Near the northern Israeli town of Metulla, Ophir Bez runs the family’s orchard business. On 25 acres, they plant pears, apricots, cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, and apples whose taste and quality are revered in Israel and around the world.

Last year, however, his harvest was left rotting in the fields, as the Hizbullah shelling from Lebanon prevented him from picking the fruit. The Bez family lost almost all their annual income. But, as Zeev Bielski, chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, tells the story, Bez had a message for Hizbullah. The day that the cease-fire took effect, Bez’s crews were back in the fields, defiantly gathering whatever fruit they could in order to tell Israel’s enemies, “We will not be beaten.”

The spirit of the Bez family is the spirit of Super Sunday, the annual daylong fund-raiser of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey. Each year, hundreds of community volunteers call thousands of people in the community, urging them to support the federation and its work at home, in Israel, and around the world. Every year, the needs and challenges grow. An expanding elderly population needs the care provided by federation-supported senior facilities. Schools that nurture the next generation of Jews need resources to maintain their excellence. Agencies need help to provide the community with a rich diet of arts, culture, and Jewish learning.

And in Israel, of course, the second Lebanon war left deep wounds. Its victims included schoolchildren who now flinch at the sound of car alarms, as well as adults who have yet to recover from the economic damage inflicted by the war. Federation dollars, through its partnership with the Jewish Agency, go to the kinds of services that can set Israelis like Ophir Bez on the road to recovery.

As Bez can tell you, each pledge on Super Sunday plants a seed that helps the community grow and flourish. Every gift bears fruit. And every dollar sends Bez’s defiant message: We will not be beaten.