Judith Javor made Aliyah from England in 1993 with her husband and son. They moved straight to northern Israel’s Metula, near the border with Lebanon, and built a home there. Judith, who enjoys hiking through the mountains of the north with friends, one of whom already volunteered at the Yad Sarah Kiryat Shmona branch, asked her to join the team there.
Despite being a small and remote town, the Yad Sarah branch at Kiryat Shmona prior to the war was incredibly vibrant, serving many neighboring communities. The town was evacuated by official order on October 20, and only a handful of residents and critical workers have stayed. During routine times, the Kiryat Shmona branch offers many services, from hospitalization beds and legal consultation to equipment servicing and lending. To maintain a sense of community, the volunteers at Kiryat Shmona would do a bit of everything, jumping from department to department to help those in need.
Serving so many communities also meant volunteers got to meet a wide variety of people; Judith recalled how happy it made her whenever members of the Drize community from Majdal Shams would return the equipment, for they would often gift the volunteers with fruit. Even though Majdal Shams now has its own Yad Sarah branch, Kiryat Shmona continues to support smaller nearby branches, such as by providing miniature equipment for injured children after the tragic massacre at the Majdal Shams soccer field.
Judith volunteered at the Kiryat Shmona Branch for 15 year prior to the war. In 2023, her husband George’s health was deteriorating, and he joined the Yad Sarah Life Story project. In this program, seniors are paired with a writer to create a biography. Judith and George had a two-week holiday planned for October. Once they returned, the Kiryat Shmona branch was working at a very minimal capacity, and the area in which they lived was coming under heavy fire by Hezbollah. Their friends who were out of the country had an apartment in Tel Aviv and were happy for the Javors to stay there.
While they initially intended to stay there for a short time, George had a stroke when they were still in Tel Aviv and unfortunately passed away in December.
Like many of her fellow volunteers who evacuated the north, Judith wanted to continue volunteering at Yad Sarah; she stayed in Tel Aviv and began volunteering at the branch in Ichilov Hospital, the same hospital that treated her husband after the stroke.
The move to Ichilov was difficult; volunteering at a hospital required many procedures, but Judith was determined to continue contributing. “After my husband passed, I needed something to focus on, something to do, a way to make friends, and Yad Sarah gave me that.”
The friends she makes are not just the volunteers but also the service recipients. Whenever an evacuee comes to the branch, the other volunteers introduce them to Judith, their “evacuee in residence.” It seems funny initially, but they always find a way to bond over it or discover familiar friends.
The work at Ichilov is meaningful, but Judith ultimately wishes to return to Kiryat Shmona and her volunteer work there, where the branch is a second home. She spent 15 years there, building friendships with fellow volunteers and serving the local community. Another thing the Kiryat Shmona branch has is the life story project, where George’s draft still needs to be completed. Judith hopes to be able to return and complete the book in George’s Memory—hopefully in time for his one-year Yartzheit.