Saluting Our Volunteers

My dear friends, WIZO women,

At the beginning of September, it is only natural that our attention turns to the excitement of the new school year.

And indeed, there is no feeling of renewal quite like seeing our institutions once again filled with children’s laughter, classrooms coming back to life, playgrounds awakening from their summer stillness, and boards filling with letters and numbers.

But this year, just two days after the opening of the school year, another important moment will take place: the annual appreciation evening for WIZO Israel volunteers, held, as always, with great pride and in the presence of hundreds of our volunteer friends.

In the past, we spoke with concern about the fading spirit of volunteering in Israel, about the value of service becoming weaker, and about personal benefit sometimes overshadowing the shared national need. We were right to worry about the volunteer action on which WIZO has been built for more than a century. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, only 21 percent of Israelis over the age of 20 took part in volunteer activity, a figure lower than what we had known in previous years.

But something has happened since then.

Today, the State of Israel is overflowing with people answering the needs of the collective.

This renewed sense of responsibility can be seen in every area of life. Volunteering for elite IDF units exceeds demand. Crowdfunding campaigns are breaking expectations. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2024, 63 percent of Jewish Israelis donated money, with 27 percent donating more than 1,000 shekels. Donations from Israel and from abroad have increased by dozens of percentage points, and political and civic engagement have also risen dramatically.

The field of volunteering has also seen a significant shift.

With the outbreak of the war in October 2023, no less than 45 percent of the Israeli public over the age of 20 joined volunteer activity. This wave continued into 2024, when 30 percent of the general public, and 35 percent of the Jewish public in Israel, volunteered. Most volunteers did so through the approximately 20,000 nonprofit organizations active in Israel.

In 2025 as well, volunteering remained widespread. According to the Israeli Volunteering Council, approximately 2.1 million Israelis volunteered during the year.

Within this climate, volunteer organizations in Israel are experiencing renewed momentum, reminiscent of earlier days. The sequence of wars since October 2023 has sharpened the understanding that caring for ourselves and our families is also tied to caring for the community and society around us.

The security threats, rising antisemitism around the world, the feeling that we depend on one another, and the constant need to remain strong and alert have all led many people to mobilize, each in their own way, for the good of the collective.

It is moving. It is a source of pride. And it is the unifying answer of ordinary citizens to the voices of division that we hear too often.

And now, to us, to WIZO.

In Hebrew, the words hitnadvut, volunteering, and nedivut, generosity, are sister words. They come from the same root and sound alike. And indeed, volunteering wrapped in generosity speaks to us today from the different federations and from WIZO women around the world.

Alongside all the dedicated and committed WIZO members across the globe stand the women of WIZO Israel, who, with heads held high, serve as a model and example for us all.

This is exactly the Zionism we once knew, and the Zionism passed down to us by previous generations.

“We love you, homeland, in joy, in song, and in labor,” wrote poet Natan Alterman in his 1934 poem Morning Song. This line, which appears on Israel’s 200-shekel banknote, symbolizes an older ethos: love of homeland expressed through action.

How encouraging it is that this ethos has returned to the center of our lives, expressed through volunteering, generosity, and public involvement.

This week, we will thank those who have chosen to do this through us: the women of WIZO Israel, and with them, all WIZO volunteers around the world.

I know that within the uncertain reality in Israel and the region, we will always be able to count on them to stand behind every need, in the spirit of another line from Alterman’s same song:

“What have we not yet given, and what will we still give.”

With deep thanks and appreciation to all of you,

Anita Friedman
World WIZO Chairperson