Why we opened this campaign
If it weren’t for her illness, Inna could live independently, work, and help others—as she has her whole life. Now she needs help simply to go on living. Inna cannot manage without us. Every shekel here can quite literally save a life.
The voice that once gave children back their lives is now asking for a chance at life herself.
Inna came to Israel nine years ago from Moscow with her husband. She had plans then—a profession, and the confidence that everything still lay ahead. In Russia she worked as a speech therapist, helping children with autism—those for whom breaking through to the world with words is especially hard. Many of them began to speak thanks to her. Already in Israel, while her health still allowed it, Inna continued working with children, drawing them out of silence just as she had once done in Moscow.
Gradually, liver disease deprived her of the ability to live as before. It is not just a diagnosis—it is a daily battle with pain, with exhaustion, with a body that stops obeying. The illness is destroying her body: her teeth are falling out, wounds appear on her skin, and every meal requires caution and a special diet.
Four years ago her husband traveled to Moscow and died there. Inna was left alone. She has a notarized copy of the death certificate, but Israel’s Interior Ministry will not accept it—the document was deemed “improperly issued.” Because of this she is still officially listed as married and cannot obtain widow status, which would entitle her to a subsidy toward rent.
Today Inna receives only one benefit—disability. Half of it goes to rent; another three hundred shekels go to medications, which she can only partially cover. After that, almost nothing remains. It is impossible to pay the bills or buy the foods suitable for liver disease.
Inna lives in extreme poverty. Yet even now, when she has almost no strength, she continues transcribing Beit Midrash texts with a small group she once studied with in Moscow. They meet online, read, analyze, and debate. This is her lifeline—to life, to the world, to meaning.
.png)
