To the Goldberg family, the young victims of terrorist attacks deserve special attention and a retreat.
By MELANIE GRAYCE WEST, Wall Street Journal
To the Goldberg family, the young victims of terrorist attacks deserve special attention and a retreat.
This week, the family sponsored 350 children and teens to attend a camp with OneFamily, a Jerusalem-based organization that provides support for thousands of Israeli terror victims. The camp hosts young people ages 6 to 18.
The $150,000 gift to support the camp is in honor of William Goldberg, who died in 2003 at the age of 77. Mr. Goldberg was the legendary New York diamond dealer who founded William Goldberg Diamond Corp. and was a three-time president of the Diamond Dealers Club. (A stretch of West 48th Street off Fifth Avenue in New York is named in his memory.)
Mr. Goldberg’s family continues to run the business and carry on his philanthropic wishes. He was an early supporter of OneFamily, as well as many other Jewish and education-related causes.
“He liked to make money, but it was more important to put it toward good causes,” says Mr. Goldberg’s daughter, Eve Goldberg, a vice president of William Goldberg Diamond.
Speaking on behalf of her mother, Lili, brother, Saul, and sister, Deborah Berg, Ms. Goldberg says that the family wanted a way to honor her father every year and a camp felt like the right choice. This is the third year that the family has funded the William Goldberg Passover Camp with OneFamily.
“The work OneFamily does for these young terror victims is so amazing and moving and unique,” says Ms. Goldberg. “We were moved.”
In 10 years, OneFamily has given out about $35 million to support terror victims. The organization provides help to some 2,800 families throughout Israel, rehabilitating people who have been directly affected by terrorist attacks and the families of those victims. That includes therapy, group support and financial support.
OneFamily sponsors three camps a year. The camps serve to both relieve the tension and anxiety of victims and provide an opportunity for fun, with therapy and developing friendships as dual goals for the three-day stay.
After a terror attack, many children suffer from depression, isolation and have parents that are “absorbed in mourning,” says Chantal Belzberg, executive vice chairman of OneFamily.
Camp was important to the Goldberg children, too, says Ms. Goldberg. She went to sleep-away camps for 12 years and says that no matter the camp, it’s a great feeling for a child to get away. She says the OneFamily camp serves the purpose of helping children to “have a couple of days to get out of their own nightmares.”
Ms. Goldberg says that the family keeps her father’s philanthropy in mind when making gifts.
“He was constantly teaching and talking to us about what he felt was important,” she says. “There’s no question that a lot of his passions in life became ours.”
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