Steve Lipman - Staff Writer
The levees broke this week, and the Levys and Cohens tried to repair the damage.
In the wake of Katrina, the monster hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast on Monday, overflowing dikes, causing massive flooding and killing dozens of people, the organized Jewish community reached out to the victims. Several national Jewish organizations collected disaster relief funds, a summer camp in Mississippi offered refuge to endangered evacuees from New Orleans, and Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries remained in New Orleans to help residents who were not able to leave.
“When natural disasters have hit, the Jewish community has always been at the forefront of responding to the need,” said Jeff Finkelstein, president of the Pittsburgh United Jewish Federation, which joined other local federations, part of the United Jewish Communities network, in participating in UJC’s Disaster Relief Fund.
“Just as our community reacted with such generosity to the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia last December, we anticipate an outpouring of concern once again from many in our community,” Finkelstein said.
Besides UJC (www.ujc.org), other Jewish groups that have established or opened relief funds for Katrina victims are the Union for Reform Judaism (www.urj.org), B’nai B’rith (www.bnaibrith.org) and Chabad-Lubavitch of Louisiana (www.chabadneworleans.com).
“As soon as damages are assessed, the Union will evaluate which organizations are best equipped to provide direct services to the hurricane’s victims and make donations to these organizations,” a UJR press release stated. “Congregations in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida that are members of the Union and have sustained damages not covered by insurance may also receive monies from the emergency relief fund.”
The Torah scrolls from Shir Chadash Synagogue, a Conservative congregation located on a causeway in Metairie, La., a New Orleans suburb, were moved across a parking lot to the taller Jewish federation building, said Rabbi Paul Drazin, a regional director for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
“It’s hard to tell what happened,” Rabbi Drazin told The Jewish Week in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I can’t get hold of anybody. Phones and cell phones don’t work.”
Another United Synagogue regional director, Harry Silverman, said he was communicating by e-mail with the president of Congregation Beth Israel in Biloxi, Miss., Steve Richer. In an e-mail Monday, Richer said there had been a “huge water surge close to the beach.
“Whether it reached the synagogue, I don’t know,” Richer wrote. “We might need some help for repairs or worse. Neither do I know about my home or those of any others. There is 10-12 feet of water in downtown Gulfport, as well as flooding right up to the highway [Interstate-10].”
In an earlier e-mail, Richer said that the synagogue’s Torah scrolls had been moved before the storm and he expressed concern about the fate of the synagogue. “It’s two blocks from the beach and there has been up to 12 feet of water that swept over the coast … we might have lost a lot.”
The total extent of damage to Jewish buildings and institutions in the affected states was difficult to determine by the middle of this week, since telephone lines communication was broken, officials of many organizations were still out of their offices, and other spokesmen said it will take several weeks to reach a damage estimate.
Larry Brook, editor of the Deep South Jewish Voice, a regional publication based in Birmingham, Ala., said he tried calling officials of Jewish organizations in the areas that sustained damage, to get up-to-date reports, but “there was no one there to answer.”
Among sites of concern are New Orleans’ Touro Synagogue, which bills itself as the oldest Jewish house of worship in the country outside of the original 13 colonies.
The Reform movement’s Henry S. Jacobs Camp in inland Utica, Miss., invited some 150 people from New Orleans, including residents of the Louise Davis Developmental Center for Adults with Cognitive Disabilities, to take shelter at the camp until conditions in New Orleans return to normal. The camp was chosen as the center’s designated evacuation site after the 2004 hurricane season.
In addition to the center’s staff and residents, some 75 members of Reform congregations from the New Orleans area are being temporarily housed at the campgrounds, the camp said in a prepared statement. “We have lots of food, power, and facilities to take acre of everyone,” said Jonathan Cohen, camp director. “We’re well stocked, and are ready to ride out the storm.”
Three emissaries of the Chabad-Lubavitch chasidic movement stayed in New Orleans to offer aid, a Lubavitch spokesman said.
One of the Chabad shluchim, Rabbi Yossi Nemes, reported receiving a panicked phone call from a visiting Jewish family that had been evicted from their hotel, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency – the family was unable to reach the Superdome, the covered New Orleans football stadium that opened its doors to flooded-out residents, so Rabbi Nemes invited the strangers to his home.
Thirteen people were staying on the top floor of the Nemes home this week, the Lubavitch spokesman said; the home’s roof was leaking and the lower floors were flooded.
Adam Bronstone, director of communications for the Jewish Federation of New Orleans, was among the city’s 10,000-12,000 Jews who were ordered by Louisiana’s mayor to evacuate as Katrina approached.
He went to Houston, a popular destination among dislocated residents of New Orleans. Some of them were expected to attend a special prayer service Monday evening at a Houston synagogue.
“You’re worried about the place you live in; the place you work; the synagogue I go to, which is near the lake; the federation office, which is on a beautiful campus that’s only three years old and is also near the lake,” Bronstone told JTA. “I worry about where I’m going to be next week.”
His New Orleans-based cell phone service was operating sporadically early this week, which made it difficult for him to work in Houston, but Houston’s Jewish federation allowed him to use the organization’s facilities. “I wanted to be able to go in and get some work done and feel useful,” Bronstone said. “This is the story of ‘kol Yisrael areivim zeh b’zeh,’” a Hebrew expression that means all Jews are responsible for each other. “In times of need, Jews always help each other. This is one of those times.”
“We’re glad to help out,” said Lee Wunsch, CEO of Houston’s Jewish federation. “Houston’s not new to hurricanes and there’s another Jewish community close by that needs our assistance, and we’re glad to do whatever we can to help.”
In a Middle East side to Katrina, the belief.net Web site this week carried a story with the headline “Did God Send the Hurricane?” which indicated that “at least one New Orleans-area resident” explained the disaster as form of divine punishment for the U.S. role in “expelling Jews from Gaza.”
“Bridgett Magee of Slidell, La., told the Christian Web site Jerusalem Newswire that she saw the hurricane ‘as a direct “coming back on us” [for] what we did to Israel: a home for a home,’” belief.net reported.
According to the Web site, Stan Goodenough, an online columnist, expressed similar sentiments on Monday, calling the hurricane “the fist of God.”
“What America is about to experience is the lifting of God’s hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and the people of Israel,” Goodenough wrote. n
Staff writer Stewart Ain and JTA contributed to this report. |
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