A nonprofit is ministering to victims of terror in Israel — from Jews and Christians to Muslims and Druze — with coordinators or “bubbies” who promise to provide grandmotherly love and care.
“‘Bubbie’ is the Yiddish word for ‘grandmother,'” Naomi Nussbaum, executive director and chartered advisor of philanthropy for OneFamily, told Our Sunday Visitor. “It’s like a first responder that never leaves — and like a grandmother, she exudes love and she brings chocolate or candy or cake but also financial assistance.”
Founded in 2001, OneFamily, a nonprofit based in Israel, exists to “support and empower victims of terror and bereaved families, so that they can achieve their emotional and financial independence, and successfully reintegrate into society.” For their part, the bubbies support victims and their families with everyday acts of kindness. They cuddle babies, cook meals and wipe tears. They check in with house visits and phone calls. They connect families to the services they need. They promise to accompany them today and throughout their lives.
Following a terror attack, OneFamily, which serves Israeli citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion, follows a four-pronged approach: an immediate response to meet the physical and emotional needs of victims and families; continued support through therapeutic programs as well as financial, legal and medical assistance; ongoing rehabilitation for PTSD; and advocacy.
Today, OneFamily says it has helped more than 7,500 families and has invested more than $70 million into their recovery. It counts more than 92,000 hours of therapy and support and more than 26,500 individuals in groups and programs.
The bubbies help make this work possible.
A support for life
Nussbaum counted four coordinators or bubbies currently working with OneFamily.
“They have the biggest hearts in the world,” she described. “They just spread light and joy.”
All of them are women, she said, and three are real-life grandmothers. Some of them are social workers and all of them are trauma informed.
“Whatever they can do for the family to make their life easier, that’s what they do,” Nussbaum said. “There is protocol, right? They’re always going to bring gifts. They’re going to bring financial aid. They’re going to assess every member of the family.”
Some of the coordinators have been in touch with people since 2001, when OneFamily began.
“You know you can always call them,” she said. “Your family might get tired of hearing about you complain … you can’t say for 13 years, ‘I miss my wife. I miss my wife. I miss my wife,’ to a lot of people, because regular people just don’t know how to handle that.”
A need for help can also arise unexpectedly for families of victims, she said.
“Because you cut off your hair and all of a sudden you look like that person or it can come because it’s a birthday or a holiday or some milestone,” she said. “It changes over time, but that hole in your heart stays forever.”
“There are some people who know how to help you through those moments,” she said of the coordinators. “Those are the people that you can really rely on and trust for the rest of your life.”
Making a difference
Nussbaum talked about the difference made by one of their coordinators or bubbies, whom she identified as Mindee. Mindee recently received a phone call from a young teenage girl who was in a terror attack when she was only 11 months old. A terrorist in a tractor was seconds away from crushing her and her mother when her mother threw her out of the window and into the arms of a soldier. The girl survived. Her mother did not.
While the girl grew up without knowing her mother, she was never alone, Nussbaum said. She’s in OneFamily’s youth department, with a counselor who regularly checks in on her, as well as a peer support group with OneFamily. At the same time, her father has received support through the years from Mindee.
After deciding that she wanted to learn more about her mother, the girl turned to Mindee for help. In particular, she asked Mindee about a box of sentimental things that Mindee put aside while cleaning out her mother’s bedroom after the attack, Nussbaum said.
“Can you imagine that Mindee thought to do that?” she said. “She put aside a box of things that she knew the daughter would want one day.”
Those items included the mother’s pocketbook, a handwritten letter, a scarf and her ID card.
“She could have reached out to anybody in the world,” Nussbaum said of the girl. “She reached out to Mindee to have the conversation to say, ‘I’m missing my mother, and I really want to feel close to her. Can you please help me?'”
When they spoke on the phone, Mindee and the girl decided to work on a project: Together, they are going to reach out to everybody who knew the mother for stories and photographs so that the girl can feel close to her.
Nussbaum called Mindee’s actions indicative of who the bubbies are.
“They just give off so much love that people who don’t even know them directly know that’s who you call when you need something,” she said.
The importance of the little things
As the need for OneFamily’s services and programs grows, the nonprofit is hoping to expand. One death or injury in an attack, Nussbaum said, represents many more people in need of help.
The terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that began the ongoing Israel-Hamas war not only impacted those who were killed but also their families, Nussbaum said. She pointed to the estimated 1,200 killed on Oct. 7. If each of those victims have an average-sized family, then that number easily translates into 12,000 people that OneFamily wants to help, she said.
Nussbaum encouraged people to find out more about their work and how to support it at onefamilyfundus.org. Their services, she said, add to the government assistance provided.
“Even if they get government assistance, and even if they can go once or twice a week to a center, to a psychologist, they’re alone,” she said of families. “When OneFamily comes and says, ‘We are your family now, we will do whatever you need, anything to make life a little bit easier, we’re there for you,’ that can be a game changer.”
“Doing it together, like family, means all those little things,” she added. “Like when you need energy — when you’re not strong enough to do what you know needs to be done — we’re going to be your strength. We got your back. We’re there for you. We love you.”
