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Why we opened this campaign
Elisheva – a single mother who has lost her job. Large debts have accumulated. Help is needed to cover the payments for arnona, kindergarten, and utilities.
Elisheva. A tall, red-haired Ashkenazi beauty; in her gait, in her manner of behavior, in her speech, in the smallest details – you can feel education, intelligence, awareness. People say about women like her – a true daughter of a king, modest and at the same time regal. Next to her is little Avigayl, curly, endlessly quick like a small stream, moving at a run, asking a million questions per minute, smiling at everyone at once.
We meet her in the kitchen of her rented apartment, which she will have to leave if the situation does not change urgently. In the apartment, despite having a small child, there is perfect order, everything is in its place. This is Elisheva – everything must be be-seder. Which makes it even harder for her now, when her life has spun into complete chaos.
Since childhood, Elisheva has been used to setting goals and achieving them. She independently enrolled in and graduated from one of the best law schools in the world – the Law Faculty of Moscow State University named after Lomonosov. For many years she worked as a corporate lawyer in the field of contract law – accompanying major deals worth millions of dollars, enduring extremely difficult negotiations and pressure.
The fact that she is Jewish – Elisheva always felt it: her characteristic appearance, bullying at school and in the yard – none of this passed her by, even though technically she was the daughter of a Jewish father – in the post-Soviet world they judged you by the nose, not by the passport.
At the age of 30 she began to explore global questions about the structure of the world – and this is how she came to the synagogue. Observance was not easy for her – she had to completely change her lifestyle, give up a number of career achievements, but she gladly walked this path and accepted upon herself the burden of the commandments, fully joining the people of her father.
Six years ago Elisheva came to Israel with the dream of building a Jewish home. Unfortunately, the marriage turned out to be extremely unsuccessful. Just a few weeks after the chuppah, the couple filed for divorce. At the time of receiving the get, Elisheva was in her first trimester of pregnancy. Literally a few days after the divorce, the pandemic began. Alone, with a baby under her heart, without work, without citizenship, without benefits and rights, in a Jerusalem completely closed for quarantine – can you imagine that? It was then that Elisheva set herself a goal: whatever obstacles arise – the mission of her life is to raise her daughter in tradition, according to the letter of the Torah, so that observing the commandments becomes her natural way of life.
She clenched her teeth and continued forward, through bureaucratic hell. Yes, it was not easy. Sometimes, for weeks, the only food on the table was buckwheat – and meat only when visiting friends for Shabbat. But Elisheva was used to achieving her goals – and she achieved this one as well.
A good apartment in Jerusalem, even if rented, the right kindergarten where Avigayl was happy, from where she brought her first challot and brachot, a job in her profession that allowed her to live calmly – and even sometimes travel and take her daughter to the sea (within the country – Avigayl is not allowed to leave Israel, her father placed a restriction). It seemed everything was finally improving…
And again, a new shock. Her beloved father died in Moscow. Because of Avigayl’s non-exit status, the funeral had to be arranged remotely. It was extremely important for Elisheva that everything be done in accordance with Jewish laws and traditions – and this consumed the emergency savings she had only just managed to build.
And again a blow. The country is at war. International contracts break, shipments are canceled, the entire financial world is under pressure. Project after project collapses, salaries decrease – and soon there is no work left at all. But endless bills for electricity, water, kindergarten, and arnona remain.
For the fourth month, Elisheva has been going to interviews and negotiations. In parallel, she works in every possible way, refusing no work, no matter how difficult:
- once a week she travels to a neighboring city to assemble and pack orders in a food company,
- she took 20 hours of work as a metapelet per week (more is simply impossible because of the kindergarten schedule),
- occasionally there is an opportunity to earn a little by translating texts.
This money is enough to cover basic needs – the simplest food and hygiene products – but the debts continue to grow.
We are turning to you with two requests:
1. To help Elisheva close her debts for utilities and kindergarten payments + a small but very heavy overdraft on her card.
2. To help Elisheva find work in her profession. She has a brilliant education, English at the level of a native speaker, and very strong experience in international law firms in the USA and the UK. Perhaps someone among you, or among your acquaintances, is looking for exactly such a specialist and simply cannot find one? Elisheva’s résumé is with the coordinator.
Together we can give Elisheva and Avigayl a chance for a normal, peaceful life without debts.
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