A unique commemoration project is under way for slain IDF observer Cpl. Noam Avramovich, spearheaded by her family and the Tashtit organization, to advance a cause Noam held close to her heart, and which guided her dreams for the future: public service.
In Noam’s Ways (Bedarchei Noam): The Noam Avramovich Center for Public Service has set out with the target of reaching one particular population group to reignite the honor and respect for public service: the youth, from high schools to adolescent frameworks and pre-army preparatory programs, to the age of post-service and universities. It is currently in the midst of a donation campaign.
“We loved her dearly,” Noam’s mother, Adva, said in a conversation with The Jerusalem Post. “She turned us into parents.”
Who was Noam Avramovich?
Noam was born to Adva and Yossi on July 26, 2004, and grew up in Givat Brenner. She was killed on October 7, 2023, by Hamas terrorists who invaded the Nahal Oz military base during the massive cross-border massacre attack on southern Israel. She had completed the observer course just three days earlier, on October 4.
Noam was 19 years old when she was killed. She is survived by her parents and three brothers – Ofri, Yiftah, and Yuval.
“She was someone who just knew, even as a child, what she wanted to do in the world. She had a clear, built-in internal compass, and always knew what she wanted for her life,” said Adva. “She knew clearly what her own thoughts meant, their weight; what is moral and what is not, and how to not be led astray, how to tell right from wrong.”
The name of the center is a play on Noam’s name and on the biblical verse “Her ways are ways of pleasantness (darchei noam), and all her paths are peace.”
“Everyone is born with specific characteristics,” Adva said. “Noam was a human magnet; she always had a specific, shining aura to her. Already from a young age, people were drawn to her. People followed her due to her friendly nature; she was a natural-born leader. Those two things, the compass and the leadership qualities, were connected.”
She explained, “Noam had a big dream. We didn’t pay much heed, even laughed at it, and definitely didn’t believe it. She always said she wanted to serve as a prime minister to the State of Israel. She believed in her dream; she would say, ‘I don’t just want it, I will be.’”
In school, Noam studied in an excellence track for the study of humanities, specifically political science, governance, and social sciences. And, in the last few years before her service, “what preoccupied her was Israeli society, its makeup: societal relations, religion, gender, borders, Zionism and leadership.”
Noam studied these issues at length, Adva explained, “especially opinions that differed from her own. Liberalism was important to her. To anyone who would listen, she vowed to one day serve as prime minister.”
After Noam was killed, and with her daughter’s dream in hand, Adva began lecturing youth on the significance and importance of public service.
Tashtit was established about two years ago, and is staffed with current and former employees in public service and governance. Omer, its CEO, told the Post, “About eight months ago, a colleague alerted me to someone named Adva who started to lecture in schools and pre-army preparatory programs, explaining to the youth how important it is for them to get involved.
“I called her, and we arranged to meet. When we did, she told me about herself and about Noam. I told her what we do, and the connection was immediate.”
About two weeks later, they joined forces, and the idea for the center was born. Thousands have already contributed to the center through its crowdfunding campaign in September, raking in about NIS 1.8 million, out of the targeted goal of NIS 3m.
Omer has worked in the sphere of strengthening the passion for, and structure of, public service for several years.
“What we try to answer mostly is: How do we attract quality people to the service?” he explained.
So, “We decided to start the center under Noam’s name – in her memory, for the sake of the family’s mission, and also to advance what we all wanted, and to turn it nationwide in a sustainable way, to allow the center to reach hundreds of educational institutions per year.”
Once they linked up, Omer and Adva discovered an unexpected connection: Her nephew – Noam’s cousin, Ohad – is a soldier under his command in the reserves.
“I served over 300 days in reserve duty over the last two years as a combat commander. On October 7, we were operating in Sderot. Three days after the war began, he got the phone call about Noam, and we were with him throughout the entire grief and mourning process. When I first met Adva, I didn’t put two and two together – their last names are different – but the connection became so much deeper after that, and the project and connection became family-wide.”
The goal of the center is broad exposure – with a specific focus on youth – to the relevance and importance of public service. The vision is an established educational department, clad with a pedagogical approach to make these ideas and notions accessible.
“We are currently training dozens of educators, oriented precisely toward that goal of reaching hundreds of institutions per year. Because tomorrow, next week, and in a few years, we could be seeing really high-quality people enter the circuit,” he explained.
The center will include a digital arm as well.
“Our quality of life is dramatically influenced by the quality of our public servants. The more a municipality or a government office has staff in it that are professional, goal-driven, and understand that they are in charge of everything that touches our day-to-day life that is critical – schools, welfare, city planning, infrastructure, transport, communication, environment, among others – the better off we will be. The importance of the quality of people who enter these offices and take up these positions cannot be overstated,” he added.
TASHTIT WAS established two years ago, just before the war, and in between service call-ups of the staff. “Sadly, and not just in Israel, the degree of onboarding and involvement in public service is declining, especially over the last few years. We saw this in the emergency response to October 7: Dysfunctional systems affect our lives in a direct manner. We need them to work,” said Omer.
He explained further that “the pace of employment today is different. No longer are people entering offices at the age of 20 and staying there until they retire. On average, people switch jobs about every five to seven years. That’s why we need quality people to want to go there; that is one of our main goals. Another is to craft a society that honors and pays tribute to the people in those positions today who are doing good and honest work, and there are many like that.”
Over the last decade, the number of doctors, teachers, social workers, public servants, and local leaders has steadily declined.
The authority over public service salaries in Israel is shared between the Finance Ministry and the Civil Service Commission (CSC), each under distinct legal mandates that require close coordination.
The ministry, through its Salary, Benefits and Retirement Division, holds overarching responsibility for setting and supervising government wage policy, approving collective salary agreements, and ensuring that all remuneration in the public sector complies with fiscal and regulatory limits.
The CSC acts as the formal employer of civil servants in government ministries, overseeing recruitment, appointments, promotion, training, work conditions, and discipline.
What happened over the past decade, thanks in part to the boom in the hi-tech industry, is a massive gap in salary and conditions, which is one of the chief complaints levied against the public service sector, especially when compared to the private sector. These are factors that starting employees, just out of service or school, take into account when looking for jobs.
But, Omer explained, recent surveys have also shown that finding meaning in employment is no less of an important and relevant factor than salary, especially today.
“Usually, the primary reason people pick a job or a profession is a sense of belonging, connection, and wanting to do meaningful work that affects people’s lives,” he explained.
Part of the issue, he explained, is that in parliament, the human quality of public servants is, sadly, not something that Knesset members are publicly graded on. A minister is not commonly measured by how effective their office actually is and what it does for the service. So, their incentive to use their time and resources on it is diminished. Once there is a shift in awareness on this issue, Omer posited, it can also reach elected officials, who will give it more credence. Right now, there is not much incentive.
One area where he said there is a clear connection between an election mandate and tangible results is in local governance, where it is more felt. If a mayor does a bad job, they will have a hard time getting re-elected.
“The goal of the program is to break into the youth educational centers... to expose thousands to public service, bring them physically to these spaces – offices of local and national governance – to meet with public servants. This is not dissimilar to the narrative shaping advocacy we’ve seen with drafting to the army, how it takes hold in the minds of even children. That can be done here, too. Ethos is a powerful tool.”
Adva recalled, “We were very close, Noam and I. What I found rare was how open she was toward us [her parents], especially as a teenager. She would share things with us, tell us her stories, give us a clue into her deliberations.”
Rooted in Noam was “the value of wanting to be an involved citizen. In one of the notes she left behind, she wrote, ‘Even I, a small citizen, can generate a big change,’” she said.
At a time when the war is all we can see, some are able to lift their heads – not in denial of the sorrow, but alongside it and in its inspiration – to dare to dream of a better life, and in tangible ways that every citizen will be able to feel.
It is no easy task, and the changes won’t be seen tomorrow, but its ripple effects are real, and, in some things, we may see a change even in our lifetimes, even within the next few years.
NOAM WAS drafted to the IDF on July 30, 2023. On October 7, 2023, 215 terrorists infiltrated the base; 53 soldiers were killed. Seven female observer soldiers were kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza: Naama Levy, Liri Albag, Agam Berger, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Ori Megidish, and Noa Marciano. Megidish was rescued by the IDF in October 2023, while Levy, Albag, Berger, Ariev and Gilboa were freed during the January ceasefire. Marciano was killed in captivity. Her body was recovered in November 2023.
Nearby, in one of the Armored Corps tanks surrounding the outpost, Capt. Daniel Peretz and St.-Sgt. Itai Chen were killed, and their bodies were dragged back to Gaza. Sgt. Tomer Leibovitz was killed, and Matan Angrest was wounded and taken to Gaza alive. Peretz, Chen and Angrest are still being held by Hamas as hostages, alongside 45 other people slated to return home by the start of next week.
In a public donation campaign, thousands from across the country donated to In Noam’s Way. Read further here about the project: https://www.tashtit.org/in-noams-ways-en. To donate to the campaign: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/155121, or search “In Noam’s Way JGive.”