From Riverdale to Jerusalem, Chantal Belzberg honored for decades of humanitarian work

Former Riverdale resident Chantal Belzberg received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the country’s highest civilian honor, for her work supporting victims of terror and their families. 

First awarded in 1953, the prize is presented annually on Israeli Independence Day. This year, Belzberg, who co-founded the Israel-based organization OneFamily with her husband, Marc Belzberg, was recognized for building a nationwide support system for bereaved families and survivors of attacks.

Chantal Belzberg, born and raised in Belgium, moved to New York in the fall of 1986, after she and Marc were married. The two first crossed paths in New York City the year prior, when Chantal Belzberg was in town for a friend’s wedding. Her husband would be the one to introduce her to Riverdale, having settled into an apartment in The Century Tower in the late ‘70s.

“He said Riverdale is a beautiful neighborhood, you will love it,” Chantal Belzberg told The Press. “So that’s how I found out about it. I mean, I had heard of New York, but I had not heard of Riverdale.”

Over the next five years, Chantal and Marc Belzberg welcomed three children before relocating to Israel in 1991. The family made their home in Jerusalem, where they would build their lives and begin the work that led to the creation of OneFamily.

The organization’s origins trace back more than two decades, after the August  9, 2001, suicide bombing at Jerusalem’s Sbarro restaurant that killed 16 people and injured more than 100 civilians.  At the time, the Belzbergs were overseas visiting family in Canada, but the attack coincided with their daughter’s 12th birthday.

“We had planned the [her Bat Mitzvah] for the end of August, so her friends will be back in town from summer vacation, and everybody will be back from vacation,” Chantal Belzberg said.

The attack led them to cancel their daughter’s coming-of-age celebration, framing the moment as what Marc Belzberg described as an “educational project” — sending their daughter to visit victims and bereaved families alongside them and begin to understand, firsthand, what was needed in the aftermath.

“We just decided it wasn’t the right thing to come back to Israel to have a big party,” Marc Belzberg said. “This is something we’re going to take care of on a long-term basis. These are the families that need us.”

What began as a small, immediate response grew into a long-term effort supporting families affected by violent incidents across Israel. The nonprofit now serves more than 20,000 individuals, providing emotional, financial and rehabilitative assistance tailored to each family’s needs.

Over the years, OneFamily has developed a wide range of programs aimed at helping families rebuild their lives. These include therapeutic retreats and support groups for widows, parents and siblings, as well as specialized programs for children, orphans and those who have been physically wounded.

The organization also provides direct financial assistance, mentorship programs pairing young people with volunteers and community-based activities such as camps, workshops and peer support networks designed to reduce isolation and foster long-term resilience.

“The fundamental underlying idea is that you need to rebuild their social and support systems with people who went through exactly what they went through,” Marc Belzberg said.

The scope of that work expanded dramatically after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, which sharply increased the number of families requiring long-term care. Belzberg and her team mobilized quickly, scaling operations to meet the surge in need.

In practice, that approach has meant creating what the Belzbergs describe as new support networks — connecting families who share similar experiences of loss and helping them navigate the long-term effects of trauma together. Programs range from group therapy and holiday retreats to creative outlets like art workshops and community events, all designed to restore a sense of stability and belonging.

Chantal Belzberg learned she would be awarded the Israel Prize just days before Passover.

“[I was] in total shock, it’s incredible,” Chantal Belzberg said. “But I told [Marc] from the very, very beginning, to me, it was always very, very clear, this is not for me — that this is for the families.”

She described the award as a collective acknowledgment — not only of her work, but of the families who have endured loss and the staff and volunteers who support them.

“It feels like it’s for them, like the country giving them one big hug,” she said.

In announcing the prize, Israel’s Education Minister Yoav Kisch said Chantal Belzberg and her fellow laureates represent “compassion, mutual responsibility and light,” and that their work reflects a broader national commitment to those affected by tragedy.

Even after more than two decades, she said the work continues to be driven by its impact on the families themselves.

“We rebuild lives,” Chantal Belzberg said. “We really can show people that there is life alongside the pain and the trauma.”