Sha’ar Hanegev cannot stop dreaming
Ifrah serves as international partnerships director of Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council located in the south-western Negev, adjacent to the border with Gaza.
Maia Ifrah, guest speaker at the recent JNF Australia Gold Patrons Lunch kept the full house spellbound with her firsthand accounts and comments on the current challenges faced by the Sha’ar Hanegev region.
Ifrah serves as international partnerships director of Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council located in the south-western Negev, adjacent to the border with Gaza.
She has a bachelor’s degree in law and also has a master’s in conflict resolution.
Ifrah worked as a lawyer for a few years but did not enjoy it.
“I am not a person that likes arguments, I like to get along with people. So being a lawyer confronted me with situations that I didn’t feel comfortable with,” she explained.
Conflict resolution, on the other hand, felt like something she would feel much more comfortable with, so she trained as a negotiator. “I feel much more at ease with this.”
When The AJN asked if that training came in handy after October 7, Ifrah replied, “I honestly feel that everything I did in my life, everything from being a youth counsellor in the Scouts, to being in the military service and speaking assertively in front of people that were older than me, and everything I did until I started at Sha’ar Hanegev was relevant.
“Because throughout the journey of my life I did very strange things. And I always thought to myself, why am I doing this, it is a waste of time.
“And now I feel like everything I did was to train me to be the best that I can be right now.”
Kehillat Sha’ar Hanegev, meaning “gate to the Negev”, is a regional community of the Israel Reform Movement that comprises 10 kibbutzim and works in partnership with the regional council and its organisations in leading Jewish, cultural and social action activities as part of Jewish identity and belonging.
Approximately 10,000 residents and 12 separate communities make up what Ifrah refers to as a “boutique council”.
Photos: Peter Haskin
It was heavily affected by the massacre of October 7. Seventy-eight residents were killed and 23 were kidnapped.
Ifrah said the communities that are very close to the border were affected the most.
“That day [October 7] the council was evacuating our communities.
“Eleven of the 12 communities were completely evacuated. Some of our residents had literally nothing, only the clothes they were wearing on their body at the time.”
She said it is hard to imagine the different effects of this trauma.
“Most of that is not talked about; there’s a lot of isolation and loneliness and as a council that’s our responsibility.”
The council’s life project is to make sure that it is attending to all the issues that have been arising since October 7.
It could be divorce increasing among couples, or that young people are lacking any kind of status of normalcy and routine, or seniors who need some community time to be together.
“I dare to say it took us a while,” Ifrah said.
“In the beginning, I think the first two weeks we were in such trauma and pain.
“We were missing our family members, our neighbours, our friends, our mayor, and dreaming seemed like something we would not be able to do anymore.
“But we understood that we cannot stop dreaming, we don’t have that privilege.
“We have to stand up on our feet and be able to dream again. Being able to understand what we can do to help those children who are coming from captivity, helping those children who lost friends, we have to look towards the future, that’s what we’ve been doing in the past nine and a half months.”
She said she looks at the future as if it is a body containing many organs. The hands cannot move if the heart is not beating.
She believes that everyone has a role.
“I genuinely think that my role since October 7 was to advocate for Sha’ar Hanegev.”
Ifrah felt she needed to be that point of contact for people who wanted to reach out to the council and find out what was going on. She wanted to listen to what people needed and explain how the council could help them.
“There has to be somebody on the other side of the line,” she said.
The body can’t function without all those organs, and everybody has a part.
“There has to be that person in the US, in Australia, in Europe who is advocating for Israel, who’s being our supporter,” she said.
“Some people need just to press the share button on their Facebook page, and others have to speak up. Some people have to raise their children and tell them why it’s important for us to do what we’re doing.”
Ifrah told the audience, “We do not have the opportunity to be miserable.”
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