SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — For Omer Halperin and his twin brother, there are many happy times with their family. The Israel-Hamas War, when it began, took away a sense of normalcy for them.
“I [woke] up in the morning, my twin called me and said, 'take your sister and come to the bunker.' I [took] her, she's sleeping, and I put her in the bunker," Halperin said.
While his family escaped the violence, some of Halperin's friends did not. Among those killed was the Mayor of San Diego’s sister region, Shar'ar Hanegev, which is where Omer and his family live.
To help the students in that region deal with the pain and trauma, the Jewish Federation and the San Diego Jewish Academy worked together to bring more than a hundred juniors and seniors to San Diego, connecting them with host families to escape the reality of home.
“Having that distance from Israel really gives them a chance to process," Zvi Weiss with the San Diego Jewish Academy said.
But, it wasn’t just a healing process for the Israeli students. It also put things into perspective for the host students.
“How there are struggles in life and how they try to overcome it and move on. Because it was a hard thing to go through," host student Sophia Williams said.
Jewish community leaders hope that this experience will bring the students closer together as one community, regardless of where they live.
"They have friends in Israel or in San Diego that they can text or call that they know they have connections and support and they have family,” President and CEO of Jewish Foundation Heidi Gantwerk said.
