Challah bakes and the blessing of children are highlights of the Jewish High Holidays but exist year-round. As Gila Block, a chocolate lover and executive director of Yesh Tikva (“There is Hope”), an organization that supports and comforts those going through the infertility struggle, explained to me: food is all about G-d’s creation process, and she’s making space for women who are seeking to bring new creations into the world with G-d’s assistance. Everyone in her group says prayers when separating challah on Fridays and sets aside an unlit candle as a plea to G-d to fill that void and bring a new neshamah into this world. In our discussion, she gave a deeper understanding of her organization’s mission, a look into events they organize around food, future programming and a revealing of her favorite OU kosher-certified chocolate product.
Steven Genack: OU Kosher sees itself as helping the community by offering kosher products and providing education to the public at large. You help the public as well, as you created the organization Yesh Tikvah, which means “There is Hope,” to give support to women going through the infertility process. Can you briefly describe how your organization provides this support?
Gila Block: Yesh Tikva was founded because there was a need to provide emotional support for a couple facing the infertility journey. Personally, I was deep into my own fertility journey, and it started as a little support group around our dining room table and from there grew into creating a space for the one in six. This references the World Health Organization’s statistic that globally one in six couples face a fertility struggle. And according to the CDC, one in five American couples will face a fertility struggle.
We began by creating direct support for those facing a fertility journey, including a peer mentorship program in which individuals on the other end of their journey are trained in empathetic and active listening to hold space for those who are currently in their struggle.
For those in the struggle, we have a primary and secondary infertility support group and we just added on a support group for Jewish adoptive parents who are navigating the journey of being a Jewish parent to an adopted child. We support individuals all the way through the postpartum phase and parenting post-infertility.
SG: Considering that you personally went through your own infertility struggle, where thank G-d you had a child and after that had two natural children, how does that affect how you run the organization?
GB: It gives me an appreciation for what everyone’s going through. So, it allows me to tap into the empathy and understanding of what a fertility journey feels like so that when others share with me, I can hold the space for them because I have a deep understanding of the experience, whether theirs looks like mine or looks differently.
I have a big picture understanding of longing and what it means to so deeply dream for and cry for and fight for bringing a child into this world that I can use. I can tap into that empathy to create resources and hold space for those who need it.
SG: Where are your primary headquarters and does your influence reach beyond that?
GB: So, we’re a national organization. We were founded in New York. Currently, our main office is in Los Angeles, but we have staff all over the U.S., including a staff member in Israel. We serve everyone worldwide. If you are Jewish and want to connect to your Jewish roots and want to experience support through the lens of your Jewish existence, that is what we are here to serve.
Most of or much of our ritual existence is around passing along the mesorah from generation to generation. Just think about it. Our holidays, our celebrations, our life cycle experiences are all around having a child and raising that child and passing along our Jewish identity and Jewish existence to that child. And so, what happens when you’re a Jewish individual living in that community and you don’t have a child?
To this end, we create the support using the Jewish lens for those facing a fertility journey. It’s about being together with other individuals who have similar life experiences as opposed to if I went to a non-Jewish support group, there wouldn’t be other people necessarily like me who understand the added existence of being a Jewish individual facing the fertility struggle.
We bring that Jewish lens and that Jewish existence into how we provide support. All of our providers are Jewish and all of our therapists who moderate our support groups are Jewish. We also have a network of 207 doctors.
We always refer in groups of two to three to empower individuals to make choices because a lot of what happens along a fertility journey is, “this isn’t how it was meant to be.” I was meant to get pregnant like everyone else around me. And all of a sudden that feels like that was taken away. And so, we work to empower an individual along their journey.
SG: A highlight of your organization’s goal, to match food with prayer, manifests itself through challah bakes. Can you elaborate?
GB: We just had our 4th annual Yesh Tikva Pre-High Holiday challah bake. We do it right before Rosh Hashanah every year and we come together. This year we had eight challah bakes in six different states. We had our first one in West Hempstead, NY, two in New Jersey, one in Edison and one in Teaneck, a challah bake in Boynton Beach, FL, one in Scottsdale, AZ, one in the Valley in California, one in the city in LA in West LA, as well as one in Houston.
The idea behind it is that first, Rosh Hashanah in general is about procuring life, and the round challah represents the cycle of life. Second, there is a lot of added spirituality to making challah and people like to tap into that.
More directly, as relating to our mission, we serve a fertility community, which means that there are individuals who are praying and longing to have a child. And this is our opportunity as a community to pause and say, we see you. We the people who are not necessarily struggling with a fertility journey. We’re going to make challah and daven for you. And we are going to make sure that even if you don’t know who we are and we don’t know who you are, you know that in the big picture we exist. This is a huge statement. We are saying that at the height of our joy and having fun with friends and enjoying cooking, we’re going to pause and make room for you as well.
We have created a fertility prayer for those who are struggling and we offer the opportunity for individuals to add their names to the list. At each challah bake we daven on those list of names and throughout the year we daven on them as well.
SG: Do you have any other food-related events throughout the year?
GB: We actually have two LA-based events that are going to be around food. We’re also hoping to have a Pre-Pesach food demo and pre-Shavuos cheese babka demo.
SG: There are many shuls that are under the umbrella of the OU. Do you also work with shuls to build a sense of community for those struggling through this difficult process?
GB: Yes, definitely. A big piece of our work is that we work together with rabbis from communities all across the U.S. and beyond. We host an annual Shabbat called Infertility Awareness Shabbat, in which we empower Shuls on their own to create support and conversation around how we can be more inclusive of those facing a fertility journey. It is right before Pesach that we host the Shabbat, and we’ve had over 200 Shuls participate over the years.
The idea behind it is that we empower each community to create more space for this conversation in a way that feels comfortable in their community. So, each community’s participation looks different from the next, but it all happens the same Shabbat.
We’re working really hard to make sure that it is an open dialogue between us and the rabbis. We definitely have created a deep connection with a lot of shul rabbis who really do internalize this struggle and it’s shifted in how we speak about it.
One example is a talking point that says there’s a way of passing on the mesorah even if it’s not in the biological and physical way. For instance, one who teaches someone else is considered their parent.
SG: Chocolate is your go-to comfort food. Do you have any OU kosher-certified favorites?
GB: The Trader Joe’s 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate Chips are definitely delicious and a great baking item.
SG: What is your vision for the future of the organization?
GB: My vision is that we continue to be able to support the one in six and struggle and build on the community that we’ve already built to ensure that no one faces a fertility journey alone. As you had mentioned, I did go through my own fertility journey and it was very lonely and isolating. And the goal is, that no one should ever feel that sense of aloneness or isolation that I felt when I was going through my journey. And that we create resources and tools for the larger Jewish community to understand how to continue to live their beautiful lives with their families but still create some space within it for those who are struggling.
SG: If someone wants to get in touch, whether they are going through the process themselves or want to volunteer to help, how would they get in touch with your organization?
GB: Well, firstly, we welcome everyone to visit our website, www.yeshtikva.org. If they wanted to personally reach out to me, my e-mail is gblock@yeshtikva.org. And if they wanted to reach out to our main support, it would be support@yeshtikva.org.