‘That tear just never moved’
JNF’s Phyllis Chancy Solomon talks about commitment, action, grief, resilience, and hope
Five months before October 7, when Hamas terrorists killed 15 residents and kidnapped eight from Kibbutz Nahal Oz on the Gaza border, Phyllis Chancy Solomon of Marlboro ran for shelter from an incoming projectile on that kibbutz.
She was visiting Nahal Oz in her role as a founding member of the Jewish National Fund-USA’s Gaza Envelope Task Force. She was also there to celebrate Israel’s 75th birthday — and her 85th birthday.
“You’d think that my lasting memory from this trip would be the rocket attack,” she reported later.
“Yet you’d be wrong. For me, it was playing a piano duet with a young man from the community. As we hit each key, I looked at our hands playing together in synchronicity — a senior citizen and a 15-year-old playing together. It gave me hope and reinforced to me that the philanthropic investments we are making are working. Whether it’s through our resilience centers or the music center we recently completed, we are bringing young and old together as we bolster their sense of community and security.”
On October 29, Ms. Solomon will be honored at JNF-USA’s “A Night of Recognition, Rebuilding & Resilience for Israel” for her involvement in rebuilding the Gaza border communities devastated by Hamas.
A classical pianist and former teacher, Ms. Solomon and her task force started a special fund through the organization for the Tri-Region Music Consortium, which creates regional cooperation among three music conservatories in the “envelope” area near the border. The program brings in top-tier instructors, provides instruments to students, and offers scholarships to those who cannot afford lessons.
She is also a member of JNF-USA’s Central New Jersey Board of Directors and cofounder of its Central New Jersey Monmouth Middlesex Committee.
Ms. Solomon traces the convergence of her passions for philanthropy and music to a tragedy that occurred in 1952, when she was just 15. Her 20-year-old sister, Natalie, died in a horseback-riding accident.
“My dad was the director of music for New York City public schools, and in our home we each studied a primary and a secondary instrument,” she said. “My primary was the piano and my secondary was the French horn. My sister’s was the violin first, and second was flute.
“When she passed away, my parents and their friends started the Natalie Joan Chancy Memorial Foundation, dedicated to philanthropic activities in the arts for challenged members of our communities.”
She learned from this response that “you can turn a very tragic event into something very productive. Today, thousands of lives have been positively affected by the works of what is now the Chancy Memorial Foundation,” of which she is president.
More than 70 years later, the foundation is still going strong in memory of her sister, her parents, and her husband, Herbert Solomon.
“Along with that, my parents, and in particular my mother, were ardent Zionists. My mom was president of Brooklyn Regional Hadassah. There was a time I thought my mother owned Hadassah Hospital. In 1948, I witnessed my mother and her Hadassah friends sewing layettes for the babies coming to Israel from Europe, and I never forgot that.
“So I grew up in a home that rang with a lot of music and a lot of discussions about the necessity of building the Jewish homeland. That was the foundation laid by my parents. And after I married in 1957, my husband fell in step with the activities of the foundation and we became very active members of our community federation, at that time called UJA-Federation.”
The Jewish National Fund’s signature blue tzedakah box was always present in her childhood home, but Ms. Solomon’s work with JNF began only in 2014, with a solidarity mission to Israel.
“I knew about planting trees from the time I went to Hebrew school as a little girl,” she said. “But that was the moment that I think I really awakened as an ardent Zionist.”
She was one of the 12 founding members of the Gaza Envelope Task Force, which has been renamed Rebuild the Envelope Task Force since the area is now more commonly referred to as the Israel envelope (“otef Yisrael”). The task force today numbers 43 and is led by Betsy Fischer of New Jersey and Florida.
“Through my work with the task force over the past 10 years, I’ve developed beautiful friendships with residents of the Gaza envelope,” Ms. Solomon said. “On October 7th, I was awakened by a lot of text messages telling me, ‘We’re being invaded,’ ‘We’re feeling frightened,’ ‘We’re in the safe room’ from many of my friends. I couldn’t really understand what was happening because that border fence was never breached; the residents always had a fear of rockets, not invasion.”
Then she got word that Ofir Lipstein, head of the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council of which Nahal Oz is a part, was killed, along with his son, on that Saturday morning. She’d received a warm letter from Mr. Lipstein about her visit in May.
“This was something I couldn’t comprehend,” she said. “It was too early for me to call anyone, and I thought at first I was just having a nightmare.” But then her Israeli-born son-in-law, who lives seven minutes away, called her to report what he was hearing on the Israeli news.
Now that she understood it was for real, the only question was: How are we going to make this better?
Within a day, she was in a Zoom meeting led by JNF-USA Chief Executive Officer Russell F. Robinson, who lives in Livingston.
“As Russell says, and as we all say, we were there before, we’re there now, and we will be there tomorrow,” she said.
“We started immediately to fundraise because we knew that as the days unfolded we would begin to learn more. We’ve raised an amazing amount of money — we’re still raising money – and it’s difficult, but it’s something that we have to do. We must rebuild.”
Ms. Solomon flew to Israel for a week during the summer. She and her 33-year-old granddaughter went down south with a JNF guide to visit her friends and local officials in the municipalities in the Gaza envelope.
“Our last visit was with Michal Uziyahu, who is running for mayor of the Eshkol Regional Council,” she said. “I’ve known Michal for the past 10 years. We’ve worked together to try to improve and to build the music schools and the amazing GrooveTech building,” a safe indoor playground and innovative learning center in Eshkol.
Ms. Uziyahu told her visitors that despite the devastation and pain in the south, “We look for the light and we choose life.”
“Michal is a very positive person,” Ms. Solomon said. “But as she spoke, I saw that she had a tear in her left eye, and it just sat there. It didn’t move. I was very distracted by this tear because it never left the corner of her eye.
“She didn’t go into detail with the stories; I had seen her since October 7th. We were just talking in general what has to be done, how do we do it, how can we help. But that tear just never moved. After saying goodbye to her, I asked my granddaughter, ‘Did you notice Michal’s tear?’ and she said yes.
“I said, ‘That tear was for me. I’m taking that tear and carrying it with me. I’m going to pass it on to whoever I talk to. That’s the motivation for me to tell Michal’s story and Ofir’s story and everybody’s story and why we have to work so hard to rebuild and to bring back the families that wish to come back.’
“Without knowing it, Michal gave me the purpose and the motivation to get out there.”
Ms. Solomon created a presentation that she’s been giving to groups of Jewish and non-Jewish friends and in community synagogues and organizations. Because of the situation in the north with Hezbollah, she has also added information about JNF-USA projects there as well, such as building “magnificent bomb shelters” where before there were none.
She always ends on a positive note. “As Russell says, this is not our ‘oy vey’ moment; it’s our moment to get out there, campaign and do the best we can, and to put the ‘oy vey’ aside.”
Together with Barbara London, her Middlesex/Monmouth cochair, Ms. Solomon is forming a new Women For Israel chapter in the region. “You know, we don’t get the real news here, so it’s important to be able to spread the word and tell the truth. That’s what I plan on doing.”
Ms. Solomon is also active in the Jewish Federation in the Heart of New Jersey, based in South River. Additionally, through her family foundation she has been volunteering with Family Resource Associates in Red Bank for the past 40 years.
“I work with children and young adults who have a myriad of disabilities such as autism, Down syndrome, and physical disabilities,” she said. “I teach computer skills and arts-and-crafts classes where we make items that we then sell as products.
She is also active in countering anti-Israel harassment.
“What gets me angry is the enabling of the pro-Hamas and pro-terrorist protesters on our streets and that nobody does anything about it. What gets me angrier is that our Jewish students have to deal with this on a daily basis on college campuses. Many of us write letters, but it’s very frustrating because it’s just a lot of words and nothing really happens. I feel angry about the lack of bold leadership to step in, to intervene and to stop it — because it can be stopped.”
Ms. Solomon said she is “very outspoken about my support for Israel — politics aside, because that’s not what we’re about now. It’s part of my DNA.”
She recalled that some of the young women in the new Women For Israel group said the tragic events of October 7 “woke them up.”
“That’s not me,” she said. “I’ve been up since I was about 10 years old. Witnessing my mother and her Hadassah sisters sewing those layettes is a memory imprinted in my mind, comparable to Michal’s tear.”
Ms. Solomon put everything on hold to travel to North Carolina at the end of September to meet her newborn third great-grandchild. She couldn’t stay long; she was back in Marlboro on October 6 for the Federation-sponsored remembrance event related to the October 7 terror attacks.
The JNF honor on October 29 will hardly be her first.
She said that she feels a bit embarrassed and “truly humbled” to have been chosen. “There are so many of us that deserve this honor; I’m just part of a big army of men and women who have shown me how to join this journey.”
She added that Mr. Robinson, who will be among the speakers, keeps her positive when the news from Israel makes her sad. “He says now we must move forward. ‘Put that behind you and let’s go.’
“I’m part of an amazing family; this JNF family is a force and I’m very proud to be a part of it.”
What: A Night of Recognition, Rebuilding & Resilience for Israel honoring Phyllis Chancy Solomon
When: Tuesday, October 29, at 7 p.m.
Where: In Marlboro; address provided upon registration
To register: Go to jnf.org/cnjresilience
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