Today, we met and spoke with a local hero in Beit Shean, Revava Greenblatt. Revava was born and raised in Beit El, a settlement right next to the biggest Palestinian city in Israel. She grew up and studied there until the end of high school.
Revava then made a decision that changed the course of her life. Because of religion, she could choose between serving the country in the army or through a national volunteer service. She chose national service, in which she began working with Ethiopian girls the first year, and the next year in an orthodox school in Brooklyn, New York. When she came back to Israel, she took a year off before college in which she took the Israeli version of the SAT and travelled a lot.
After a year, Revava began learning to become a social worker. When she finished studying, she and her husband decided they would go and live wherever he could find a job. Due to his office’s proximity to Beit Shean, they moved there. They soon fell in love with the city, and decided to stay permanently.
Revava has worked multiple places as a social worker. She now works as a “community” social worker- she does work with groups and communities in the city. This includes parents of kids with special needs, single moms, the elderly, aiding families with helping their elders, and providing families in need with subsidized housing.
Revava has introduced communal activities into the neighborhood in order to create a better environment for the families. One project she showed the group involved the Beit Shean women in creating a cookbook with foods that reminded them of their childhood. Revava also works with the group “2 4 8-“ a program in between Cleveland and Beit Shean. As she described it, the group’s goal is to create initiatives that members can duplicate in their own lives.
Revava stated that, when people ask her why she chooses to stay in Beit Shean and raise her kids there, she thinks how important her role is, as she wakes up every morning, needed by the community. Furthermore, she wants her children to group up not in a “bubble” like she did, but surrounded by a warm, diverse community with great education, programs, and opportunities.
Overall, Revava discussed how Beit Shean needs help as it’s community members are often people that need more help financially and with opportunities.
When asked to describe the most important qualities of being a leader, Revava said the following: You cannot insist on working and being alone. You need to be able to work with others and switch and listen to others instead of trying to jump to get things done.
One lesson that Revava told the group to bring back to Cleveland in order to raise awareness is that for years, programs have paid only attention to the younger kids, so much that people forget that older adults need help too. Most parents in Beit Shean don’t have education- they work in factories for long and hard hours. The kids have amazing opportunities, but the parents’ lives stay the same. She wishes for programs to provide adults with educational opportunities.
Finally, she described the feeling of disappointment that one with a job like hers can feel throughout the process. It is difficult to get families to trust a social worker and realize the potential for opportunity that they have. However, the true reward is in the betterment of families in the Beit Shean community.