Last year, I drove from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to speak to residents of Reuth Beit Jenny Breuer, an assisted-living home where my niece, Liora Sandler, is employed as its sole social worker. After a tour of the beautiful building, I spoke to a few dozen people, most of them over the age of 90. In a discussion moderated by Liora, the residents kept me on my toes asking relevant questions about current affairs. Some stayed to chat and it was a thoroughly uplifting experience.
Established in 1937, Reuth is one of Israel’s most respected non-profit healthcare and social welfare organizations. It manages the Reuth Tel Aviv Rehabilitation Hospital, a sheltered housing project for underprivileged senior citizens, three retirement homes – Beit Jenny Breuer and Beit Shalom in Tel Aviv and Beit Barth in Jerusalem – and a community center for the elderly in Tel Aviv. Jenny Breuer (1892-1985), a diamond trader and community activist who in 1952 became the first woman to join the Israel Diamond Exchange, was a loyal partner of Reuth’s founder, Paula Barth, and lived her latter years in one of Reuth’s homes.
Beit Jenny Breuer calls itself “a retirement home for the religious-Zionist sector, located in the quiet Tel Aviv neighborhood of Yad Eliyahu. Residents enjoy a warm, family-like atmosphere and vibrant community life in the traditional spirit of Judaism, as well as a rich selection of cultural activities, trips, classes and lectures.” The home offers 70 residential units for singles and couples and a beautiful synagogue. Medical care is provided by a geriatric specialist, together with a team of professional nurses who are on the premises 24/7.
Liora is today part of a top-class team at Jenny Breuer, effectively dealing with the recent corona wave – which saw the Omicron variant spread rapidly across Israel and the world. She tells me that she is protecting herself as much as possible, but is also doing all she can to take good care of the residents, under the close guidance of the home’s charismatic director, Moshe Weiss, and head nurse, Julia Mordechiov.
Liora has only superlatives to describe the way the management, administration and workers at all levels, from maintenance men and kitchen staff to the head nurse and her medical staff, are eager to lend a hand, day or night, in areas out of their expertise.
Moshe can be found designing a new fishpond or patio in the garden or making shakshuka in the kitchen, while Michel, the head of maintenance, delivers meals regularly to the rooms, with a grin under his mask. During the pandemic, the staff have not missed a beat, putting chairs outside the rooms in the corridors, where regular exercise classes as well as cultural and religious activities now take place – with masks (and walkers), of course!
Liora constantly thinks outside the box, finding ways to enrich and entertain the residents, especially at this challenging time. She enters each room with a contagious smile, a song or a story, and a care package of cognitive games to fill some down time. She also films greetings on her cellphone from the residents to their concerned relatives.
When I suggested that I share the exceptional work they are doing, Liora said, “We should write about social workers and how it would be a better world if we got paid a little more, and more people would want to work in this field.”
What the staff do at Jenny Breuer is real avodat kodesh (holy work). Their mission, unanimously praised by residents and their relatives, is a model to admire, support and emulate. As Psalm 71 entreats us, “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone.”