A Frum New Jersey resident who moved to Israel many years ago, has lost everything in the terrifying blaze which hit Israel.

In 2007, Aish ran a featured article about Yoram Raanan.

“Yoram Raanan’s studio is a playground. It’s the size of a basketball court, with hundreds of paintings, in various stages of completion, dotting the landscape — on the walls, on easels, and scattered all over the floor. This is where he creates some of the Jewish world’s most prized works of art.

“Originally from New Jersey, Raanan grew up in a traditional, but not strictly observant home. He drifted from Judaism for a while and then, while on a worldwide trip, he ended up in Israel and was brought to Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem. “I spent a week there and heard ideas that resonated with me deeply,” he says. “But it was too intense. So I went down to the Sinai desert and spent two weeks processing everything that I’d heard. At that point I was ready to come back to Jerusalem and start taking Torah seriously.” (Read more about his art here.)

Now, it’s all gone – 40 years of his work, and his Parnassah.

A fundraiser has been started to try and help him get back on his feet.

“40 years of work just went up in flames…. as the Raanan’s Moshav, Beit Meir, was encircled in fires Thursday night.

40 years of love, 40 years of sweat and tears, 40 years of genuine devotion to a career that would allow people like you and I to have stunning images of Geulah (Redemption), to be inspired, and to contemplate that-which-is-beyond in royal color and glory.

The artwork we are so devastated to have lost is also the livelihood that the Raanan family just kissed goodbye.

Meira says that “Yoram is taking this with absolute faith and acceptance… but he needs to start all over….”

So yallah let’s give as though this was our husband’s/father’s/our own personal livelihood lost (chas v’shalom)… let us give with hugely open hearts…

let’s give with the dream and the deepest prayer that infinitely high Divine inspiration come down spiritually for Yoram and that an abundance of physical blessings showers down too… new supplies, with room to paint in, and money for dinner along the way.

Blessings of strength, renewel, hitchadshut and love to and from the community.”

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