Staying in touch - thanks for doing your part

Welcome!

The work of the Malki Foundation since its establishment in 2001 has been positive in ways that take some explaining. After all, no one is cured of an illness by the things we do here.

Our focus is on families who care - as we do in our own family - for a child challenged with serious special needs. We could do everything right, provide all the possible help and support, and still find that the family benefitting from what the Malki Foundation provides would have those same challenges, and the child would remain with those same special needs.

So how can it be said that the Malki Foundation's work is positive? Or that it has achieved anything?

Providing the answer to that is not so easy. It involves understanding why families do things for those in their immediate circle that call for an effort that might be quite large and difficult, and get or expect a small result or even none at all.

Our daughter Malka Chana Roth was one of the victims of the Hamas terror organization's attack on one of the most high profile Israeli sites they were able to identify at the time: a pizza shop located right on Jerusalem's busiest intersection. We know from the perpetrators who survived the attack and later were put on trial that impact was at the heart of their plan. That's why they sought out a place that attracted children.

No one can doubt they succeeded in their hideous plan. The foundation we set up in the immediate aftermath of the massacre at the Sbarro pizza shop was never going to bring back any of the lives lost that day or heal any of the bodies injured so cruelly there that day. But that was never part of the plan.

In one of our first mailers, back in February 2002, we described our hopes for the Malki Foundation this way:

Keren Malki was created to honor Malki’s life and achievements, and especially her love of children with special needs. It exists to help families raising children with severe disabilities by providing special-purpose equipment like wheelchairs, baths and lifting equipment, and at-home therapy services. Families who wish to keep a special child at home should be encouraged and supported. Keren Malki is working to create that environment in Israel. This will take time, and lots of support. 

In the dozen years since writing that, my colleagues and I have remained as true as we can to those original goals. We have a tight focus today on doing just a handful of well-chosen things that honor Malki's life and encourage and support families who wish to keep a special child at home.

Via this blog, we plan to share some of what we are learning, and show how well our programs achieve their goals. We value hugely your interest in knowing more about the Malki Foundation's work.

Arnold Roth, Honorary Chair
The Malki Foundation
Jerusalem