By Sandy Eller

Well over 1,500 women turned out at the Bais Ruchel Paradise Hall in Kiryas Joel on Thursday, November 16 th to hear words of practical advice, encouragement and
inspiration after three back to back tragedies left village residents devastated and struggling to cope with a sea of grief.

The event was sponsored by Project Chai, a division of Chai Lifeline that deals with crisis and trauma. Mrs. D. Newman, one of the event’s co-organizers, said that the turnout far exceeded expectations, with buses bringing women from Kiryas Joel’s outlying areas.

“It was clear that we had a need for chizuk and guidelines and to be able to help parents understand how to deal with such a tragedy,” said Mrs. Newman. “We worked closely with the school to make this happen because we wanted the whole shtetl to come. It ended up being standing room only, much more than we ever thought would come.”

The first speaker of the evening was Mrs. D.B. Smith who gave practical advice on maintaining emunah in the face of extremely trying circumstances. Mrs. S. Kleinman, principal of Bais Ruchel High School, dispensed hands on advice about the lessons that can be learned when tragedies strike. The evening continued with an extremely emotional audio-visual presentation that had everyone in the room joining together in song, with the words Ani Maamin mingling together with tears in an undeniably powerful moment.

Chai Lifeline crisis intervention specialist Mrs. Malky Klaristenfeld spoke at length, stressing to everyone in attendance the importance of validating their own pain as the first step in helping their children through this traumatic time. Giving hands on advice by age level, Mrs. Klaristenfeld discussed appropriate ways to help children understand and cope with their feelings, advising participants to be good listeners so that children can feel comfortable discussing their feelings with their parents.

Mrs. Klaristenfeld noted that it was obvious just how shaken the tight knit community of Kiryas Joel has been by recent events.

“The impact of these tragedies was monumental and it touched every single person,” said Mrs. Klaristenfeld. “This is a community where people feel protected and they never dreamed that something like this could happen here. Their insulated homes were really shattered and it is important to help them try to rebuild their lives again.”

Project Chai had already been in close touch with Kiryas Joel educators in the days preceding the Thursday night event, said Mrs. Klaristenfeld. Principals were given guidance on presenting different topics to students including dealing with the loss of a classmate, tips for being menachem aveil and how to be a caring and empathetic friend.

Feedback from the Thursday night event, which lasted for almost three hours, was extremely positive. Mrs. Newman reported that she received numerous calls from
participants telling her how powerful the gathering had been.

Offering crisis intervention resources and bereavement services on the national level in schools, camps, community groups and on an individual level, Project Chai is the largest organization of its kind in the Jewish community. It continues to train new teams of specialists all around the world, under the auspices of its director Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox and associate director Mrs. Zahava Farbman. Over the past ten years Project Chai’s staff has grown to include more than 200 volunteers who are trained in crisis intervention in well over 20 cities throughout the United States, Montreal, Toronto and Antwerp.

“The silence in the room told us all how desperately this kind of intervention was needed and how much of an impact were able to make,” said Chai Lifeline’s national director of services, Rabbi Gobioff. “Unfortunately, we are consistently dealing with tragic trauma, with our professionals, team leaders, volunteers and trainees doing interventions on an almost daily basis.”

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