Light in the shadows of job loss

Volunteering - do it for the love.

Riding down the Omega at the Jordan River Village

2 weeks ago in Northern Israel

Two weeks ago in Northern Israel, I found myself volunteering at a summer camp for children with epilepsy. The region was tense; just days earlier, Ismail Haniyeh had been killed in Tehran, and Hezbollah’s senior leader Fuad Shukr had met a similar fate in Beirut. But amidst the chaos and uncertainty, I discovered something profound.

I had no idea what this week would bring. As a tech guy, this was far from my comfort zone—definitely not what you’d call product-market fit. But stepping out of the tech world and into this camp opened my eyes to something beyond code and market strategies.

Today, I am with the campers on a break from serious fun.  The kids are hanging out.  “Hey, do you want to join us in the Taki tournament?" said Caleb, getting up from the couch and gesturing to me with his CP arm.

“Yeah, totally, I’ll be with you guys in a sec”, I say.

I look at Mia standing apart from the group, her usual sadness even deeper today, on the verge of tears. I quietly approach her and softly whisper, "You can feel the love, can't you?" Her face lights up, a smile breaks through, and just like that, her sadness lifts.

She joins the Taki tournament.  We are a group of 7 campers and counselors.  It is epic.  After half an hour, we fold, after Sophia with the acne wins four straight rounds.

It is in the low 90s. We get used to the heat.  Campers and counselors forgetting water bottles and hats here and there.  

But what is Taki when you can play Blackjack? 

Caleb asks me the next day on a break,  “Do you know how to play Blackjack?”

I say, “Yeah - do you wanna be the dealer?”

Caleb wants to be the dealer but doesn’t know the rules. 

Chloe with the shoulder-length black hair joins us, I explain the rules. 

The 3 of us get into the game. 

We use Shesh Besh checkers as chips.

After 5 rounds, Chloe has a pile of chips.  

“What do you do now?”, I ask.  

“If this was a real casino, I’d cash in my chips, but this is not a real casino, so I’ll stay”.    Caleb, the dealer's face-up card is an Ace, and Chloe takes "insurance". Caleb's hole card is a 10-point card, Chloe gets a Blackjack and Caleb pays out 2:1.      Smiles.     I smile back and say, “So now, you’re going to get the Lambo you always wanted?”.  Chloe says seriously, “I don’t think so. A Lambo is not a practical car to own”.

We get up from the table.

I watch Chloe with the shoulder-length black hair and Sophia with the acne  sitting on the couch talking, “First I’d give 50% to charity and then…”, Chloe says.     

I smile and walk away. Leaving the two girls to themselves.

I’ve become deeply attached to the epilepsy camp at Jordan River Village, a place that’s part of the Serious Fun Network started by Paul Newman. Here, children with serious illnesses get to experience the joy of an American-style summer camp, where they can forget their struggles for a while and just be kids.

It’s a place where laughter and love fill the air, even in the face of life’s toughest challenges.

9 years ago in our kitchen

During a tough tech downturn, my wife and I sat at our kitchen table, pondering what to do next. I could have doubled down on job hunting, chasing opportunities that didn’t exist and risking burnout.

But instead, we chose to volunteer, to step outside our comfort zones and do something meaningful. That decision, to embrace the unknown and find purpose through giving, has led me to this moment, where I’ve rediscovered light in the shadows.

How it started

Ofra remembers a project in Northern Israel for children with serious diseases.

We google and start reading about JRV. It sounds like a cool way to contribute something of substance but we have a lot of questions. We send an email to the contact on the Web site and after 2 weeks we get a reply from Neta – who is in charge of volunteer services. It all sounds a bit vague – she asks us if we can accept authority from people much younger than us and we reply – “of course”. 

We set a date to drive up for an interview. In the meantime, she sends us application forms and we get letters from our family physician that we are of healthy mind and body.

Post-psychiatric hospitalization groups are the most fun

We navigate via Waze to Givat Avni, just north of the Golani Junction. The first thing you see when you drive down the hill from Givat Avni to JRV is the Welcome Center and the stunning view. We were told to announce ourselves at the gate – and indeed the guard seems to be expecting us. 

We walk into the administration center and locate Neta on the second floor. 

Neta interviews us and explains how JRV works – a non-profit camp for children with serious illnesses run by a small core team and a group of post high school graduates doing National Service at the Jordan River Village (the “komuna”). 

She stresses how important volunteers are to the program. After the interview, Neta suggests a week of volunteer duty in April.

It will be a group of children that are after a psychiatric hospitalization. 

She smiles and tells us “the post-psychiatric hospitalization groups are the most fun”. We don’t have any experience in this area so we take her word for it. 

I will be a camp counselor and Ofra will work in JRV camp operations. We’re psyched.

Orientation day for Camp 

Sunday morning we got up early, leaving Modiin at 7:15 to beat the traffic. We arrive on time, at 9:30 for orientation day. There are 10 volunteers – 2 girls from Hod Hasharon, friends who just got out of the Army; Shirley and Meytal, the 2 of us and 6 who are doing a 1 year post-high school pre-Army program (“mechina”) at Kibbutz Maagan Michael. Neta greets us all and counts heads. 

We’re short 1, but a few minutes later, Shir comes in late carrying a big back pack. She is also from the mechina at Maagan Michael and her bus from Jerusalem was late. 

It is as hot as Israel can get in April. 

Shir is wearing a torn, sleeveless, off-the-shoulder t-shirt ,shorts and flip-flops. 

My conventional-thinking mind forms an opinion about Shir which will soon be changed. Neta gives a presentation on JRV, followed by Zamora, the camp nurse who talks about the challenges of this group, followed by Naama, the camp social worker who talks about the social background of the children, followed by Efi, the head counselor, who gives a very crisp and clear presentation and the rules and regulations, dos and don’ts of the camp. (During the rest of the week, Ofra will refer to him as “Efi hachamud (“cute Efi”). 

At 11:00 , the 4 group leaders and members of the komuna (post-high school group of 18 doing National volunteer service at JRV – in Hebrew “shin-shinim” (plural abbreviation for year of service). 

The groups are colored – red, orange, yellow and green. Neta does the introductions and when Sapir, head of Yellow group hears that I play saxophone (and brought my horn with me) and says “Yes – I want Danny on my team!”. And so, Shir and I join Sapir, Maayan, Yaara and Daniel to form team Yellow.

Sunday afternoon and evening is devoted to preparing the Yellow group activities for the week. Group activities are conducted in pairs, so I work with Maayan, Daniel and Yaara. 

JRV is exceedingly well organized and there is a library of group activities in a structured format. We generally copy and paste and tweak changes here and there. 

I have an idea for a tweak that involves paper airplanes with pins in the nose that are supposed to be flown by campers into balloons with notes with tasks and questions. Soon – the training room is a proving ground for paper airplanes. Most don’t succeed in flight testing but Yaara and I are optimistic after she suggests an engineering change that will improve stability and balloon puncture capability. 

I am taking this very seriously and having the time of my life. We wrap up at 23:30 and get up the next morning at 07:00 for breakfast and last minute finishing touches.

Monday – Welcome Day.

Sapir runs our last briefing before the children arrive. She tells Shir that she must wear shoes and repeats the dress code for counselors: shoes, t-shirts with sleeves and leggings or jeans (we are all wearing official JRV t-shirts and name tags on lanyards).

No sleeveless shirts or shorts allowed.

No touching the children, no selfies and no personal contact outside of camp,

The group of almost 60 campers, ages 8-18 are coming in from the school where they live and study. Many are from broken homes. The bus is scheduled to come in at 10:30.

We get to the Welcome Center at around 9:00 and start preparing – inflating balloons and tying them around the Welcome Center arch. 

The bus arrives on time. We form 2 parallel lines and start drumming on the ground and as every child comes through the line – we lift up our hands and cheer.  Ole!

The air is electric with excitement! 

Each group leader has a list of names, they are given colored bracelets and shunted off to the side of each group. Part of the procedure is to take a picture of each child and I am watching the whole process with fascination – how well and how smooth the komuna run things. I see a tousled-black hair girl, she looks about 14 (I’ll call her Sarah). 

Sarah goes ballistic and starts protesting (as she sees that they are taking pictures) that she does not, definitely does not want to have her picture taken. I run over to the welcome desk and tell the girl taking pictures to hide the camera because Sarah will go nuts just seeing the camera. And – so we get past the first crisis of camp week.

Sarah is in Group Yellow and will be one of my personal stars.

Monday – Day 1 Efi

Sapir runs some warm-up, get-to-know-each other activities in a big circle and teaches the group how to sing the group cheers. Within minutes everybody is into it – and Group Yellow is up and running. 

We take Group Yellow to Yellow Cabin – boys in Yellow Cabin 2 on the left and girls in Yellow Cabin 1 on the right. Last night we prepared little colored name signs and stuck them over each bed – so the children will have a feeling of being welcome – and it seems to work. 

They unpack and the day’s activities start. 

Day 1 is action packed and by 22:00 everyone is more or less in the sack for the night. 

22:30 – 00:00 is reserved for a group meeting with the counselors – Sapir has a wedding of a friend and Efi runs the meeting. 

I am impressed by his attention to detail and systematic way of running an effective meeting. We review each child in Group Yellow – challenges, things we might want to change. I reflect on my initial impression of Shir – how wrong I was and how serious and dedicated she is with the children. Never judge a book by its cover.

Tuesday – Day 2 Jaws

Group Yellow is up and running having a great time. The challenges of the group do not slow down the non-stop pace of fun. 

Talk about challenges: there are a couple of severe ADHD cases, a couple of borderline autism children and the personal story of every individual child. 

Today’s challenge is the head guidance counselor who came with the children from their special education school. He is big, scary (to me) and reminds me of Jaws. At lunch time, he gives Yellow Group children a pep talk about being on their best behavior and minding rules etc. The pep talk was scary. 

Most of the kids ignored him, but one of the 11th grade girls in our group came over to me and quietly talked about being frustrated by his attitude. I’ll call her Rebecca. 

Rebecca became an inspiration for us.

She had been through multiple suicide attempts.

She wore long sleeves to hide the cut marks. 

Rebecca has come a long way – she is independent, mentally healthy and tough and every evening after the daily activities would go out and run 4-5K. It was a privilege just knowing her. At the evening team meeting run by Sapir; we review issues with individual children and the question of Jaws comes up. 

Sapir is unsure how to handle the situation – it’s delicate, the children are the responsibility of the JRV staff when they’re at camp and the responsibility of the school when they’re at school, but more pep talks might be a problem.

Wednesday – Day 3 Sometimes in life you just have to let go

Big day – today we’re doing the extreme sports park.

This is the highlight of camp and the kids are (mostly) psyched. I kick off the day with Daniel with “Good morning” group activities. 

Looking good – Group Yellow! 

After lunch – I find myself walking down the main path of camp with Jaws. 

I decided to take the plunge and talk to him. 

We walk together for a few minutes without talking and I tell him – “You know, sometimes in life you just have to let go. For a couple of days just enjoy camp like one of the kids.” He thinks about it for a moment and says – “You know you’re right”. And that was that. No more pep talks. Jaws from that point on was under the special spell of JRV and having serious fun of his own.

In the afternoon – all 4 groups rotate through the extreme sports park. There is wall climbing and ladders. The climbing wall is 4 stories tall – and we are all equipped with helmets and climbing gear. 

We go to the top of the tower and the kids start going down the Omega – a 200-meter-long cable. It looks like a lot of fun. One of the girls is frightened and doesn’t want to even consider the Omega. 

Sarah asks the operator if they can go down together and he sizes them up in terms of weight and tells Sarah – go for it. Sarah does a hard sell to get the other girl to go down with her and succeeds in overcoming her friend’s fears. 

The 2 go down together in the sling and Sarah’s shrieking resounds all over the camp. (Sarah has a crazy laugh and she was a bit of a ring leader in the group of girls, whenever I heard her crazy laugh I knew something was brewing…). Sarah – my heroine!

Thursday Day 4 Time to say goodbye.

Thursday morning, we have farewell activities led by Shir and Maayan. Every child is given a blank sheet of paper with the name of a camper or counselor and is asked to write down a few words and pass it down to another camper. We give the children their JRV t-shirts. I read the paper with the words that the children wrote to me – including Sarah and Rebecca. I will always cherish that page.

Back at the welcome center – we say goodbye to the children. We say goodbye to Yaara, Daniel, Maayan and Shir and take a group picture at the welcome center. It has been a momentous week.

That’s me between Ofra on my left and Shir on my right in her flip-flops…

Afterword

The week in April 2015, we spent at JRV, was during the political campaigns before Israeli national elections. There was a lot of mud-slinging and negativity but the week we spent at JRV was more than a respite from politics – it was life-changing. 

The love, selfless compassion, commitment and passion of the staff, komuna and volunteers renewed for me in a very special way my faith in Israelis and in our country’s future. 

With people like Shir, Daniel, Yaara, Maayan, Sarah and Rebecca – Israel can look forward with confidence and anticipation to a great future.

About us

Danny and Ofra Lieberman live in Modiin, Israel.  

After a career in big tech, Danny now helps people aged 45-60 turn their expertise into entrepreneurship.   Ofra curates rare books and manuscripts at the Israel National Library and volunteers at Yad Sarah. 

They have 4 children and 10 grand-children. 

They returned in December for another tour.  

Since then, Danny comes back every year.

With the volunteer medical team from Shneider Childrens Hospital and Soroka. Every August.