Stephen Wise Temple is proud to partner with Israel Sport Center for the Disabled, an incredible organization that does so much for so many. We are sharing this communication to let everyone in our community know how this vital service is handling the current situation and especially to let you know how you can suppot them. Donate here. 

To Our Incredible Community of Supporters and Friends:

We are sharing a letter we received from the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled’s Leadership for a special reason. It’s POSITIVITY! Thanks to your continuing commitment over the years, our ISCD is continuing to show that spirit – that everything IS possible. With the media overload on the world-wide pandemic, this positive, hopeful message is something we eagerly wanted to share!

Lori Komisar, President
Jennifer Flink, National Executive Director

Dear Friends of the ISCD:

For many years, through the help of AFISCD, we have created and sustained a unique community of children, youth and adults with disabilities, and their families.

This community, some consider it family, has provided an environment of support, meaning and joy for these families and helped thousands of children with disabilities grow into contributing members of society. Some of them returned to the center as role models to give back to the younger generation. With you, we make Israel better, not just for Israelis, but for the entire Jewish People. At this time, a better Israel may become even more important, to Jews around the world.

We overcame wars, floods, financial turbulence and times of uncertainty but never before have we faced challenges similar in any way to the ones we are facing today.

In accordance with the Israeli Ministry of Health, as of Sunday, March 15th 2020, the gates of the Center will be closed. No programs will be running and no services will be offered on site. All wheelchair sporting events, leagues, trainings and activities are postponed until May 3rd 2020, or until otherwise announced by the Ministry of Health and the authorities.

This means an immediate and complete stop of some 40% of our monthly income, from services, facility time, memberships and other sources like municipalities, Ministry of Sports etc.

While 90% of our regular employees are going on forced vacation, we are looking at various ways in which we can keep our community together. We will be in close touch with our members and make sure their needs are provided, through our social services and volunteers: where we will find difficulty, whether psychological or material, we will use our resources to help; we will continue to train our Paralympic Athletes, regardless of the uncertainty concerning the Tokyo 2020 Games and they will be the only ones allowed at the center; Our operations team will continue to maintain the Center, maintain the swimming pools, clean and improve the facilities, gardens, pavements and roads, fix whatever needs fixing and keep the center ready to reopen its gates; the office will respond to queries; we will maintain our fundraising efforts and response; we will continue to pay our suppliers and maintain our accounting department. We are keeping our team to the minimum necessary, the very backbone of the Center, and cutting all non-essential expenses.

With hope for better times,

Yours truly,

Jacob Ben Arie, Chairman
Boaz Kramer, Executive Director