San Diego (special) -- Rebecca Newman, national women's division president of the United Jewish Communities, recently returned to San Diego after leading a tour to Albania, Hungary and Israel to see first-hand Israeli and North American Jewish sponsored relief efforts for refugees from Kosovo, Belgrade and other portions of Serbia. 

Wherever the group of 21 American and Canadian Jewish leaders and 14 journalists who joined them in Israel went, they witnessed fear and heartbreak, and saw the gratitude with which war-tossed refugees from both sides of the conflict reacted to acts of kindness and humanitarianism. 

In Israel, Newman's tour group visited four communities: 1) Hadera, where some of the few Jews who resided in Kosovo before the outbreak of hostilities, had been taken; 2) Maagan Mikhail, where 130 ethnic Albanians are housed kibbutz-style, including one woman whose parents were recognized by Yad Vashem (Israel's Holocaust Memorial and Museum) as "Righteous Gentiles"; 3) Haifa, where Jewish students from Serbia were being accommodated; and 4) Ra'anana, where Jewish families from Belgrade and Novi Sad, mainly women and young children, were being housed in an absorption center. 

Among the Kosovo Jews in Hadera are "two sisters-in-law" whose husbands still are in Kosovo. "The women are very traumatized and very emotional because they have young children, ranging from maybe 2 to 7, and their conversation is continually peppered by crying jags and outbursts that they just can't control. They are nervous about when or if they will see their husbands again. There are still 38 Jews in Kosovo, all in Pristina, who have chosen not to leave." 

In contrast, the mother of another family which had been in Israel since Erev Pesach told the  group that "she had expected to find a warm desert and a cold people, and instead found paradise," Newman said. The family had been among the first group of refugees that was met at the airport by a media crush and which joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for seder dinner. 

A very different scene awaited Newman's tour group at Maagan Mikhail, a kibbutz overlooking the Mediterranean near Caesarea. Here, among 130 ethnic Albanians, lives a family who perhaps personify the maxim "what goes around comes around." 

During World War II, the parents of Lamija Jaha had hidden several Jews in their home and also had saved the illuminated 14th century Sarajevo Haggadah by hiding it. Now the daughter of rescuers Dervis and Servet Korkut, herself had been rescued, along with her family, by Jews. Among those who came out to greet her was Davor  Bakovic, whose mother had escaped the nazis by posing as a veiled Muslim in the Korkut home. While Newman's plane still was in Albania, workers for the Jewish Agency for Israel loaded it with 2,000 Albanian language books -- to give Israel's guests something to read in their own language. "They went crazy for the books; they " were just ecstatic to have the books," Newman said., "That was really a very

Rescuers Family -- Lamija Jaha, a Kosovo Muslim whose parents-- Dervet and Servet Kokut -- were honored by Yad Vashem for being Righteous Gentiles during the Holocaust, is flanked by her husband Valiznim and daughter Fitore at  Maagan Mikhail, a kibbutz on Israel's Mediterranean shore, where they and 108 other ethnic Albanians are  living in kibbutz housing.

 joyous visit. Although these refugees too are worried about the fate of their families, they "realize they were really on the wings of eagles; that they are among the fortunate. It was a glorious day in Israel at this kibbutz overlooking the Mediterranean with all the flowers in bloom and the kids had beautiful playgrounds, so they were very happy and appreciative." 

While the refugees in Tirana may not have been aware that Jews had come to their aid, members of the ethnic Albanian, Muslim community at Maagan Mikhael obviously were very much aware of it, "and felt quite positive about it," Newman said. "We were very near an Israeli Arab village and so the mosque was right there.  This man saw me looking over to the mosque and he said, 'yes, it is so beautiful, and we are very appreciative of the fact that we have been brought somewhere where we are near a mosque and can visit it if we want.

Kosovar children at Maagan Mikhail are happy to receive Albanian language books

We can go and pray.' They do have prayers at the kibbutz every day.... They are grateful." 

Near Haifa, at a youth aliyah village, there were Jewish children from the Serbian side of the conflict. "Some of them were obviously happy to be in that free surrounding with kids their own age, traveling around the country doing some studying," Newman said. But there also were "some who missed their parents, resented being sent away by their parents. Some of these kids, interestingly enough, had been in Israel before. They had been on vacation there with their family. These were people whose lives had changed dramatically. So there was the whole gamut." 

As in Budapest, Newman said she saw at the youth aliyah center "a lot of raw emotion, a lot of trauma. The young people, the group that we had lunch with, they really wanted to keep us at arm's length. They really didn't want to let down their guard. They were between 16 and 20 and you would see their chins quivering, and when you would ask them when was the last time they spoke with their parents or were they making friends here, they would lose their cool a little bit and they didn't want us to see that." 

The final visit, to Ra'anana, also was emotional. There, about 60 Jewish families from Belgrade and Novi Sad, live without their husbands and fathers. "The women are organizing; they want to become political; they want to guarantee that their men get to come to Israel, or that they go home," Newman said. "They already have a list of things they want to accomplish in the absorption center. Here there are all these children, holding onto their mothers, asking 'where is dad?' and your heart just goes out to them. There is just a lot of unhappiness."