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2 Jewish teens harness the power of their peers to address social problems — and spark a movement

In mid-2021, as the COVID pandemic raged, high school student Lily Messing noticed that the social ills plaguing her native Tucson, Arizona — including domestic violence, drug abuse and homelessness — all seemed to be getting worse.
Meanwhile, Jake Hammerman, a teenager in Lafayette, California, a suburb in the San Francisco Bay area, saw firsthand how the pandemic exacerbated the challenges facing homebound seniors, many of whom were isolated to begin with.
Determined to do something to help, the two Jewish teens put their respective skills to use: Lily as a grassroots organizer, Jake as a tennis instructor.
Lily, 17, established 100+ Teens Who Care, a nonprofit network of “giving circles” comprised of like-minded high school students who collectively select and donate to a specific local charity. Her first chapter, in Tucson, started out with 100 members and now boasts at least 220 teens. While Lily’s project began in Arizona, her impact has expanded across the United States and internationally, with 23 chapters now operating in places ranging from Idaho to Islamabad, Pakistan.
“I began the organization because I felt like teens really wanted to make a difference but lacked the coordination and opportunity to do so,” Lily said. “I wanted to give them an outlet to make meaningful change in our community.”
Jake, 18, launched Impactful Tennis in May 2020 to fund a local Meals on Wheels chapter. Under the program, volunteers offered children tennis lessons and asked that in lieu of payment parents donate the fees to that charity. Since its founding, Impactful Tennis volunteers have given over 900 tennis lessons to some 400 students, generating $39,000 in donations — not only meals for the elderly, but also for companionship and mental health services.
“My project started from my passion for tennis and also from what I was seeing on the news,” Jake said. “My grandparents suffer from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The pandemic definitely aggravated the impact of these diseases, so I really wanted to help seniors during this time of need.”
In early August, the two extraordinary Jewish teens — along with 13 others from across the United States — were honored at a ceremony in San Francisco by the Helen Diller Family Foundation, which awarded each of the 15 teens a $36,000 prize in recognition of their outstanding work innovating and leading change in their communities and around the world.
Jake Hammerman of Lafayette, Calif., came up with a way to use tennis lessons to help fund a local Meals on Wheels chapter that worked with homebound seniors. (Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards)
The Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards, whose name is Hebrew for “repairing the world,” are given annually.
Among this year’s awardees: New Jersey resident Aron Goodman, who uses TikTok to fight antisemitism by sharing first-person video interviews with his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor; Meaza Light-Orr of Los Angeles, who spearheaded a $120,000 project to fund a primary school in her birth village of Kololo, Ethiopia; and Steven Hoffen, whose nonprofit boosts food security by installing and maintaining hydroponic gardens both in Israel and his native New York City.
Since its inception in 2007, the foundation’s Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards — established by Bay Area philanthropist Helen Diller — have given away nearly $7 million to 189 recipients. The awardees use the funds to help further their projects or contribute toward their education.
“Young people are striving to solve critical challenges in their communities with creativity, hard work, resourcefulness, and a commitment to tikkun olam,” said Phyllis Cook, the foundation’s philanthropic consultant. “We are inspired by their leadership and committed to recognizing them as role models for other teens by celebrating how young people can make an impact in communities across the country.”
For Jake, who has been playing tennis since age 7, it seemed obvious that the best way to raise funds for Meals on Wheels was to give local children tennis lessons. But instead of collecting money, he’d ask the kids’ parents to donate to Impactful Tennis through a GoFundMe account.
“It started off with just me and five of my closest friends, but I knew the organization had the potential to grow much bigger,” said Jake, a rising freshman who will attend Yale this fall. The group, which only gives lessons during the summer, now has 20 volunteer instructors and charges $40 per lesson. The concept is so popular that its online sign-up sheets generally fill up within minutes.
Even though COVID largely has receded from public concern, social isolation among the elderly still persists on a massive scale, Jake noted.
For her part, Lily realized that an individual teen donating $25 might feel insignificant, but that such a donation when combined with 100 other contributions could make a real difference.
As part of 100+ Teens Who Care, each member donates $100 per year ($25 at every quarterly meeting), with 100% of the collected funds going to a selected charity. At each meeting, three vetted local charities are randomly selected for consideration. Following brief presentations by those who nominated them, members vote anonymously. The charity with the most votes receives all the funds.
Since its inception, the Tucson chapter of 100+ Teens Who Care has raised more than $30,000 to provide essential supplies to homeless youth, support mental health services for children and fund housing for those transitioning out of the foster care system. Together, the impact of her service-minded peers is far stronger than if each teen helped individually, Lily said.
“I realized I could use the Tucson chapter as a template to create other chapters, so I developed information videos to help other teens start their own chapters,” Lily said. “We’re expanding at the rate of two new chapters every month, and every chapter puts its own spin on it.”
So, for example, the 100+ Teens Who Care chapter in Palm Beach, Florida, does monthly beach cleanups, while the chapter in Portland, Oregon, hosts food drives for that city’s homeless population.
“I feel like there’s real power in getting a group of like-minded teens to come together to make the world a better place and instill the values of philanthropy at such a young age,” Lily said. “I truly hope this will carry with them for the rest of their lives.”
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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.
The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.
They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.
Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.
Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.
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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.
The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.
Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.
He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.
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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.
Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.
Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.
Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.
Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.
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