It was Nurit Levy’s experience accompanying her husband, then-Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy, to visit shelters for women fleeing domestic violence that inspired her to found the Israeli nonprofit With You All The Way in late 2022. Her idea was to help women with the social, economic, personal, familial and professional challenges that lie in wait once they leave shelters or transitional housing by pairing them with highly-trained volunteer mentors who could guide and support them in their journey forward over a period of at least two years. 

“Our aim is that every woman who leaves the shelter will have a volunteer mentor to accompany her,” said Levy. “Our other goal is to create a list of professionals and maintenance workers just for women who have left the shelters who are willing to help them. In this way we hope to be a supportive community for these women.”

But who would be the volunteer mentors?

Enter B’nai B’rith Israel.

Following a rigorous selection process and three-month training course, the first cohort of 40 female volunteers from B’nai B’rith Israel has been working at three shelters in locations across the country for about three months now, with plans to expand to other areas in the north and south. (Because of security concerns for the women in the shelters, Levy asked that the exact locations not be revealed.) The program is being carried out in conjunction with Woman to Woman, an Israeli nonprofit that has been serving women and children who have experienced domestic violence for more than four decades. 

With its spirit of voluntarism and social activism, B’nai B’rith was the clear choice for bringing in quality volunteers, said Levy. Still, the screening process was selective: Out of the 80 women who registered for one training course, for instance, only 16 were selected to continue, she said.

The mentoring project is being directed by Revital Sharabi, and data to evaluate the project is being collected by Einat Levy-Gigi of the Faculty of Education at Bar Ilan University, said Levy.

A report released by the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs in late 2023 indicated an increase in the number of people who received treatment at centers for prevention and treatment of domestic violence, with some 9,153 women and 2,959 men receiving care in 2022, compared to 8,670 women and 2,944 men the previous year.

Though the number of women and children in shelters between January and mid-November 2023 until Nov. 15 showed a decline of about 17% and 21% compared to 2022, the report estimated that after the war there will be an increase in the numbers of women needing shelter with their children. The ministry increased the number of available rooms in existing facilities and opened two new domestic abuse shelters in 2023.

Israeli social service agencies do provide professional assistance to the women when they leave the shelters, said volunteer and B’nai B’rith Israel chapter president Nurit Hershkowitz, 73, but the role of the new volunteers is to be more like a friend or a member of the family who the women can just call to vent or ask for help with some mundane tasks.

“Our role as companions is to be a kind of mentor, a friend, a relative, to be someone they can move forward with,” said Hershkovitz, who works as a career counselor. “Someone who can be called at almost any hour.”

The project focuses on providing support to women as they begin having to answer basic needs such as finding an apartment, opening their own bank account, registering their children for school in a new area and dealing with Israel’s insurance, employment and other social service agencies. 

“There are women who leave the shelter with nothing, without anything tangible, but they also go out with a lot which the shelter helped them recover, like their abilities and their self-confidence,” said Hershkowitz. “Such women still have to open a new chapter in their lives.”

Naomi Shahar, adviser to the president of B’nai B’rith Israel on volunteering, said volunteers were screened for their flexibility, openness to diverse lifestyles, inclusiveness, personal connection and patience, as well as their ability to withstand challenges and cope with frustrations.

“It was very important to us that the volunteer who enters the escorting process knows that she is committed to persevere in it until the end. This is in order to give the woman she accompanies the tools to face the new challenges of her life, but also a sense of security in the relationship, trust and continuity,” said Shahar.

Over the three-month course, participants were given tools to understand the nature of the different types of trauma, fear and violence, Hershkowitz said. Not all domestic violence is physical and visible, she noted: Sometimes the “silent abuse” is worse because it can’t be seen, such as when a woman is denied access to money by her partner and is distanced from her family and friends, or her self-confidence and self-worth is destroyed by constant verbal abuse.

“I didn’t understand that when a woman leaves a shelter she has to start a new life chapter, and how helpless she is sometimes. Now it is completely clear to me,” said Hershkowitz. “This is actually where we come into the picture, after having received all the tools.” 

Discretion and protecting the privacy of their mentees is also emphasized, she noted.

Though a long-time volunteer with organizations that help people in crisis, such as with the Eran mental health hotline, Hershkowitz said she discovered she knew very little about the reality facing domestic abuse survivors.

“What I learned in the process is that when they are in the shelter, they are protected, and it is like a womb. It’s a very, very protected place. There are cases where women do not leave this place for several months, not even to go have a cup of coffee or go to the beach. The women are in the shelter with their children and do not leave it,” she said, “because they are afraid. It is fear, fear, fear and the need to protect themselves. Sometimes [the danger] reaches the level of death threats.”

She noted that despite the stereotypes of who abused women are, highly educated and accomplished women also find themselves in the vortex of an abusive relationship.

The program also includes support meetings once every three weeks for the volunteers, who are often privy to very difficult details about the abuse the women suffered and must learn to set boundaries while providing needed support, said Hershkowitz. 

“Of course I listen to her, and I try to be very attentive to her, but I try to see how I can help her while maintaining boundaries,” she said. “One of the things we learned in the course is to maintain these boundaries. It’s hard. Sometimes you want to come and say here, I have a couch that I don’t need, take it. Or I’ll buy you food. But that is not the goal. The goal is to help them become independent once again.”