Working moms Erika Rief Hornstein, Marissa Kahn and Jamie Spitzer simply don’t believe in resting on their laurels.
After collecting hundreds of items for families living in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon a few days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, the three women — members of Baltimore Mitzvah Moms, a downtown group affiliated with Jewish Volunteer Connection — are at it again.
“After October 7th, like everyone else, we were just feeling kind of helpless and overwhelmed,” says Spitzer, a New York City native who is a psychiatrist at Healthcare for the Homeless in Baltimore City. “We were not really sure how to show our support.
“We started to think about Israeli businesses and ways to support Israelis from here,” she says. “Initially, we planned to create a Chanukah shopping guide with a large directory of Israeli businesses, but we wanted to make this as easy as possible. We wanted to make this the kind of thing that was just as convenient as buying from anywhere else.”
The three women, all of whom belong to Reservoir Hill’s Beth Am Congregation, decided to create a website, withlovefromisrael.com. The site contains Chanukah gift suggestions for babies, children, teens and adults.
There are also shopping recommendations for home décor items and tchotchkes, menorahs, candles and dreidels, as well as gifts for Israeli soldiers and their families.
All of the items available on the site are from Israeli businesses, with the exception of high-contrast greeting card sets designed by Hornstein, board president of the Jewish Museum of Maryland and director of experience design at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. All proceeds from the cards will go to the Israeli Children’s Fund, a nonprofit that helps Israeli children who lost one or two parents to terrorism.
“When we started reaching out to businesses, they immediately were so excited,” says Spitzer. “We saw [how] a lot of businesses were supporting each other. A lot of the businesses were doing things to send stuff to affected families and soldiers. We saw how much the country was really coming together. We were also able to speak with a ton of incredible artists and business owners about the work that they’re doing, and we’re really hopeful that [the website] is going to be something that gives them some economic support.
“But also, the responses we’ve been getting [shows] that American support — the diaspora — are wanting to support Israel from everywhere and in all sorts of different ways.”
Since the website launched less than a week ago, sales have been swift. At last count, the site has had 11,100 views and 8,600 unique visitors.
However, Spitzer, Hornstein and Kahn, a social worker in private practice, aren’t finished yet. In time, they plan to expand the website to include Israeli gifts for other occasions.
“The website will have [gift] lists for weddings, new babies, new homes,” says Spitzer. “We want to [include] as many different Israeli artists and businesses as possible.”
For information, visit withlovefromisrael.com or instagram.com/withlovefromisrael_/.
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