By Simon Griver
Photographs by Eliyahu Melloule, Yokneam Communal Photographer

Yochai Yitzhari, the founder and manager of the Kol Halev (Voice of the Heart) food distribution center in Yokneam, dedicates his efforts to the 49 sailors of the battleship Eilat who died when the craft on which he was serving was sunk by Egyptian missiles in 1967 off the Mediterranean coast of Sinai.

He said, “I was in the water for over six hours. It started getting very cold and my back was badly injured. It was just like the movie Titanic as I floated alongside the bodies of the dead and dying. Some had been burned in the explosion and others had drowned. When Israeli helicopters eventually rescued me I promised that I would one day set up a charitable organization to repay the miracle of my rescue.

Kol Halev assists 100 families in Yokneam-Megiddo, about 600 people, with assistance from the Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000 program (P2K). For more than a decade P2K has twinned Yokneam-Megiddo with the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta.

Kol Halev’s activities were recently boosted by receipt of a $15,000 grant from the Jewish Federation of St. Louis through Table to Table, an Israeli non-profit organization which collects nutritional food that would otherwise be discarded and distributes it to organizations caring for Israel’s disadvantaged.

Yitzhari said, “This latest grant has enabled us to keep up with the increasing demand created by the global economic recession and improve the nutritional quality of the food we distribute. Over the past year more people have needed our assistance and many of our donors have cut their contributions.”

Yitzhari, 65, was born in the Yemen and was brought to Israel as a child. He began his charitable activities in the 1990s following his retirement after 26 years in the Israeli Navy where he rose to the rank of Lt. Commander (Major). Twice injured in action, twice seriously injured in car accidents and having suffered a stroke and a heart attack, Yitzhari is not one to be felled by life’s difficulties.

He recalled, “At first we distributed food, clothes and electrical goods to the poor. But in 2002 following a request from Yokneam’s mayor, I set up Kol Halev in a 200 square meter warehouse given to me by the municipality. They asked me to focus on giving food because there were so many needy families in the region.”

Each week Kol HaLev distributes food packages containing fruit and vegetables, canned foods and other groceries to each of the families. The food is donated by local factories and stores, and individual donors and the Yokneam Municipality also give money.

Yitzhai said, “Our recipients are recommended to us by the Municipal Welfare Department. They include new immigrants from Ethiopia and the Former Soviet Union and Israeli families who are unable to work. We work hard to allow families to maintain their dignity and take a small charge of about $7 for groceries worth ten times that amount. Without us many of these families would suffer malnutrition.”

He added, “About 20 of the families come from a middle-class background – people who have fallen on hard times because they have suddenly become unemployed, gambling or other psychological problems. We give to these families secretly so as not to shame them.”

Yitzhai continued, “Indeed we are very sensitive to the dignity of our clients. We take a symbolic payment of $5 or $6 so that they should feel like consumers rather than charity recipients. It is very important. Many of our recipients are very proud and without us I fear dozens of children would suffer from malnutrition.”