When first hearing about the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, Owings Mills resident Huppit Bartov Miller immediately checked in on family and friends in her hometown of Ashkelon, located eight miles north of Gaza.
While most of her loved ones were physically unharmed, Miller learned a cousin’s daughter was brutally murdered.
“My family has experienced war, rockets, so they are kind of used to it, but not this intensity,” Miller says. “People are broken, exhausted. … You can’t even digest what has happened.”
In the midst of her grief, Miller was seized with the compulsion to do something – anything — to help family, friends and fellow Israelis in Ashkelon, Baltimore’s sister city. Initially, she and her family donated money to charities, but that didn’t feel like enough. So Miller consulted with family, friends and municipal administrators in Ashkelon to determine what was most urgently needed.
By Wednesday morning, Oct. 11, she accumulated a list of items. “There is a big problem with kids stuck in shelters with nothing to do, so they needed things like coloring books, stickers, puzzles, cards and board games,” says Miller. “They also needed flashlights since Ashkelon loses power regularly because of attacks.”
Though not sure how she was going to collect the supplies, much less how to transport the items to Israel, Miller was determined to find a way.
“After I dropped my kids off at school, I sat in the car making calls,” she says. “I called Dafna Amira Bitton, the chief on-ground emergency representative in the municipality, and I confirmed what she needed. I told her, ‘I’m going to try.’ I called Rabbi Shmulik Gurary at the Chabad Israeli Center of Baltimore, heads of organizations, moms, schools to join the effort, and posted the list on Facebook.
“I couldn’t believe the support from our amazing community. Girlfriends of mine said, ‘I’m coming over to help you schlep.’ Moms from schools and Baltimore Hebrew Congregation made flyers and started to collect things.”
Jillian Manko, director of engagement at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, said many members of her community “felt helpless watching the news until Huppit Bartov Miller reached out with a way to directly support families in our sister city, Ashkelon. Our entire community immediately mobilized and in just a few short days dropped off thousands of games, toys, activities and flashlights.
“Together, we sorted and shipped, then watched in tears as Huppit and Orly hand-delivered all of our donations from across Baltimore to the city of Ashkelon. Baltimore Hebrew Congregation stands with Israel and the people of Israel.”
At first, volunteers dropped off supplies at Miller’s home, but more space was needed. That’s when Pikesville-based Orly Moving Systems provided room in one of their buildings.
“We had hundreds of volunteers in one building, working together, sorting, weighing the duffels,” says Miller. “We even created tags with organizations’ logos on it. It was very organized.”
Moms Step Up
One group that helped was Baltimore Mitzvah Moms, part of Jewish Volunteer Connection.
“We’re a group of downtown moms who come together on a monthly basis to do various mitzvah projects that benefit the Baltimore City community,” says Marissa Kahn, the group’s leader. “Last week, on Tuesday night [Oct. 17], we all gathered to assemble macaroni-and-cheese kits for the local day shelter in our area.
“But instead of our usual lighthearted schmooze, it had a very different tone. In fact, we started it with prayers — a prayer for peace, a prayer for the State of Israel, a prayer for the soldiers, the Mourner’s Kaddish. We lit the yahrzeit candle and, as a social worker, I tried my best to facilitate a discussion where we could share our thoughts and feelings about the situation in Israel.”
The following night, Kahn, who lives in Harbor East, saw a post on the Baltimore Jewish Families Facebook page about a collection effort at BHC.
“That night, I was in touch with my two very close friends Erika Hornstein and Jamie Spitzer,” she says. “Until all hours of the night, the three of us were brainstorming how we could mobilize this effort and do it quickly because we knew we had this really short window of time. I decided to create an Amazon wish list. Throughout the night, the three of us were going back and forth with all sorts of items, fidget toys and paint kits, and coming up with a list we thought would benefit these children in Ashkelon in the safe rooms.”
The next morning, she says she posted this wish list on the Baltimore Mitzvah Moms Facebook page.
“Within two hours, I saw that 500 paint kits had been ordered, 600 boxes of crayons,” Kahn says. “I was blown away. Such quick action and overwhelming generosity are really incredible. Over the next 48 hours, the numbers accumulated. I had to let my apartment building know I was going to be receiving 3,000 packages!”
Meanwhile, Miller was scrambling to arrange transportation.
“The guidelines kept changing,” she says. “First, they said we should bring boxes, then they said no boxes, bring duffels. We had to be flexible.”
Once again, Orly Moving came to the rescue, offering the use of a moving van to bring the duffels to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, where an El Al airplane would fly the items to Ashkelon.
On Tuesday, Oct. 17, the day before the flight to Israel was scheduled to depart, Miller learned the duffels could not be flown to Israel without accompaniment by a passenger. In the end, she and Orly Shalem, president of Orly Moving, flew with the freight and arrived in Ashkelon on Thursday morning, Oct. 19.
‘A Crazy Reality’
Initially, Miller and Shalem, who grew up on a kibbutz in south-central Israel, planned to turn over the duffels and immediately return to Baltimore. But they were persuaded to stay for a tour.
“We visited the center of teen volunteers that is one of the main spots from where municipality officials and volunteers carry out food drives for the city, and where donations are being sorted and distributed,” says Miller. “There, we met with volunteers and the mayor, Tomer Glam. We saw working on organizing and distributing food packages and sending them out with drivers. We also visited another center damaged by a rocket, and toured several buildings and homes that suffered from direct rocket hits and had been evacuated.”
Miller describes the visit as “very difficult. When we were there delivering, sirens were going off and it was very scary. When the sirens go off you have 30 seconds to get to a shelter. … It’s a crazy reality.”
While thrilled that her mission was accomplished, Miller still feels she has not done enough. “Even though people were uplifted, they need more,” she says. “Now I feel, ‘What’s next?’” Not all the items collected made last week’s flight, and Miller hopes to send more toys, games and art supplies on a flight to Ashkelon on Nov. 1.
“We hope we can pull it off again. They need so much!” she says. “I still can’t believe it. I had the will, but the people and organizations of this community made it happen.”
Click here to watch a video of the donation effort.
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