OU Fellows go to Israel
Natan Cohen of Teaneck talks about what the group saw
Natan Cohen of Teaneck, director of marketing and communications for the Orthodox Union’s NCSY youth movement, recently returned from a volunteer relief mission to Israel for OU Fellows, a group of 11, all either recent college graduates or new OU employees.
“I’d been to Israel three times since the October 7 attacks, but not since March 2024,” Mr. Cohen said. “This time, I saw the changes.”
At the site of the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival near Kibbutz Re’im where Hamas terrorists killed 364 people, kidnapped 40, and wounded many others on that infamous Saturday morning, Mr. Cohen had witnessed the painstaking process of cleanup and rebuilding on an earlier trip.
In January, the scene was quite different. He saw Chabad Lubavitch men wrapping tefillin on visitors to the site. He even saw a scribe writing a Torah there.
“It’s not just about remembering what happened but about turning it into something positive,” Mr. Cohen said.
The OU Fellows joined up with a group of 17 young adults who were in Israel the same week — January 9 to 16 — as part of the OU’s Israel Free Spirit Birthright program. “Since October 7, Israel Free Spirit has been running volunteer missions as well as Birthright trips,” he explained.
The fellows arrived on the eve of the fast day of the 10th of Tevet, which was on a Friday. They prayed at the Western Wall and ended the fast with a group Shabbat dinner in Jerusalem.
After an educational session updating them on the conflict, on Sunday they traveled to the music festival site and to the Gaza border city of Sderot, which has suffered for decades from missile attacks.
“I’d never been to Sderot and didn’t know about the battle at the police station there,” Mr. Cohen said.
He was referring to the incident on October 7, 2023, when armed Hamas terror squads infiltrated Sderot and stormed the police station, killing 20 police officers before barricading themselves inside and exchanging gunfire with security forces. Eventually, the Israeli authorities decided to bulldoze the station, under heavy fire, to eliminate the remaining terrorists inside.
“There are now a memorial and murals where the former police station once stood,” Mr. Cohen said. “Hearing what the community went through during that time was really powerful. It helped set the tone for three days of getting into volunteer work.”
The call for volunteers in Israel right now is at a high pitch, he explained. “Because of the war, a lot of these volunteer projects are more needed than ever, and at the same time there are fewer people to work on them” due to many Israelis serving in reserve duty and the ripple effects their absence has on their families.
The first project the fellows volunteered with was under the auspices of Enosh — the Israeli Mental Health Association. Among other programs, Enosh employs people with mental-health challenges to complete project work for companies.
“We helped them build and pack Tu B’Shvat boxes that they’d been commissioned to do for a client,” Mr. Cohen said.
On Tuesday, the group volunteered with Latet in Beit Shemesh. Latet, the largest nonprofit organization addressing poverty and food insecurity in Israel, provides monthly assistance to 95,000 families and 1,450 Holocaust survivors. “At Latet, all 28 of us packed food that was going to Holocaust survivors,” he said. “We worked in two teams and made 1,800 giant boxes of food for distribution. It was amazing to see the teamwork as we came together to accomplish a goal.”
Wednesday found the group pruning and weeding a vineyard in preparation for planting in the upcoming season.
The mission ended with a conversation circle where participants could process what they had seen and experienced and discuss larger related topics, including aliyah and the relationship between diaspora and Israeli Jews.
“All the fellows are working on different projects at the OU, ranging from teen engagement to political advocacy, but we’re all pulling in the same direction — understanding that part of the ultimate connection for us is ‘am Yisrael’” — the people of Israel — “and ‘eretz Yisrael’” — the Land of Israel — “and the impact we can have through the work we do,” Mr. Cohen said.
“I stayed on through the following Monday, so I was there when the first three hostages were released. I witnessed the national feeling of relief when they made it into Israeli hands. Being there for that was a ‘shehecheyanu’ moment,” he added, referring to the Jewish blessing recited at significant occasions.
Mr. Cohen, who grew up mostly in Miami until his parents moved to Teaneck in 1997, graduated from Yeshiva University with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and married Teaneck native Dena Croog in 2002. They lived in Queens for a few years and moved back to Teaneck in 2008. He began his position at the OU in October 2023.
As the 45-year-old parent of three daughters — Eliana, 18; Batya, 13; and Meital, 8 — he said that he was most impressed by the spirit of young Israelis.
“People complain about the apathy of the younger generation, but all you see in Israel is 20-year-old kids serving their country and many volunteers coming from all over,” he said. “It’s incredible to see Jewish youth really step up and be a part of this,” he said.
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