Volunteers for Israel Charters Second Plane, to Depart June 19

For the second time since the beginning of the unrest in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on Dec. 9, a planeload of hundreds of American volunteers will leave for Israel on June 19.

According to Florence Cohen, vice president and national coordinator of Volunteers For Israel, which is sponsoring the trip, more than 450 volunteers will go to Israel on the chartered El Al plane.

She said that participants in the program “will spend three weeks in Israel as civilian volunteers, living and working with Israelis at maintenance bases, kibbutzim, moshavim and in hospitals.”

“We want the people of Israel to know that we are with them at this difficult time,” she said, referring to the daily violence and clashes between Palestinian rioters and Israeli troops in the territories. The Israelis “must know they are not alone,” she said in an interview.

The new undertaking became possible after businessman Jack Mondlak contributed “a six-figure sum” toward the chartering of the plane. As a result, it was possible to reduce the cost of the June 19 flight to $399 per person.

Mondlak, who heads the Jack Mondlak Defend Israel Fund, said that the goal of his organization and VFI is to send 100,000 people from all over the world to Israel during the coming year.

Moreover, Mondlak asserted, “I hope to reach a point when we will be sending a weekly plane full with volunteers to Israel.”

Mondlak has received much public attention here in recent months after he published several full-page advertisements in The New York Times defending Israel’s policy in the territories.

On March 14, more than 600 volunteers left for Israel on a chartered VFI plane. According to Cohen, about 1,800 volunteers went to Israel in 1987 through the VFI program. She said that currently there are 200 VFI volunteers in Israel.