During summer break,  NYHS junior Levi Schiffmann began a nonprofit called ShekelAid to help Airbnb owners who have been impacted by the ongoing war in Israel’s southern region. 

Through ShekelAid, donors can send Airbnb owners money that they would have otherwise received if there were more tourism activity in the area. ShekelAid lets people from all around the world send in donations to these Airbnb hosts by booking a “virtual stay” to donate money to the host; 100 percent of the money that is donated goes to the families who are in need. 

“[You’re giving them] what you think a night at their house would cost, but as a donation,” Schiffmann said. 

ShekelAid is midway through the four to six-month-long process of becoming a tax-deductible nonprofit. 

Over the past two years, since the terrorist attacks of October 7th, over a thousand Israelis have been murdered, and the war has caused the number of tourists to Israel. According to the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, in 2023, 3 million tourists visited Israel, excluding day visitors and cruise passengers. However, so far in 2025, there have only been 800 thousand; that is a decrease of more than 2 million tourists. 

“My mom gave me the idea, and I thought it’d be a good way to help from all the way back in America,” said Schiffmann.

 “It’s not really easy to help them all the way in Israel, so I thought it was a pretty innovative way to help out.” 

There are many ways for us to help out people who are in need in Israel, but using ShekelAid is a new and efficient way to gain traction in this specific domain of charity. 

According to Schiffmann, the website for ShekelAid was released this past October, and from now on, people will be able to send their donations at ShekelAid.com. 

A few families will be on the website to start that you can donate to, but there will progressively be more people to donate to, depending on how well the website does. The plan for the nonprofit is for it to become a large, impactful organization and for as many people who need assistance as possible to benefit from it.

“I’m trying to have a massive global charity that people from all around the world can help support,” Schiffmann said.