Dozens of ZM children and their families participated in traditional Simchat Beit HaShoeva celebrations together with ZM volunteers, friends and supporters.

Groups of volunteers who regularly visit the Hadassah Medical Center children’s cancer ward and ZM children’s homes on Saturday nights to entertain the children with dancing and singing, came this year to the ZM Day Center in Jerusalem to celebrate with the children on the first night of “Chol HaMoed” Sukkot.

Popular singer Chaim Dovid Sorchik and his band immediately had everybody dancing and singing with much energy and joy.  It was inspiring to see the varied mix of people – religious and secular, old and young, haredi and knitted kippot – celebrating together.  One of the parents of a young cancer patient confessed that this holiday, whereby one is “commanded” to be happy, is simultaneously the most difficult - and the happiest - for him to celebrate. 

Zichron Menachem had prepared a beautiful “sukkah” in advance of the holiday so the party guests could enjoy an array of tasty treats when taking a break from the dancing and singing.

Several days later, during the middle of the seven-day festival of Sukkot, young men from the Chassidic “Toldoth Aharon” community joined other ZM volunteers to visit children who remained hospitalized in Hadassah’s pediatric oncology ward during the holiday.  The children got out of their beds and left their rooms with much glee.  Joy reverberated throughout the hospital ward.  The young volunteers did their utmost to entertain the children and their parents who were at their bedside.  Dancing and singing continued for hours – the children simply refused to stop dancing! 

A young boy - “M” – who’s only 7 years old was overheard exclaiming to his mother, “You see, it’s been ‘worthwhile’ after all to be in the hospital, because at home I wouldn’t have had a party like this!”