The Power of One: Miracle of Kindness In The Holy Land
Safe Haven for Donkeys brings Israelis and Palestinians together.
by Pamela Benbow, Best Friends Network I have always been impressed by the power of one: one person whose talent, character, and vision coalesce to create a wholly new thing.
It has been six years now since Lucy Fensom left her job as a British Airways hostess, moved back to Israel, and officially transformed a dream into reality. Before her career with BA, Lucy had managed the cattery at the Jerusalem Society for the Protection of Animals. Living in Israel, she had witnessed firsthand the terrible cruelty inflicted on donkeys throughout the Holy Land. In Lucy's words, donkeys are "often enslaved as beasts of burden, beaten, neglected, tortured for fun by children, and then finally left to die when they have outlived their usefulness."
An encounter with a badly wounded donkey resulted in negotiating his purchase from his Bedouin owners. Lucy named the rescued donkey "Donk," and this one donkey changed Lucy's life forever.
Late in the year 2000, with Donk safely in England, her airline career behind her and start-up funds in hand, Lucy returned to Israel. Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land, or SHADH, was born in Ramla near Jerusalem, and Lucy chose the name of her sanctuary carefully. The land of Israel and Palestine is sacred to all three of the world’s great monotheistic religions–Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
What Lucy has achieved in the intervening six years verges on the miraculous. Here's something of how she has done it.
Lucy herself suggests a modern-day version of “the Mistress of the Animals.” That powerful ancient symbol and archetype was found throughout the eastern Mediterranean for thousands of years, in the form of a goddess surrounded by the animals. You might recognize this image in the goddess Artemis of ancient Greece, or in one of several female goddesses linked to animals in Canaan, part of which is now the Holy Land.
It is also easy to see in Lucy the image of the strong and protective mother. An expatriate from the United Kingdom who bore her own child in Israel, Lucy is a woman gifted with a profound love of animals and people, abundant courage, fierce determination, generosity of spirit, and a compelling, luminous charisma.
The Holy Land itself permeates all that Lucy does. It’s the land where every hill and stone and tree is drenched in history and divinity, and all these elements merge, like colors in a kaleidoscope, to reveal not a person but a place: the home of Lucy’s sanctuary and rescue centre for donkeys who have been abandoned and abused. This Eden-like refuge, lined by avocado orchards, lemon and orange trees, is located on farmland at Moshav Gan Yoshiyya near Netanya, only five miles from the volatile Palestinian Territory of Tulkarem. One hundred donkeys, several horses, a mule, and Lucy's beloved cats call the place home.
This sanctuary of healing and peace is Lucy’s creation. I first saw her story in the March/April 2002 issue of Best Friends Magazine. I will never be able to explain why my introduction to Lucy Fensom resulted in my love affair with donkeys, but before I could say “Lucy who?” I'd adopted Muffin. He was my first adoptee and Lucy's first rescue, along with his mother, from an Arab village. Muffin at the time of his rescue was one day old. The previous day, Lucy had found Muffin's mother, Molly, lying on the ground, wounded and tied to a broken chair. Not only had Molly lost a hoof, but Lucy couldn’t even tell that Molly was pregnant. But the next day, when Lucy returned to save the desperate donkey, she found not only Molly but the tiny, wobbly Muffin!
Muffin was my beginning, for he opened me up to the transformative idea of adopting an animal halfway around the world. Yet Muffin and Molly’s story is only one of many difficult and sometimes thrilling rescues. Contacted by an International Observation Force member who kept seeing an abandoned donkey in a terrible state, Lucy and her visiting parents rode rescue over the hills to Jerusalem and beyond, toward the conflicted Palestinian city of Hebron. It was pitch black as the rescue trailer was stopped by Israeli soldiers:
"NO WAY! We can't let you through, you have Israeli car number plates and you're an obvious target for terrorists. Today, four terrorists were killed and tempers are flying in there."
Many pleas and phone calls later, Lucy and her comrades made it through the checkpoint south of Jerusalem, far from Safe Haven, and entered Palestinian territory. The rescuee turned out to be an aged female donkey called Mabel, thin, blind in one eye, the other eye missing. As Lucy later tells the story, she felt vulnerable and apprehensive on this "slightly dangerous" mission; but she did it, she rescued Mabel, and that’s what separates Lucy from most of us.
In fact, Lucy’s upbeat but steely determination often sees the bad turn into good. It has long been SHADH’s dream to build a series of “resting stations” for working donkeys in local towns and villages. Lucy wants to use these as a base for free veterinary clinics in order to reach out to the thousands of neglected and ill-treated working donkeys in the Holy Land.
In July 2005, Lucy opened her first resting station to treat these donkeys, this one in the Arab-Israeli village of Tayibe, near the border with the Palestinian Territories. But in late September (2005), Lucy was sickened to learn that their successful resting station had been reduced to rubble by bitterness and a vandalizing bulldozer! Through that small shelter, Lucy had brought Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, and Palestinian Arabs together in one place, where they could be seen patting each other on the back, smiling and shaking hands. Lucy was heartbroken but vowed to continue the weekly clinics.
Then a savior appeared. A retired Arab-Israeli schoolteacher who lived nearby, a compassionate man and lover of animals, offered his own land free of charge to build another shelter. The new resting station is now bigger and better than ever. It will apparently take more than a mindless act of sabotage to stop Lucy and the SHADH team from helping the needy donkeys of the Holy Land.
Most recently, Lucy has begun to minister to donkeys and mules actually within the Palestinian Territories. During the 2006 war in Israel and Lebanon, she continued to travel while the conflict raged, crossing the border into the Palestinian Territories to the village of Beit Lid to hold her regular clinic. Lucy reported that the villagers, Palestinian Arabs, and their 100 donkeys were very grateful that she continued to help their animals in a time of war.
There is so much to tell you about Lucy’s beautiful and courageous work. Her husband, Adi Zahor, a fine photographer, also works at the Sanctuary. Their son Robert, born in Israel almost three years ago, already helps with the donkeys and has even ridden rescue missions with his mum!
In fact, Lucy is most concerned about the children of the Holy Land and works constantly to change their feelings toward donkeys, other animals, and people, too. In the Best Friends Magazine article, which introduced me to this amazing woman, Lucy said:
“I want to take the children’s minds off killing and teach them about compassion through the care of donkeys. One day, I want to bring Jewish and Arab children together under one roof at my sanctuary.”
That was in the spring of 2002. Today, despite the recent war, Lucy works with unshakeable faith--Lucy is a faith-filled woman--toward her goals. And on the way, the donkeys are becoming our teachers.
Alongside the day-to-day running of sanctuary and rescue centre and the expansion of veterinary outreach, Lucy is planning an education program to reach out to the hearts and minds of the Israeli and Palestinian people. By creating a visitors' centre for both local children and tourists as well as an information project for local farmers and schoolchildren, Lucy hopes to change peoples' attitudes towards the donkeys, thereby creating a better future for them. And as of August 2007, Lucy has established regular outreach clinics in fourteen Palestinian villages!
I have always been impressed by the power of one–one person, one grand idea emerging at just the right time–and luminous Lucy Fensom exemplifies that power for me.
But that mysterious, transformative power doesn’t always appear in human form. I could never have guessed the force of one tiny donkey, born of an abused, crippled, and abandoned mother in an Arab village in Israel. Now all my thoughts of donkeys, both Biblical donkeys and present rescuees, all the mystery of the Holy Land, all the strength of Lucy Fensom’s courageous work for kindness and peace--all these I see in the beautiful, grown-up, happy face of Muffin.
One woman. One donkey. One miracle of kindness in the Holy Land.
Photos: Adi Zahor/SHADH Top: Lucy Fensom and donks at Sanctuary near Netanya in Israel; Lucy and Beauty, the mysterious rescued mule; donkey cart in the Palestinian Territories; Lucy and son Robert survey the Sanctuary; Head shot of Muffin all grown up
How You Can Help Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land relies entirely on donations to continue this work for both donks and peace. Please visit Lucy and the donks at the Sanctuary:
Click here for a virtual visit to the Sanctuary!