Israel’s Supporters Flocking to Volunteer There : Assistance: Agencies that arrange trips report hundreds of requests. Fund-raising also is on the rise.

On the day the war began, Sharon Mandel, a registered nurse from West Los Angeles, decided to volunteer to go to Israel and help out any way she could.

“I’m Jewish,” Mandel said Wednesday, explaining her decision. “I’m not a religious person. I don’t speak Hebrew very well. But I just have very strong feelings toward the state of Israel. It hit me right away that Israel might really be drawn in to this, and I didn’t want to be sitting over here on the sidelines.”

So, for the last two weeks, Mandel has been trying to sign up for nurse’s work in Israel, contacting the Los Angeles office of the World Zionist Organization, the Volunteers for Israel and the Friends of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). She is still awaiting final confirmation that she can go.

Mandel is not alone. With Tel Aviv under occasional attack from Iraqi Scud missiles, Southern California organizations that routinely send volunteers to Israel say they have been swamped with hundreds of prospective helpers. Fund raising for Israel in the region also has accelerated since the conflict began.

Under the various volunteer programs, U.S. residents usually work in Israel for three weeks but sometimes for as long as six months. The travelers pay their own way--although they get a good price, with $1,000 often covering all expenses--and they are welcomed by the Israeli government, which sees such help as cementing ties between the United States and Israel.

Bill Solomon, a Santa Ana metal parts manufacturer who recently returned from a three-week volunteer mission, said he and his wife, Marjorie, would like to go back soon for what would be his third such trip.

“We spent a month at a tank base in the Negev about five years ago,” he recalled. “This time, we worked at a Navy supply base near Haifa setting up an armory, handling most of the small-arms weapons, stacking them, working on them.

“The reason we decided to go and want to go back is that it’s time to make a statement,” Solomon said. “. . . I’m an American and nothing’s ever going to change that, but as a Jew and someone who’s interested in the welfare of Israel, I feel it’s my duty to help them in every way I can, beyond just sending a check.”

Eileen Heim of Encino, a volunteer fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society, is leaving Feb. 11 with about 20 other Southern Californians on a three-week mission arranged by the Volunteers for Israel. The group is closely associated with the Israeli Army, and she will be working on military bases, performing maintenance and quartermasters chores--in her words “freeing up the soldiers to do what they need to do.”

“It’s very hard to describe, I just feel that’s where I belong now,” said Heim, who has done volunteer work in Israel twice before and whose two children celebrated their bar mitzvahs in Israel.

“I’m terribly uncomfortable reading the paper, listening to the news and feeling so distant,” she said. “Mostly, I think as a Jew that Israel is a haven and havens are to be protected. But really the bottom line is I feel I’m doing something for me. I feel wonderful and excited about going.”

Leaders of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles on Monday announced a campaign to raise $26.4 million for Israel in the first three months of 1991--nearly as much as the group raised in all of 1990. They said they plan to fly to Israel themselves next month to hold a board meeting there and express personal solidarity.

“This is the first time the civilian population of Israel has been so directly exposed to foreign attack,” said David Finegood, the federation president, “and we want to personally convey the real groundswell of support the Jews of our community feel for them.”

The Israeli government has a policy, however, of trying to keep such dignitaries out of harm’s way in case of full-scale war.

“If there is a war,” said Dan Ben-Eliezer, press attache at the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, “the government would not recommend any representative of any organization to pay a visit to Israel. At the present time, there is no war and there is not real danger.”

Ben-Eliezer drew a distinction between dignitaries and volunteers, saying that even during a war, the volunteers are welcome.

“Of course, there will be a message to everybody about the risks when Israel is in a state of war,” he explained. “Anybody who would like to come and to volunteer at any time will be very welcome, but of course if there is a danger, people will be notified about it and could return home if they wish.”

None of those interviewed expressed much thought about the danger.

Said Sara Green, a 22-year-old computer bookkeeper from West Los Angeles who plans to go to Israel on Feb. 17 to work on a kibbutz: “I’m not too fearful. The news makes it seem a lot worse than what it is. Actually, I feel safer when I’m in Israel than I do on the streets of Los Angeles. You can walk around at night, the buses are running and people are out.”

Green said also that she wants to stand up to Saddam Hussein: “He’s a madman, he’s doing insane things and he’s threatening insane things.”

Estelle Schaffer, director of Volunteers for Israel’s Los Angeles office, said that under Israeli rules, the visiting Americans are not permitted to do any fighting with the army, but are allowed to perform auxiliary work on bases removed from the action, she said.

She also said that would-be volunteers are interviewed at length to make sure they are suitable.

Those who go are given a subsidized air fare that includes medical insurance and their room and board while in Israel.

Roberta Czyzyk, director of the World Zionist Organization’s Los Angeles office, said that group’s current round-trip fare for a three-week volunteer mission is $1,028.

“We’ve received 200 calls from all over the West Coast in the last week or two,” she reported. “There are professionals, non-professionals, old people. About 10% aren’t Jews at all, they simply sympathize. We have had many, many doctors and paramedics call.”

But at present, Czyzyk said, there is no medical emergency.

“Not yet,” she said. “Right now, we are taking people to help harvest crops--tomatoes, avocados and flowers.”