Keeping Promises

One day, a Yad Sarah Ashdod volunteer named Ida got a phone call about a mother and son in need of assistance. She headed over the apartment to assess the situation. What she found was a nearly paralyzed woman living with her disabled son. Their apartment was nearly uninhabitable.

Taking the family under her wing, Ida learned that the woman, an engineer by trade, had made Aliyah from Moscow years earlier and became paralyzed in Israel after a spinal operation gone wrong. Her son, Jenia, suffered from a genetic mutation that caused his arms to be shorter than usual. Overwhelmed with the diagnosis, Jenia's father had left his wife and child.

Ida enrolled the mother and son in a variety of Yad Sarah programs, pairing them with volunteers that could assist with grocery shopping, home-health support, and socializing.

Not long after Ida met the family, the mother passed away, leaving only Jenia. Yad Sarah assisted with the funeral costs, and Ida pledged her continued support: "Now that Jenia's mother is gone, I will keep the promise I made to care for her son in any way I can."