Love letters to Israel: stars raise £960k with historic literary homage

Actress Debra Messing, Israeli model Bar Refaeli, Maureen Lipman and Michael Aloni came together on Sunday 30th June as part of an extraordinary literary fundraiser in partnership with UJIA for the reconstruction of Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than 120 residents were murdered on October 7th. 

More than 800 guests gathered at a West End venue for ‘Letters, Light & Love’, as performers recounted epistles from writers including Julius Caesar, Maimonides, Golda Meir, Sir Moses Montefiore, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.

The three-act script consisted entirely of letters highlighting the historic link between the Jewish people and the land of Israel spanning thousands of years.

They included notes written by Gaius Norbanus Flaccus, Roman politician and general, 38BC; Moses Maimonides to Rabbi Yaphet bar Eliyahu the Judge, 5 May, 1165; Stephen Norman, Herzl’s grandson, on his first visit to Palestine, 1945 – 1946; Esther Cailingold, mortally wounded defending the Jewish Quarter, May 26, 1948; excerpts from a letter Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote in 2001 and a final letter written by Alkana Wiesel, who fell in battle in the southern Gaza strip in Jan 2024.

The performances were accompanied by live music and songs, with Israel’s Eden Golan making her London debut by singing “October Rain,” the original version of her Eurovision performance “Hurricane”.

The London cast also included: Rona Lee Shimon, Rachel Riley, Howard Jacobson, Louisa Clein, Eve Barlow, Lee Kern, Loay Al Shareef, Elliot Levey, Allan Cordunner and Noa Bodner and Ester Rada.

The event raised £960k for the rebuilding of the kindergartens, nursery and playgrounds at Kibbutz Be’eri shattered by Hamas terrorists on October 7th. On that Black Shabbat, one-tenth of residents were massacred and a further 26 residents were taken hostage.

Be’eri survivor, 54-year old Yigal Chitrit told the assembled guests that it was unthinkable that he and 1,100 others now found themselves “homeless in our homeland”.

He added that since October 7th, “our community has been scattered across Israel, most of us living in hotel rooms for nearly 9 months. I never imagined that the day would come when I would not be able to make an omelette in my own kitchen, sleep in my own bed, use my own bathroom, have my own space. I don’t want to be a displaced person- I want to be home with my community.

“I long to see my kibbutz alive again, the mothers pushing their strollers full of babies, the children running everywhere; laughing, crying, singing. The teenagers hanging out, carefree and making plans for their futures. I am asking you to help us write our new story, to help us rebuild our home, our kibbutz, our community on the Gaza border. We want our story to be one of hope, one that honors the memory of those that were killed. We don’t want the events of October 7th to be our only story.”

Mandie Winston, chief executive of UJIA, the charity partner for the event said: “This vital project is crucial to helping young families to return to Kibbutz Be’eri and the target of £1 million to be raised in a single evening shows the scale of the challenge and our determination to work until the community is able to realise its dream of going home. Together, we can make sure that Israel emerges from the ashes of 7th October stronger and more resilient than before.”

Sarah Sultman, creator and co producer of the original event included her own personal Israel gap year letter to her sister in the show, telling Jewish News it was “wonderful to hear it performed on stage.”

She added that it was almost impossible to choose a favourite missive from the two-hour script because ever single one “was so deliberated over and discussed. We had enough letters to stage five different shows of content!”

If she had to choose, she admitted she’d likely use the letter written by Officer Hoshaiah to Yaush, the commanding officer at Lachish, 588 – 586 BCE, because “it is 3,500 years old and a remarkable testimony to our indigenous connection to Israel.”

On her inspiration for putting the performance together, Sultman said: “We are a people with a rich history and connection to Israel that spans centuries. We researched and collected hundreds of letters from the thousands, if not millions that exist; this show is just a mere drop in the ocean of those narratives.

“We hope that other diaspora communities around the world will take this script and adapt it for themselves and stage it so that the letters continue to create new stories of renewed hope, connectivity and pride in our homeland.”

She told Jewish News the team behind the project are having initial conversations with Jewish communities in Toronto, Los Angeles and New York City with a view to staging performances.

Michal Noé, co-producer of the event, said: “The team behind Letters, Light and Love have been incredible. Cast, crew and individuals have all given generously of their time and their talent and come together to remind us at this critical moment in Israel’s history of the joy and pride we all have for our homeland.”

The letters were sourced from archives including The National Library of Israel, Otzarot, The Shazar Centre via the Jerusalem Foundation, the Hazi Ovadia Archive, The Palmach Library, The Weiner Library London and the University of Cambridge Library.

• To support the UJIA Kibbutz Be’eri campaign, click here.