM,
I wish to thank you for the support and help you provided, for your dedication, attention and open-minded thinking and for your readiness to help with very prompt response to requests. When Yakira heard, in addition to other needs, I had no telephone, though it was not her responsibility to do so, she volunteered to help me with this.
As I begin my studies in the rehabilitation program of Bituah Leumi, my financial situation prevents me from purchasing a laptop computer for my studies. When I turned to you for assistance, you immediately agreed and did your utmost to provide it as quickly as possible. All this was done in order to make things easier for me and point me in the direction of the light at the end of the tunnel.
Thank you for opening this door of opportunity, which is a huge step for me, and for giving me strength to persist and succeed. Thank you for everything, with blessings for a Happy and Kosher Pesach,
L
March 3, 2014
Shalom to the ATZUM’s education fund.
I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude for your help in financing my studies. This assistance is for us a warm and bright ray of light representing good and caring people who are attentive to the plight of others. Being that our needs are many, this aid helps us greatly. May you beblessed for your careful consideration and decision to understand and us in our endless struggle to manage the household and provide for the needs of our family.
With thanks and blessings, M and E C-Z
May 2010
Dear ATZUM and Bridges to Israel,
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help. I am currently learning mechanical engineering at Shenkar College in Ramat Aviv where I hope to succeed despite all the difficulties.
My family’s misfortune was that our father was killed when I was an infant. He was on his way to work in Tel Aviv when a terrorist from Gaza got out of a taxi and began stabbing people. The terrorist continued to stab other people which delayed their getting immediate medical treatment. My father and another man bled to death.
Now I am putting all my efforts into succeeding and bringing nachus to my mother. Thank you for all your help to our family.
With Love,
D.A.
January 2010
Dear ATZUM and DIVOTE,
From our hearts to yours-
Thank you for the assistance you have offered to Z (age 16) to join an after school sports program.
I thank God for your being sent to help us. Your caring gives us strength.
With blessings and great feelings of gratitude.
E.F. (Her older son was grievously injured in Moment Café, Jerusalem 2003)
May 24, 2010
Dear Divote, Mrs. Cheryl and the South African community,
My name is R.S., Mother of I., age 10, K. age 8, and E. age 4. We want to thank you DIVOTE, (Mrs. Cheryl) for your generous help. With your assistance, my children are able to go to camp this summer. Thank you.
Today 24/5/2010 would have been my husband’s 33 rd birthday.
With Blessings
R.S.
December 2009
Shalom,
I am L. I., a first year student of education, and want to express my thanks and my deepest appreciation for your profound contribution in providing financial assistance for me to help with school. Your assistance was gratifying for . me and my family, who have a heavy economic burden in our house, and our mother who has a deteriorated physical and mental condition because of horrors caused by severe terror attacks she experienced a number of years ago.
All this contributed to a situation which caused the postponement of my education and personal advancement. Despite all the great difficulty, I decided it is time to focus on my personal needs and my future.
I chose the education profession because of the very significant impact to society.
I am at the beginning of this journey and will be busy for four years!
Hilda, Bridges to Israel and to ATZUM my gratitude to you with appreciation for your kindness.
I thank you and cherish you.
Thanks from the heart,
L.I.
A letter of gratitude for your generous donation
Dear Hilda,
I wish to express my sincere gratitude for your generous assistance to my university tuition fee, and tell you a little bit about myself.
I am 27 now, and nine years ago I lost my father in a terrorist attack in Amman, Jordan. This event left my mother, my brothers and I stunned and hurting. Moreover, the family’s financial situation, which was not good to begin with, has deteriorated.
I grew up in Ra’anana, a small city 20 Km. from Tel-Aviv. I completed my army service after five years as an officer in an elite intelligence unit. These days I am a 3rd year student at Tel-Aviv University. I am currently studying for LL.B. at the faculty of law with the cumulative score of 91, and for a B.A. in economics at the school of economics with the cumulative score of 95. In addition, I’m a “legal guide”, a Project of the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University in which third-year students teach first-year law students basic tools for dealing with the legal world. Furthermore, last year I took part in another faculty project in which law students teach law in junior high schools.
Today, my sister, my brother and I study in universities and try to overcome this tragedy. Your generous donation was an essential support for paying university tuition fees and helped me to keep on with my life.
Sincere Thanks,
O.S.
Dear Friends
I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous caring and giving. So that you will understand the importance of your act, I would like to offer you some background to help you understand how your generosity helped in my long recovery from my mother’s murder.
My name is R. and I am married with three small children. My mother was murdered when I was 22 years old and my eldest child, Sapir, was two years old. My second daughter was born just after the funeral. Because of my mother’s death, my life changed from one extreme to the other. I moved houses to be close to the rest of the family and help them all both physically and emotionally. Eight years later I am working to move on, self improve and build a better career as a cosmetician. I enjoy this and hope it will bring me some additional fulfillment.
With your incredible kindness your incredible kindness, I am now able to fulfill my dream and finish school. Throughout all the classes these past years,I have been worried about how I would raise the money for the books and supplies, and you were sent like an angel.
Your generosity is not just about the money, it’s about the emotional kindness and the strength you have given by believing in me. There are no words to describe my feelings when Karyn told me about your incredible assistance.
I bless you with all the goodness in the world.
R.T.
May 2010
Dear Atzum and Naomi of The Good Peoples Fund,
I want to thank you for all your amazing help. I am studying at the Rimon music school. Part of my studies requires that I write music and projects on special computer programs. I was unable to afford the necessary computer or piano for this.
Because of your generosity, I am now able to study and do my entire homework. My path is long and challenging but your assistance makes it easier and sweeter. I will succeed and I thank you for your part in this.
May your world be filled with good.
S.A.
January 2010–05–25
Dear ATZUM, Please give this to the Mitzvah Heroes Fund-
We would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your donation to us. May your paths be blessed and all your future good deeds as well.
There was no joy left in our lives until we met you (a light you are to us). May God bless you always for your kindness and caring in our time of need.
O. & A. E
Dear Bobbi (Art as Therapy fun day out) and Karyn and Gila, friends at ATZUM,
Thank you so much for organizing this unique day on behalf of women survivors of terror. I arrived for the program in a horrible emotional state after many nights without sleep, and as always carrying with me my old fears from the terror attack.
I walked into an atmosphere of warmth and felt immediately welcomed by all of you and your smiling faces. For my first session, I was greeted by Bobbi, a caring woman with welcoming arms and goodness in her eyes. I immediately felt I had come to a loving place. Bobbi inquired about me and me my life story and then listened with empathy and love. I felt that she truly cared about all I had to say. We began the art therapy seminar together. Truth be told, before I came I did not give much credit to Art as Therapy — to draw, to color, to talk about what I had created as if I were in kindergarten.
At the end of the seminar, I was surprised by the results. I entered a sad and broken soul with much fear and stress and left a different person. I completed the seminar with a smile on my face. I began to understand what I have been feeling. I felt at peace for the first time in many months. I went home and listened to the radio, sang along to the amazement of my son, and then had a restful sleep.
It‘s hard for me to believe that this Art as Therapy workshop could create such change, but that’s what happened to me! An Art as Therapy session in such a special and calming way made such an impact.
Bobbi in her calming and professional way helped me feel better and gain strength to face the many challenges ahead of me on the road to rehabilitation.
ATZUM has always been there for me, and I thank you all for this, for your caring, for your warmth, for your voice and advocacy, and for organizing this special event.
E.T.
March 2010
Dear Irene Victor,
We would like to thank you for the Tefillin you sent Ro’i for his Bar Mitzva.
We were very happy to receive the Tefillin. We know that the cost of Tefillin is very high and your generous gift was helpful to us.
Our financial situation hasn’t been steady since Shmuel (father of the family) was critically injured in a terror attack in Jerusalem. He hasn’t been able to work full-time since then which has challenged us financially. In addition, Iris (mother of the family) was sick as well in the past few years.
We wish you all the best and are thankful for your assistance.
With much appreciation,
I.S
MW is a young women who lost a parent in a terrorist attack. ATZUM supplied her with a computer to help facilitate her studies.
November 2008
Dear Karyn,
I think of ATZUM a lot. Without the computer, I wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything as it’s required for all my studies and without it I would not be able to learn. It is the best gift/help I have ever received.
It’s very hard to both work and study. With the computer I can watch a class live, send in my work… In short, the computer is a life saver for me.
MW
Daniel Gabay, a student at the Arts and Sciences High School in Jerusalem, volunteered with ATZUM during the 2005-6 academic year. Daniel tutored a teenager whose family tragically lost two children.
In June 2007, Daniel received the school’s mathematics award of success and is going to Switzerland to represent Israel in a worldwide competition of excellent math students. Speaking at the award ceremony, Daniel said that his volunteer work with ATZUM had an important impact on his scholastic success. He said that it’s not only what one learns in the classroom that helps a person improve his or her skills but also what one does outside of the classroom.
Below is a letter from Daniel to ATZUM thanking us for giving him the opportunity to volunteer.
Dear Roberta,
A year ago I met a young teenager through your organization – ATZUM. During that year I met him once a week for few hours in my school. I taught him mathematics and spoke with him about graphs and equations, but most of all I tried to simply be there for him. We became friends, and although the idea was of me teaching him, it soon became mutual.
I want to thank you and to thank the entire organization for giving me the opportunity to give something to others. Though I spoke with you only several times, I always felt free to call and ask you for some advice.
I can only hope that more people will have the opportunity to guide others, and that your organization will continue its blessed activities.
Thanks for everything,
Daniel Gabay
February 14, 2007
Thank you for all the good things that you do for me. I will never forget the help that ATZUM is giving me
I want you to know that when I finish my learning it will be my pleasure and honor to join ATZUM one day in helping other people with what I am learning today.
God bless you
God bless ATZUM
June 15, 2005
Dear Precious People at ATZUM and Gracious Donors,
We wanted to express what is in our hearts:
Thank you for the donations.
Thank you for the warm caring and the deep worry –
Even if you (the donors) don’t know us personally.
On the days when the darkness is greater than the light;
On the days when it seems like all hope is lost;
On the days when we find ourselves wrestling with the most simple things in life;
In these days we found a ray of light in people: good, caring and thoughtful people that you are.
Thank you to all the donors for the donations that supported our family of eight people.
There are no words to thank you.
We pray that HaShem (God) will protect you. May you merit to do many more good deeds.
We send a special thank you to the righteous Roberta, HaShem should protect her.
The D Family
January 2006
To Levi and to the Entire ATZUM Staff,
All of your acts of kindness are done with only the purest intentions. It is wonderful that you would never ignore the cries for help of anyone and that you are attuned to the concerns of even the smallest individuals who are struggling to survive. You do all that is in your power to assist those in need by bringing their concerns to the attention of those who are in a position to assist them.
I therefore want to modestly tell you how much I value the fact that you are there to listen to me and to give me help that comes out of your concern for others!
Throughout my entire complicated and difficult life, I never merited to have this love and caring. For someone whose life was so hard that loneliness came knocking on her door, I know how to value this.
I wish you a Happy Hannukah!!!
And hope that your homes will be filled with light.
With Many Thanks,
NG
November 11, 2004
Dear ATZUM,
I’d first like to say that no words of gratitude can possibly express how grateful I am to you for all the help that you have given me. I can’t possibly explain how wonderful it is to meet people like you who are like an island of peace and sanity, that represent for me what the world should be like. I wish that everyone could have the opportunity to meet people like you. I’d like to specifically thank Roberta Bernstein, who accompanied me along the way since I came in contact with ATZUM, who does her work in the best fashion – even better then the best! Similarly, I’d like to thank Nomi Roth Elbert who gives me such warmth and caring.
Your assistance has helped me with my studies (through the computer that you gave to me half a year ago). The money that you gave to me to help purchase a car, was such a huge help. I hope to be able to return some of the love, warmth and caring that you gave to me through my volunteering with a family in the Sderot area. Through this volunteer experience, my car that you helped me to purchase can serve other people by giving them the same spark of light that you gave to me and continue to give to me all the time.
May you always have the ability and strength to be able to do the holy work that you do. I am thrilled that you have enabled me to volunteer and therefore I feel that I can join with your organization by giving from myself to others.
Thank you very, very much for everything!
TD (A young woman whose father was killed in a terror attack)
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