PHOTO: Dror Israel staff and children of Ethiopian Jewish families pose with a display for a Sigd celebration in this undated photo. The group will make a pair of presentations about their ongoing work in Israel to the Portland Jewish community early in June. (Courtesy Dror Israel)

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
In the months since the Oct. 7 terror attacks, as Israel has been gripped by war, few organizations have been positioned to support those suffering like Dror Israel.
You can hear all about that work at two upcoming presentations from Noam Schlanger, Dror Israel’s Engagement Director: Wednesday, June 5 at 6:30 pm at the Eastside Jewish Commons, and Thursday, June 6 at Congregation Neveh Shalom as part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s Annual Meeting, which begins at 7 pm.
Dror Israel’s mission is easy enough to explain: “We believe that Israel can and should be a democracy and an equal and just place. We believe that this is what Zionism is about,” Schlanger said.
Their work is more complicated to describe because it is so vast. From 15 educators’ kibbutzim spread around Israel, from Haifa to the Negev and everywhere in between, Dror Israel educators work with every facet of Israeli society and at all ages. Many of them work in schools, including a network of high schools featuring an innovative project-based learning environment, but they also support the country’s largest Jewish-Arab youth movement – and more. 
“I’m not talking only about youth,” Schlanger said. “We have a lot of community projects focused around working with senior citizens.” 
Naturally, Dror Israel was intensely affected by the attacks. Some of the kibbutzim served by Dror Israel were among the hardest hit by Hamas terrorists. Students and alumni were killed, staff have families that were killed or taken hostage in Gaza, and more than 100 of Dror Israel’s educators were recalled to active duty in the Israel Defense Forces. Many of the communities Dror Israel served were evacuated to other parts of the country – some en masse, some in bits and pieces. Because Dror Israel had connections to those communities, they were able to follow them and provide services others couldn’t. 
“It’s not like we had to come in and get to know the situation,” Schlanger said. “That allowed us to be, I won’t say the first, but one of the first organizations to set foot where the people got evacuated to.”
When Kibbutz Be’eri was relocated to the Dead Sea, Dror Israel arrived the same day to begin setting up a preschool for the community. 
“They trusted us. They didn’t welcome strangers to run the preschools,” Schlanger said. “That allowed us to be there when we were most needed.”
Shlomi, a small town along the northern border of Israel, was evacuated to protect the population from Hezbollah rocket attacks. Evacuating a small city of over 7,000 people is more challenging logistically than relocating a kibbutz of less than 1,000. 
“You can’t evacuate the city to a hotel, so they’re spread in 60 locations. These are just the locations that are governmentally funded; I’m not talking about people who just went to their aunt, went to their parents. So, taking care of that is an entirely different task, which requires entirely different skills and platforms, and we do that as well,” Schlanger said. “We operate activities in the hotels themselves and try to gather kids from the same location that are spread around different hotels to go for a trip together.”
This work isn’t possible without the support of donations. The Federation contributed $100,000 from its Israel Emergency Fund to support Dror Israel’s programs post-Oct. 7, with many other individual donations coming in from the area. 
“Thank you to the Federation and the Stern Family Foundation that’s supported us as well, and to all of our donors,” Schlanger said. “We have a lot of friends in Portland and Oregon that supported us both financially and with a lot of care and emails and phone calls and visits.”
To register for Schlanger’s appearance at EJC, visit ejcpdx.org/events. To register for the Federation’s annual meeting, visit jewishportland.org/jfgpannual24.