Saving Just One Life at a Time

By Sephardic News

For three decades, Just One Life has been saving a countless amount of lives in Israel.

Every day in Israel, in a moment of panic and distress, an expectant mother in crisis decides to terminate her pregnancy. Already stretched to her limit economically and psychologically, she fears the future. Distraught and conflicted, pushed to the brink, she sees no other way out.

But there is another way and Just One Life exists in order to provide these women in need with another option.

Just One Life is an organization heavily supported by the Syrian community in Brooklyn NY and Deal NJ that offers expectant mothers a helping hand to guide them through the months of pregnancy and beyond. Just One Life (JOL) enables and empowers mother to have the children they so desire when they are too afraid to do so on their own.

On a daily basis, mothers that are considering terminating their pregnancies are referred to JOL. Almost all of the woman referred are under enormous financial stress or some kind of other trauma that has brought them to this point. On the one hand, they want to keep their babies but on the other hand they feel that the reasonable decision would be to terminate the pregnancy.

Just One Life helps in two ways. Their professional staff of social workers provide supportive emotional counseling and a sympathetic ear during challenging times. They also provide an appropriate financial stipend. With their help, 99% of the mothers that they are referred choose to continue their pregnancy which has led to over 17,000 babies to be born in Israel.

Rachel and Avi, a young married couple living in Israel, found themselves expecting. Both of them had recently lost their jobs and with no income, they could not imagine taking on the financial burden of another child. In a heart-wrenching decision they felt that the responsible thing to do was to terminate the pregnancy. Because Just One Life was there to help, today they are the proud and grateful parents of another beautiful baby.

With the leadership of Rabbi Marty Katz who has served as the executive vice president of the organization and dedicated the past 27 years of his own life to the cause, Just One Life has been made possible. These babies “almost” didn’t make it into the world. If not for the emotional and financial support of Just One Life, they may have been terminated and a Jewish neshama would have been lost to our people.

Rabbi Marty Katz, Just One Life Executive VP, holding a Just One Life Baby.

Rabbi Katz is in the business of “saving lives” together with his team in Israel, consisting of Rabbi Moshe Rothchild, executive vice president, and a highly trained cadre of social workers. Until last year, Madeline Gitelman, currently a member of the JOL board, served as executive vice president and was well-known to doctors, social workers and university professors throughout the country as the recognized professional who formulated the specific techniques used by JOL.

With a team of social workers led by Chaya Katzin, as well as volunteers throughout the country, over 17,000 births have been brought to term throughout Israel, an entire city’s population. Rabbi Katz respectfully refers to Gitelman as the “grandmother and even great-grandmother of all of JOL’s babies.”

Brooklyn can take great pride in the organization, as one of our former residents, Jack Forgash, saw the desperate need for such a mission after reading the frightening statistics of the number of terminations of pregnancy that take place regularly in Israel. The reasons given ranged from financial straits, trauma from terrorist incidents, mental challenges and any number of other issues.

With the rabbinical sanction and encouragement of Rav Avraham Pam, zt”l, Rabbi Solomon Scharfman, zt”l, and currently the Morah D’asra of Young Israel of Flatbush, Rabbi Kenneth and Joanne Auman, Forgash and his family undertook the cause and 27 years later they can view with pride the hatzalat nefashot (the saving of souls) of so many. Rabbi David Fienstein also serves as the rabbincal advisor of JOL currently. Harav Yissocher Frand has been addressing Just One Life benefits since its inception. His passion for the cause and his inspiring words of Torah and chizuk attract audiences in communities worldwide. According to Katz, “Rabbi Frand is one of a kind. His words of inspiration have turned untold numbers of lives around.”

Twins from Chicago bring special packages to twins born to a family assisted by Just One Life.

Just One Life services families throughout Israel whose life situations are such that they are considering terminating current pregnancies for a variety of legitimate desperate family situations. Through referrals to social work agencies, Just One Life steps in and through their many vital services is overwhelmingly successful in turning around situations that allow the pregnancy to go full term, resulting in healthy babies and happy families.

The services are provided through Just One Life’s Mother and Infant Center, which provides supportive counseling with highly trained professionals, a monthly financial stipend, advocacy to government agencies for additional subsidies, referrals to other relevant agencies and general information. Mothering and child-care workshops are provided to the mothers and their families. Rabbi Katz emphasizes, “We are never coercive. The decision is that of the woman and her family.”

Rabbi Moshe Rothchild, residing in Efrat, has served as the Israel-based executive vice president of Just One Life for one year. During this period, major changes have been implemented that have proven highly beneficial to the clients.

In addition to the monetary subsidy of $1,800 distributed over the course of a year, JOL provides a clothing gemach of brand-new infant clothing, sizes newborn to six months, which is collected internationally and can be accessed simply by visits to the office.

“We are also offering our new mothers a professional portrait of their newborn, which truly elevates their spirits. We are currently working on providing our new mothers with a two-day retreat in a lovely location where our mothers can breathe and relax briefly before resuming their busy lives. Interspersed within the retreat will be lectures on nutrition, parenting and improving relationships between parents and children. For many of our clients, this may be their first-ever vacation,” said Rothchild.

“We service families of many socio-economic groups with many different situations,” offers Rothchild. “We recently provided our services to a family consisting of a dependent grandmother living with her daughter in a two-room apartment. The husband was unemployed due to a disability and the pregnant wife could not maintain a paying job as she was caring for both her husband and mother. JOL came in, and through our many services helped the woman through her delivery of a health baby boy. But we did not stop at the delivery. We provided provisions for Pesach and continue sending care packages for Shabbat in addition to new clothing for the baby. We will also provide parenting sessions to the new mother who herself was never properly parented. We do not work on a ‘cookie cutter’ model. Every situation is different. Our ultimate goal is to create is to create a wholesome, functioning family”

Katz’s pride in Just One Life is immeasurable. “JOL is a reply to the Holocaust and terrorism. Over a year ago, we were notified by one of our client families that they had decided to name their newborn daughter Hallel Yaffa in memory of Hallel Ariel murdered this past June by terrorists in her bed in Kiryat Arba. This is a tribute to the work of JOL that speaks reams to our precious work in bringing new lives into the world. We have welcomed many sets of twins, triplets and even quadruplets.”

The upcoming event to benefit Just One Life will be in memory of Steven Esses A”H who served as the chairman of the organization for two decades. Katz states that Esses served the Jewish community at large with his kindness, compassion, and leadership. The success of JOL is due to Steven Esses's commitment to the organization and the Jewish community at large.