Spend five minutes with Oshrat Barel, the new director of the Weintraub Israel Center and community shlicha (Israeli emissary), and you realize that this is a woman who radiates joy.
It is not surprising that the title of Barel’s talk for the Jewish Federation
of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy annual meeting and welcome on Tuesday, Oct. 15 is “Planting Seeds of Hope.”
Yet 10 years ago, Barel was shaken by tragedy: her father was killed in a terrorist attack. That day, she says, she felt that she had to decide whether she would live or die. “To die, physically or mentally, you need to decide only once. To live, for people who have suffered a loss, sometimes is a matter of an everyday decision.”
At the Women’s Philanthropy event, Barel will talk about the life-affirming choices she has made to honor her father’s legacy, from writing poetry to participating in a dialogue with Israeli and Jordanian women called “Harir and Hadid” (from Arabic, meaning “iron and silk”) to recently completing a play about a family who suffers a loss.
The event will be held at 7 p.m. at Skyline Country Club, with appetizers, dessert and a no-host bar. The cost is $25. Guests are asked to bring a new or gently used children’s book (K-6th grade) to start home libraries for needy students at Homer Davis Elementary School. To RSVP, contact Jane Scott at 577-9393 or jscott@jfsa.org.
