Sophomore Neil DiBiase was enjoying his time working in Israel last summer when war with Lebanon broke out. Local security forces evacuated him from the northern town of Karmiel on July 14.
Later that month he found himself at a conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) - and was frustrated that he, and many other college students there, had no plan of action to help Israel recover from war.
"Everyone was talking about how we needed to stand with Israel," he said.
After a semester of fundraising, Dibiase returned to Israel, but this time for a different reason.
From Jan. 3 through Jan. 14 he joined 41 other Tufts undergraduates on the Tufts Hillel "Leading up North" trip to Israel which he, along with sophomores Naomi Berlin and Laura Herman and junior Evan Dreifuss, organized. The group, all of whom had visited Israel at least once before, departed intending to help rebuild the north.
While on the trip, they helped out with manual labor: two days repairing northern Israeli apartment buildings, several hours clearing brush out of a forest, and about an hour repainting a bomb shelter.
The two-day project took place in Kiryat Shmona, a town which needs about $8.5 million in donations for renovation, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel Web site.
Jumbos worked on buildings that housed apartments and a community center. They plastered, sanded and painted walls and ceilings and planted flowers.
Yuval Cohen, an Israeli student of Tel-Hai College and member of the Ayalim Association, instructed and worked with the Tufts students.
Ayalim is a student organization that encourages members to settle and renovate under-populated and poorer communities in the Negev Desert in southern Israel and the Galilee region in the north.
Group members view their work as continuing the Zionist settlement efforts that led to the 1948 creation of Israel.
Tufts connected to Ayalim through Shorashim, a non-profit organization that worked with DiBiase, Berlin, Herman and Dreifuss to organize most of the trip.
"We really wanted to make sure that [the group was] involved with organizations that involved students in Israel," Shorashim's North American Director Adam Stewart told the Daily. "Ayalim was a natural [choice]."
Tufts students did not directly repair damage from the war, but Kiryat Shmona resident and Ayalim member Mor Shlomo said that this is the case for many American Jewish groups who have been motivated by the war to come and help in the north.
The Jumbos were able to see how the war affected the area, such as seeing a small crater embedded in a nearby basketball court where a Katyusha rocket fired by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah hit, sending shockwaves through the town that shattered windows.
A few of the residents of the buildings being worked on spoke with and thanked the students, and one woman was brought to tears while talking to senior Ekaterina Shevchuk. "She was just very emotional because she saw that ... we cared about her community," Shevchuk said.
The second work opportunity came a few days later in the Birya Forest through the Jewish National Fund. Jumbos cut low-hanging branches off trees and cleared part of the forest floor.
The goal was to remove wood that would help spread a forest fire if another war were to bring more rocket fire into the forest, Jewish National Fund forester Yossi Karni said. Part of the forest already burned this past summer. In 33 days he saw about 400 rockets hit the forest.
Before starting work, the Tufts students listened to another forester.
"He didn't start off by even introducing himself ... he was all about the forest and getting it back to how it was or better before the war," freshman Louis Mittel said. "That to me is very much what the Israeli spirit's about ... [and it's] alive and well."
Working alongside other volunteers, Tufts students spent several hours over the course of two days on this project.
When not working, group members learned about Israel by listening to speakers and visiting a school and old-age home whose students and residents had been in danger during the war. They also walked through Israeli cities and kibbutzes, sang their way through bus-rides across the country, ate falafel, spent time with Tufts Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, and visited an assortment of pubs and bars.
While some questioned the effectiveness of the jobs-in-progress, others felt that the connection formed with fellow Jews was as important as the work itself.
Fletcher student Josh Gleis, who co-led the trip with Israeli Shorashim guides Noa Fort and Yossi Samet, agreed that showing that "we as a Jewish community are here to help them," was a crucial part of the trip.
"Being able to be with a group of people that cared so much about what they were doing makes the work meaningful," freshman Louis Mittel said.
Marc Raifman participated in the trip to Israel.
