Every month, in our Giving Back to the Community Project , the Anglo-list features a different social service. Children in distress, special education, social justice, financial development etc. are just some of the different organizations we bring to the attention of the English speaking Oleh community.

This is our current feature:

Yad Sarah - יד שרה

Israel’s unique network of caring, innovative homecare support services. Help when you need it

With over 100 branches. There is one near you!

Receive help, volunteer or donate.

Yad Sarah, Israel’s leading organization of volunteers, was founded in 1976 to help alleviate the suffering of disabled, sick, isolated and elderly people, those homebound or wheelchair bound for any reason, and anybody needing HOME CARE.

Starting out as a one-room center for short-term lending of medical and rehabilitative equipment, it has grown into a national network of over 100 branches that provide a range of free or nominal-cost services for sick, disabled and elderly people with one overriding aim: to enable them to stay at home rather than in hospitals or institutions.

Lending medical equipment remains its best-known service, and today a stock of over 300,000 pieces of equipment ranges from wheelchairs, crutches and walkers to hospital beds, oxygen-concentrating machines, electronic baby breathing monitors, glucochecks, breast pumps - more than 300 different items in all.

Latest figures show that Yad Sarah volunteers countrywide lend an item of medical/rehab equipment EVERY TWO MINUTES.

But far beyond that, the organization runs:

A personal alarm response center which gives elderly people who live alone a lifeline for help, and relieves their families of worry. The touch of a button connects them to a reassuring, trained volunteer at the computerized main call center who sends help if needed – or calms the caller with a friendly chat.

Guidance and exhibition centers showing the range of assistive devices available to enable the disabled or frail person to function independently, and providing guidance for adaptation of the home environment.

A fleet of vans fitted for wheelchairs providing transportation to medical, social and other appointments for people with mobility problems, liberating them from their four walls. Yad Sarah has taken a disabled bride to her wedding, a grieving parent to a soldier’s grave, an eager voter to the polls

Day rehab centers serving post-CVA and others with physical, occupational and other kinds of therapy (art, music, gardening and more)
A geriatric dental clinic with specialized care by volunteer dentists, also operating a mobile unit that makes house calls.
Legal advice for the elderly
A unique play center for special-needs children and their families, including a lending library of toys, playrooms for gross and fine motor activity, creativity rooms, computer center, and guidance for families with a special needs child.
Support groups – for caregivers; for terror victims; for Parkinson patients; and more
Activities for shut-ins to keep their hands and minds active and dispel their loneliness. Crafts, volunteer visits, computer instruction, and a life stories project recording their personal histories.

Tourists Too

Visitors and tourists, too, can avail themselves of Yad Sarah’s services, whether to pre-arrange the loan of equipment for a disabled visitor, to adapt hotel rooms in advance, to arrange airport transfers in the special Yad Sarah vans or to deal with emergencies that arise during their stay.

For tourism information call 02-644-4628 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Today Yad Sarah serves more than 400,000 people a year, providing its large spectrum of services through a network of more than 100 branches all over Israel, and through over 6,000 volunteers.

It is the deployment of these volunteers that enables Yad Sarah to do its work on a shoestring operating budget of less than 80 million shekels a year. Yad Sarah is supported by donations. More than 80 percent of these donations come from the Israeli public. It is estimated that Yad Sarah saves the Israeli economy $400,000,000 a year in hospital and institutional costs.

More than two-thirds of all Israeli families have been helped by Yad Sarah at some time.

Volunteering at Yad Sarah

Yad Sarah volunteers come from every walk of life. A retired bank manager repairs equipment between loans; an artist teaches painting in the day rehabilitation center; a teacher staffs an equipment lending desk; and hundreds of non-professionals put their people-skills to work in countless important functions. Common to all of them is the feeling that they receive more than they give: the deep sense of personal satisfaction of really helping where help is really needed.

Come talk to the Yad Sarah Volunteer Placement department and see what you and Yad Sarah can do for each other.

For information about volunteering call 02-644-4411 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The spirit of Yad Sarah exemplifies the spirit of Israel: mutual help and responsibility, equality and

cooperation of all sectors, the strong hand helping the weak.

Every donation, large or small, makes a difference

Click to donate to Yad Sarah. For further information r This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 02-644-4429.