JERUSALEM, Israel – April 21, 2026 – Dozens of volunteers from Yad Sarah, Israel’s leading volunteer-staffed healthcare and social services organization, were on the ground at Mount Herzl and Kiryat Shaul today, providing support to bereaved families and visitors honoring Israel’s Memorial Day. With increasing numbers of aging visitors and veterans with physical injuries that make site access difficult, Yad Sarah’s volunteers providing wheelchairs have become a much appreciated and relied-upon service on an otherwise challenging day.
Youth volunteers from local schools met visitors with a warm smile, an offer of wheelchair transportation to gravesites of their loved ones, and other physical assistance at the cemeteries, which are big complicated sites with many hills, ramps, and stairs.
This year’s volunteers at Mount Herzl were from Netiv Meir and Himmelfarb high schools in Jerusalem and students from Yeshivat Bnei Akiva Givat Shmuel met visitors at Kiryat Shaul.
In addition to onsite assistance, volunteer drivers also brought people to and from cemeteries in de
dicated accessible vans or “Nechonits”. Throughout the year, Yad Sarah’s Nechonit department accompanies thousands of wheelchair users like Yael Bibi, whose son fell in battle during the events of October 7th, by providing transportation safely and easily whenever needed.
“Today, we had the privilege of accompanying Yael Bibi, mother of the late Israeli hero Uriel Bibi, to the military cemetery in Kfar Saba,” shared Yaron Aviv, Yad Sarah’s National Coordinator of Volunteer Drivers. “It is our privilege to be there for these precious families during their most significant moments.”
“Yad Sarah’s volunteers work tirelessly to provide the physical and emotional support the people of Israel need across the country almost every day of the year,” said Moshe Cohen, CEO of Yad Sarah. “But evenmoreso, on days of immense sadness, like Yom HaZikaron, our volunteers rise to the challenge to be that pillar of support Israelis have come to know and rely on. Knowing that anyone who needs, can find that helping hand shows us that our mission to help people live with dignity and respect continues to be successful.”
