I am very fortunate this week to have all my children and grandchildren with me for a family simcha. Such a blessing is not taken for granted.
There are those who are not so blessed and suffer the anguish of infertility, especially in Jewish society, which puts such high value on our offspring. These couples invest enormously, both financially and especially emotionally, in treatments to have children, and when the treatment is unsuccessful, the “downer” is very hard to bear.
The contrast between the noise and fullness of a family gathering and the deafening silence that can settle over a home after another failed round of fertility treatment sits heavily.
In Israel, children are not simply a private joy. They are part of our national consciousness, our collective resilience, our continuity after generations of loss. The blessing of “pru u’revu” (Be fruitful and multiply) is woven into daily life, into advertisements, conversations, and communal expectations. When parenthood does not come easily, or at all, the pain is sharpened by that surrounding reality.
Infertility is not only a medical condition. It is an emotional marathon marked by hope, anxiety, invasive procedures, hormonal storms, and constant waiting. Each cycle begins with cautious optimism and often ends with grief that is both deeply personal and oddly invisible.
Israeli organization helps infertile couples
Friends and family may mean well, but words falter. Silence descends. Life moves on for everyone else, while the couple feels stuck in place, nursing disappointment yet again.
In Israel, to our credit, the state provides substantial medical support. But what is far less discussed is the emotional crash after failure, the day after the phone call, the blood test, the quiet confirmation that “it didn’t work this time either.”
At that moment, couples are often exhausted, raw, and in no condition to “try again” or make long-term decisions. They need space. They need air. They need time.
This is where Keren Ohr changes lives – quietly, modestly, and profoundly.
KEREN OHR was founded in 2019 by a group of people who had experienced the emotional and spiritual toll of infertility themselves, and decided to respond by creating something radically different: not another fertility program, but a place of rest.
At the heart of its founding are Shmuli Falk and his wife, Chana. After nearly seven years of infertility, dashed hopes and emotional turbulence, a journey all too familiar to many, they were finally blessed with a daughter. That personal experience moved them deeply, and they understood intimately what couples endure: the pain, the loneliness, the feeling of unending struggle.
Out of that pain grew a vision, a “ray of light,” a place where couples could step out of the endless cycle of shots, tests, appointments, and heartbreak; a place where they could just be, together, and begin to heal.
With the help of their partners, including Yoni Palmer, who also endured a long infertility journey before the birth of his daughter, what was once a dream became a living reality.
Keren Ohr’s model is disarmingly simple. They offer short stays, a few nights, a weekend, or several days, in serene, private accommodations located in peaceful corners of Israel. These retreats are not therapy sessions: there are no mandatory support groups, no professional counseling required, no rigid schedule. Rather, the emphasis is on giving couples the gift of undisturbed time together, time to rest, reflect, cry, or even do nothing.
For many couples, this “time-out” is not a luxury but a lifeline. It is the difference between carrying on with numbness or re-engaging with life, re-engaging with each other as partners and as human beings. As one couple put it after a stay: “You have created a place that simply hugs you!”
Others described their stay as the moment when, for the first time in weeks, they began to feel like themselves again: not “patients,” but spouses, friends, people.
WHAT BEGAN with a single retreat outside Beit Shemesh has grown. Today, Keren Ohr maintains multiple “respite homes” across Israel, in locations such as Neve Michael, Tzfat, Ashkelon, and Netanya, allowing them to offer this vital pause to many more couples in need.
Over time, Keren Ohr has also expanded beyond just offering rest. They now operate additional support initiatives such as a mentoring program, provision of warm meals to couples on difficult treatment days and a loan of books, games, and other distractions to help ease the pain.
In a society that deeply values family and lineage, couples struggling with infertility often feel invisible while living in plain sight.
The external support, medical care, financial subsidies, even well-meaning advice, is often available.
But what happens when the tests end, and the result is another disappointment? There is often nowhere to go. The home becomes a pressure cooker of grief. The streets, once full of strollers and baby cries, begin to feel like a silent reproach.
Keren Ohr recognizes that crisis is not only in the body, but reverberates in the soul, the relationship, the home. Their response is rooted not in technology or medicine, but in humanity, in compassion, modesty, connection, and the Jewish value of hessed (kindness).
Their founders took their own heartbreak and transformed it into a refuge for others.
It is a reminder that sometimes, healing does not come through intervention, but through rest. Through stillness. Through being seen and held, even by strangers.
AS I sit surrounded this week by children and grandchildren, laughter and noise and balagan (chaos), I am painfully aware that not everyone has this gift. Gratitude demands responsibility.
So, I want to make a plea: If you are one of those fortunate people who owns an apartment or house that is not in use all the time – a holiday home, an investment property, a place that often stands empty – please consider allowing Keren Ohr to use it for these couples.
It is a profound mitzvah, performed quietly, at no cost to you, yet with immeasurable impact. You will never see the tears that soften into calm or hear the conversations that begin healing. But you will have helped restore a piece of someone’s humanity at a moment when they desperately needed it.
And that, in any moral accounting, is priceless.
I encourage you to visit kerenohr.com and consider opening your spare space.
You may think you are giving a few days of lodging; in truth, you may be giving a lifeline.
The writer is a rabbi and physician. For more of his work, visit: rabbidrjonathanlieberman.substack.com and youtube.com/@rabbidrjonathanlieberman.
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