They say that a good teacher is a teacher for life – and in this case, it seems that a good teacher saves lives. The house of the Elgazar family of Sderot was destroyed at the end of last week from a direct missile hit, but at that time the family was in a hotel in Jerusalem, thanks to their son’s teacher.
The story began when a teacher, Chantal Yehud ben Naim, from the AMIT Gutwirth State High School in Sderot, encouraged the Elgazar family to take a break from the rockets at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem. The initiative itself began with AMIT Children, based in New York, of which the AMIT Network is part of, and which runs approximately 60 high schools in Israel. At AMIT Children they wanted to identify with students and teachers who have been under fire and they decided to offer any staff or family that needed a break a weekend in a hotel. At AMIT Gutwirth Sderot, they offered this to the Elgazar family.
Last Friday, during dinner time, a missile landed on their house, destroying most of it. Luckily, at that time the parents, Rachel and Yehoshua, their son Uriel (Chantal’s student), and his brother Ilan, were in the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem. The Elgazar family were miraculously saved twice from missiles: a week ago Wednesday, a missile landed in their house, but miraculously didn’t explode.
“We got to the hotel, and as soon as we went down for dinner, my husband got a call from our neighbor, who asked him where we were and told us that a missile exploded in our house,” explained Rachel. “We didn’t know if we should laugh or cry. We immediately left the hotel and went back to Sderot to see what was left of our house and save what we could. The invitation to the hotel saved our lives, the principal and AMIT Children were good messengers of the One who wanted to save us.”
Chantal Yehud ben Naim, Uriel’s teacher, said, “Our students and their families are all part of one big family.” It should be noted that their house has been destroyed and right now the family has nowhere to live. When Chantal heard that the family doesn’t have a place to live temporarily, she turned to the municipality and Elad Klimi, deputy mayor of Sderot, arrived at their home and told them he would take care of it and find them a place to live.
As mentioned, the respite at the hotel is an initiative of AMIT Children, based in New York. According to Andrew Goldsmith, Executive Vice President of AMIT, “All of us in New York are following what’s happening with concern for our students and teachers who are living under shelling. We felt that we had to do something for them from here. It is extremely moving to find out that because of this weekend break in a hotel, an entire family was saved. It’s a big merit.”
Reprinted from Israel Hayom 5/19/21
