Donate
No one should have to travel the journey of loss alone.
Support Knafayim’s community of compassion and care for bereaved parents.
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Calls answered anytime of the day or night
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Educated physical, practical, and emotional support
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Trusted relationships in 25+ medical centers
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Honoring the process of life and the journey of grief
The first hours
What happens after the phone rings
Someone picks up. Not a voicemail, not an intake queue: a woman who has walked this road herself, at whatever hour the call comes. Within hours, someone can be at the hospital beside her.
None of it is billed. Not the call, not the doula, not the burial, not the packet.
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Guidance & Referrals
One call, answered at any hour by someone who has walked this path: the diagnosis in plain language, a family's rav and their doctors put in the same conversation, and referrals to specialists who know this ground.
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In-Hospital Support
Presence and advocacy through admission, delivery and discharge, with a family's wishes and halachic needs carried to the staff. Knafayim's volunteers are known to many labor and delivery departments.
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Emotional Doula Services
A doula trained in perinatal bereavement, at the bedside through labor when the baby will not be coming home. She guides the choices of those hours with no pressure in any direction.
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Final Arrangements
Taharah, kevurah, the chevra kadisha, the kever and the hospital paperwork, coordinated by Mr. Yehuda Roth alongside the family's own rav. Families are told exactly as much as they wish to know and no more.
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Care Packets
Lingering Dreams for early loss, Whispers in the Night for stillbirth, at a bedside or a doorstep within hours: words for what she is feeling, a journal, music, and small tokens assembled by mothers who have been there.
After the first week
The part that lasts for years
In the first week, people come. By the second month, the phone is quiet again.
Knafayim is still there years later, on the yahrtzeit, on the due date, whenever the wave returns. That is the half of the work that has to already exist before anyone needs it.
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Support Groups
Thirteen groups run at a time, each led by a licensed clinician, each narrow enough that nobody has to explain herself. Joining begins with a private conversation, so nobody is dropped into a room at random.
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Teleconference Series
Anonymous evenings with therapists, doctors, rabbanim and mothers who have lived it, on the subjects with no other forum: starting again, jealousy, marriage after loss, the yomim tovim without your baby.
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Therapeutic Support
Careful matching to clinicians who specialize in perinatal loss and reproductive trauma: the right therapist, the right modality, the right cultural fit. For families in financial distress, Knafayim sponsors the sessions.
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Messages of Hope
Mrs. Klaristenfeld's erev Shabbos message, written every week and read by thousands of parents in the quiet before candle-lighting. It names what hurts, and it always ends facing forward.
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Workshops & Getaways
Writing workshops where mothers give their grief words, day retreats, and fully catered respite Shabbosos for couples: room to breathe and grieve among people who understand without being told.
“It came on Monday night when I wasn't in a good place, and to know someone cared beyond the first few weeks was huge.”
Who it reaches
Seven kinds of loss, most of them invisible
Knafayim was built for the bereavements the community has no ritual for: often no shiva, no minyan, no meal train, and no name for what happened. Each loss takes its own route through the ten programs. A miscarriage at eight weeks and a stillbirth at thirty-nine are not offered the same help.
- Miscarriage
- Mid-trimester loss & stillbirth
- TFMR
- Fetal anomaly
- Infant loss
- Hysterectomy
- Pregnancy after loss
Yes! I want to show parents who suffered a loss that they are not alone.
Give securely
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OJC Fund
Use your OJC charity card or account on Knafayim's secure OJC page.
Give with OJC (opens in a new tab)The Donors' Fund, Matbia, Pledger or any other fund: recommend a grant to Knafayim Inc., EIN 81-2729166, through your own account.
Knafayim Inc. · 501(c)(3) nonprofit · EIN 81-2729166 · Tax-deductible
Behind the work
What it takes to keep that phone answered
Around 475 trained volunteers carry this work, out of a Brooklyn headquarters and nine branches: Lakewood, the Five Towns, Toronto, Montreal, Israel, the UK, Belgium, Australia and South Africa. Behind them stand a small staff, a medical advisory team, and working relationships inside 25+ medical centers.
They are trained, not merely recruited: a multi-week perinatal loss course run in cohorts across the branches, advanced clinical training for licensed therapists, a specialized TFMR training, and peer mentoring for mothers further along.
Volunteers give the hours. Donations buy what hours cannot supply: the packets themselves and the freight that moves them to fifteen branches in three languages, the arrangements at the beis olam, the sponsored therapy sessions, the hotel and catering for a respite Shabbos, and the training cohorts that turn willing people into trained ones.
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475
volunteers worldwide
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3,500+
families helped annually
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3,000
bereaved parents attended teleconferences
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1,750
loss care packets delivered
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6,000+
consultation and support calls
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850
support group members
Diligence
The hospitals hand out Knafayim's name
Knafayim is not a self-report. Hospital staff and physicians hand out its name under their own, and they say why.
Knafayim is very well respected in the medical community. We consider them our partners: patients would be lost if they didn't have Knafayim to turn to for guidance. They're an amazing group of individuals who're unbelievably dedicated to helping people, and their responsiveness is perfect. Knafayim's support means better care and better outcomes for my patients.
Victor Rosenberg, MD FACOG
MFM physician at Rosenberg Maternal-Fetal Medicine, PC, Hewlett, NY
I feel very confident telling our Orthodox patients, "We have a great resource within your community. Here's her name and here's what she offers." Knafayim is available at a moment's notice: all I have to do is make a call or send a text and we have support. And there are so many resources within Knafayim; there's things for moms, for dads, for them as couples, for the children. That sense of being cared for, for both the families as well as for us, is a great asset to our program.
Frances T. McCarthy, MS, RNC, CPLC
Clinical coordinator for the Neonatal Comfort Care Program, NY Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital
Mrs. Malkie Klaristenfeld began this work in 1999, after many early and mid-trimester losses and a stillbirth of her own, as ATIME's Pregnancy Loss Support Program. The first care packet went out in 2001. Knafayim was established in 2014 and reached ten branches by 2023.
“And then I reached out to Knafayim. And everything changed... There was no time I was ever abandoned.”
What a gift carries
Choose an amount, and we will fill it in
Every amount goes into the same work. These are simply the sums families and donors tend to think in.
Ways to give
Give once, or stand behind the phone all year
Monthly does something a single gift cannot
Nothing here can be raised after it is needed. The doula has to have finished her training before the diagnosis. The packet has to be on the shelf, in the right language, before the phone rings.
A recurring gift is standing capacity: the ability to say yes in a quiet month, and in a month when four families call in one week.
Dedicate your gift. In memory of, in honor of, for the recovery of, for a shidduch, or in the zechus of someone you love. Add it when you give, or email info at knafayimwings dot org.
Giving through OJC or a donor-advised fund? Use the OJC or donor-advised fund tab in the giving box.
Prefer to give by check? Mail to Relief Resources, 150 James St, Suite #208, Lakewood, NJ 08701.
Giving through a foundation or a family fund? Call 718.925.2113 or write to info at knafayimwings dot org, and someone will walk you through the work in whatever detail your process requires.
Our Information
Knafayim is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Tax ID 81-2729166. We can be reached at 718.925.2113 or operations at knafayimwings dot org.
Gifts of every size go to the same work
There is no tier that unlocks a different Knafayim. Every family receives everything, for as long as it takes, whoever gave that month.
Knafayim Inc. is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 81-2729166. No goods or services are provided in exchange for contributions, so your gift is tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Tizku l'mitzvos. May we share only simchas.
