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Respondent of loss: "When we are found lost, I dance for joy" | Israel today

2021-08-13T12:51:34.891Z


Tami, an ultra-Orthodox woman who founded the "National Center for the Restoration of Lost", handles 4,000 inquiries every month


In the third pregnancy she felt suffocated.

Her lungs burned with pain.

After being able to stabilize her condition at the hospital, the doctor told her that she was breathing only a third of the air relative to normal.

"I was afraid that it would affect the development of the fetus, so I decided that if the baby was born healthy and intact, I would take it upon myself to do a good deed," says Tami L. (61).

As is customary in the internal codes of ultra-Orthodox society, she prefers not to reveal her full name, because "I am not comfortable with the spotlight."

She agreed to be interviewed only out of the hope that the "National Center for Lost Recovery," which she had set up, would benefit from the matter.

That pregnancy, from 35 years ago, ended in the birth of a healthy daughter.

It was followed by other pregnancies, all of which Tammy suffered from breathing difficulties that passed after the birth.

Today she embraces 12 children, the eldest 37 years old, the youngest 18 years old, and also grandchildren ("yes they will multiply, do not say number").

President Biden seems to have to kneel down on her twice, not only for the amount of offspring, but also for the health suffering that was involved in each pregnancy.

In 1987, six months after her third birth, she fulfilled her commitment and set up a small lost restoration center, which operated on Mount Nof in Jerusalem, the neighborhood where she lives.

Later, a branch was opened in Bnei Brak, and today the center is active throughout the country through its website and a national call center with 35 volunteers who respond to inquiries that the public leaves in a voicemail.

Each of them is responsible for a different type of loss: jewelry, wallets, computers, tefillin and more.

The center is called to report lost and found property, and when there is a match - the originator returns the lost to its owner.

The center, which handles 4,000 applications each month, serves the general public, but is better known in the ultra-Orthodox sector.

• • •

In the United States, Tami married Aryeh, 66, a former rabbi at a yeshiva who has been engaged in Torah study since his retirement.

"Until I told myself the livelihood was from heaven, and I decided to quit my job and invest my whole being in the project.

"Seven years ago I realized I had to computerize the center. The problem was money. Computer software had to be built from scratch. For a long time I was debating what to do, and at the end I said: 'If you had 13 children instead of 12, you would find money to groom the 13th child. "As the name has given money to this day, so will the computer." I hired a programmer and paid her by the hour, and within a few months she built the software. "The 13th boy's wedding" cost me NIS 50,000. "

She manages the Knesset from a laptop that stands on the dining area in the living room. The house is handsome in its modesty, and its hospitality is welcoming. She wants to demonstrate how the software built for the center works, Fail to break in, and the books do not have the name of the owner.

During the phone call, Tammy checks the database to see if one of her volunteers has entered details of a similar loss in recent days.

There is no crossover, and it puts the data it received from the police into the software, in case the case owner makes contact later.

"I know the police, especially in Jerusalem, but here, in Ramat Gan as well. I would be happy for closer cooperation with the police, so that we have access to records of losses and also to addresses and telephone numbers, so that it is easier to locate people whose property we found. Maybe some of our volunteers can To be absorbed as a volunteer in the police and to be the connecting link. "

Various sources claim that the police and the loss centers of the bus companies do not always make efforts to locate the owner of the loss.

The center's volunteers, on the other hand, are "detectives" who try to tie all ends of the thread and work resolutely to make up for the loss.

Behind every such achievement there is an exciting story, sometimes twisted, sometimes funny.

"I once found a bag with a lot of medicine on the street. I imagined that anyone who needed these medicine was very sorry to lose them. There was no identification mark, but I looked at the reception, and saw it was purchased at Hadassah Hospital. I called Mount Scopus to ask if they had a pharmacy. In general, a pharmacy for Hadassah.

"I did not know what to do. I decided not to give up, and called Ein Kerem Hospital, where I learned that they have a small pharmacy intended only for Hadassah workers. It was already a tip of the iceberg. I gave them the details of the receipt, and they were able to locate the buyer. The man is so. Excited that I insisted on finding him.

"I was happy. Every crack like that fills me with happiness and strength. I'm not a great dancer, but more than once, when we have a crossover, I just dance with joy, even though it's not really suitable for a grandmother my age anymore."

• • •

Tammy dreams of young volunteers from different sectors with access to social networks ("I do not know this, I do not even have WhatsApp, just an email"), who will help expand the activity.

She also dreams that the state will recognize that the project has national value, and will support it in accordance with the "Lost Restitution" law, which requires a person to return a lost find - or report it to the police.

I'm interested in what the most precious object they were able to return.

Tammy talks about a box of precious jewelry.

"The woman forgot her in the building elevator. One of the tenants found her. He called us to update that he found, and the woman also called us to update that she had lost. It was a simple cross. The most important thing is to write down your name and phone number on objects. "

The phone rings.

A suitcase that was forgotten on the bus a few days ago is reported.

The bus company did not locate such an item.

Tami calls Shashi Karko, a former Egged employee who has built connections with all the bus companies in the country and volunteers to locate equipment that has been forgotten in public transportation.

After about an hour, the lost suitcase calls to update that Shashi was able, by receiving the ride, to locate the driver.

It found in the storage compartment the suitcase, which continued to travel around the country away from its owner.

"Like Friday, there are other good people in the police and bus companies, that we work with together," she says happily.

"We once received a report of a wallet being forgotten on the bus," she recalls of a story she calls private surveillance.

"The credit cards were from abroad.

I imagined it was a young man who came to school.

My husband knows this population, so when he got home I asked him to start looking for the guy in overseas programs. When my husband saw the guy's name - he started laughing. It was his student.

"Another time we received a report of a case that had a phone number. Shai tried to call and could not. It was a number in England. I called myself, and what turned out? The case belonged to someone who lived in front of us, but to reach her had to call her parents in England."

A special story, which received personal treatment from Tami, was a phone call she received from a man in Ashdod, who had previously stolen property from houses and now made a reply and wanted to compensate the families and ask for their forgiveness.

"I went to Ashdod. He pointed to the houses he had stolen from, and waited outside, and I went into the house and told the story. Some took the money, but most people were excited, did not want money - and just got sick of it. That kind of Sabbath was lost, too."

yifater1@gmail.com

Source: israelhayom

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