Holocaust Survivors Inspire Building Hope Mission

Holocaust Survivors Inspire Building Hope Mission
"Building Hope" founder Gabi Nachmani shares his story of the organization's origins:

"I grew up in a home where my father died when I was eight years old. And my mother was a relatively new immigrant from Egypt. We didn't have much money in the house growing up, in our neighborhood. We had a lot of Holocaust survivors who came basically with nothing. A lot of them were elderly people who needed help. My mother used to send us all the time: 'Go change the light bulb, go unclog this sink for this old lady.' And that's what she taught us: 'We're not poor. But there are people who are poor, and we need to help them.'

So, when people ask me what motivated me to start this program and run it for so many years, Yes, it is my childhood. I founded a social service program, and we called it Tenufa Bakehila. We actually call it in English, we call it Building Hope, because that is what we do. We build hope for, you know, people who are dreamless, people who don't have hope, who forgot what we, you know, what it means.
So, we started this as a very small project just in Jerusalem, in one neighborhood. And we would do maybe 15 home repairs a year. But then people started hearing about us and asked us if we can come to other cities. And that's how we developed the program. Today we're in 20 cities now. We keep developing all the time.

A couple of years ago, we went into a home of a Holocaust survivor. There was a pile of about 30 inches of garbage on the floor. Why? Because he could not reach down and clean. So everything that fell on the floor stayed there. And we had to replace the kitchen and put in hot water, and replace even the toilet seat. And the beautiful thing is: We came to visit him four months later, and we found a neighbor in his house. So it's not only the fixing of the house, it's the dignity of the person.

But we still have long lists. Right now we're raising about $2 million a year in order to run the organization. If I have $4 million, I'm going to be in 40 cities and help more people. Some of the municipalities are so poor—the ones outside of Gaza, for example—they have to spend all their money on security, on safety, so they don't have any money for welfare.

CBN heard about us. I got a call: 'Come visit us. We may want to engage you in our program of helping families and also helping with the bomb shelters.' It's wonderful people here. I think we have a mutual goal: to strengthen Israel and to strengthen the Jewish people. It's a mutual goal that us and Christians have all over the world. Truly enjoy working with Christians. I've been working with Christians now for at least 20 years. It's a joy."