Israel sends aid to China

Alison Klayman

Israel is sending dozens of tons of aid supplies to China to provide relief for the earthquake there that killed tens of thousands. Two Israelis injured in the quake said they were touched by Chinese rescue efforts.

Published: 05/26/2008


BEIJING (JTA) – In a gesture of support, one of the world’s smallest countries is sending aid to the world’s most populous nation in the form of $1.5 million worth of equipment for earthquake relief.

The first three tons of Israeli supplies to earthquake-ravaged China included sleeping bags, blankets and personal water purification units. The supplies arrived in China May 22 on an El Al flight to Beijing.

Israel will send the remaining 70-90 tons of equipment on a cargo plane directly to the city of Chengdu in the coming days. The Israeli government is working from a list of needs drawn up by the Chinese government.

Israelis and Jews in China are also helping with the relief effort in Sichuan province.

Dini's kosher restaurant in Beijing is donating 10 percent of this month's sales toward the earthquake relief effort.

The children of the Chabad-run day school in Beijing, Ganeinu, assembled 180 relief kits with supplies such as toothbrushes as well as handmade drawings and notes.

The president of Chabad's Shanghai Jewish community, Maurice Ohana, is working on plans to have a Jewish-sponsored rebuilding of a devastated school in Sichuan.

Dani Yaacobi, an Israeli living in Chengdu, says the city's Israelis are collecting and buying supplies, and delivering them to areas where newly homeless people are arriving from outside the city. They also are helping build shelters.

The death toll from the May 12 earthquake, which registered 7.8 on the Richter scale, is more than 65,000. It is expected to rise above 80,000.

Besides the larger gift of supplies, the Israeli government also will give an additional $10,000 directly to the Hongkou area.

Some of those involved in the relief effort said they were touched by the story of the two Israeli students injured near the quake’s epicenter and rescued through grass-roots efforts by Israelis and Chinese after a two-day search.

Anat Bilu and Maayan Segev, both in their mid-20s, were on a backpacking vacation. Both were studying Chinese medicine in Chengdu through an exchange program with Israel's Reidman College of Complementary Medicine.

Just before the earthquake hit, they were relaxing over lunch in a small cafe inside the Hongkou nature reserve in Dujiangyan. When the ground began shaking, the two women ran outside. Just as they reached a low wall barrier around the cafe, the cafe collapsed. They were struck by the falling rubble and their bodies smashed into the barrier.

Segev took the impact on her jaw, while Bilu suffered severe damage to fingers on her left hand.

Helped by several Chinese people along the way, the women found temporary shelter in the mountain village of Hongkou. Like many Chinese in this remote location, the two Israelis did not realize the full scale of the disaster.

Some of the Chinese translating for and helping the women had just lost their own homes and families.

Spearheaded by a friend of the students, Yael Arnon, Israelis in Chengdu formed a search party headquartered in an apartment. Arnon told Israel Army Radio that because the missing students were on the phone moments before the earthquake struck, she knew approximately where to find them. She assumed that communication difficulties were the only reason they had not called.

The Israeli Embassy in Beijing shared the same assumption. Consul General Alon Shoham, a press officer and a Chinese staffer boarded one of the first flights to Chengdu two days after the earthquake.

A Chinese construction magnate named Zhang was leading the rescue efforts in Sichuan. When the Israelis arrived in Chengdu, Zhang offered them three of his cars and two drivers – Zhang himself drove the third car -- for the search effort.

By then, Segev and Bilu had decided to leave Hongkou and spent more than six hours descending to the main road. Eventually they crossed paths with two Israelis from the rescue party. That evening, the students reached the embassy staff and boarded an ambulance, arriving that night at an inundated Chengdu hospital.

"In Israel we know about crisis events with lots of casualties," said the Israeli Embassy spokesman who traveled with Shoham, Guy Kivetz. "The medical teams were really angels. They acted bravely, quietly and professionally."

Segev was operated on immediately in Chengdu to repair multiple fractures to her jaw. Bilu underwent surgery in Israel to repair nerve damage to her fingers.

"It was very Israeli to independently organize their own search party," Kivetz told JTA. "But from the story of the girls' rescue we learn that we are the same, that as much as Israelis do for each other, so do the Chinese."

Camp offers shelter, peace amid fire chaos

Refusing to leave his retreat, rabbi devotes himself to serving crews battling the Slide blaze.

By Ashley Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 29, 2007

The pairing of the rabbi and the firefighters was a natural one.He had beds. They had been sleeping on asphalt. He had food and showers. They were grateful.

Rabbi Yosef Brod should have rushed down the mountain a week ago, when the Slide fire was burning toward Camp Gan Israel, the 75-acre Jewish camp he runs in the San Bernardino Mountains. The fire charred nearly 13,000 acres and wiped out 201 homes as it spread.But Brod, a rabbi with the Chasidic Lubovitch, or Chabad, sect, stayed. "Have a nice day," he told his employees as they evacuated. "Drive carefully."Over the weekend, about a dozen fire engines were parked by the giant Hanukkah candelabra at the camp. One firefighter chatted on a cellphone while another shivered in his boxers. A third asked Brod what the symbols on the cabin doors meant -- they were prayer scrolls called mezuzot that are meant to keep their occupants safe.State prison officials also came by, looking to house inmate mop-up crews in the camp's bunks.Brod says he kept the camp open because he believed that God would shelter the pine-shaded site, which the Chabad organization bought for summer and winter camps and weekend retreats. So Brod called his wife after the evacuations were ordered last Monday and said he wouldn't be driving home to West Hollywood."She knew I'm so devoted to this place I wouldn't leave," he said. One of his employees stayed, too, and told Brod that, if need be, he would carry the camp director down the mountain.By midweek, flames were licking the camp's northern edge, and a firefighting helicopter tapped the camp's pool for water. Brod ran a hose from a fire hydrant to the pool to keep it full.He already prays three times a day, but that afternoon, "We prayed with a little more intensity," Brod said.The blaze halted about 100 yards from the camp's wood-shingle main lodge and spared the property's cellphone towers, basketball court and 16 other buildings.The blaze had pushed a clutch of soot-dusted firefighters onto the narrow road that curves into the camp. Brod fed them. He offered mattresses and soap.Down the road from the camp, firefighters had been dozing in pop-up tents, on cots and huddled between engines in a parking lot of the Snow Valley Mountain Resort in Running Springs, where the command center had been set up.The news of better digs spread quickly.So many firefighters streamed into Camp Gan Israel that Brod called other rabbis for help.He found one fire crew sleeping on the grass just outside of camp, and offered them real beds."That's kind of a big deal, to have a bunch of sweaty firemen stomping through your place," said Ontario Fire Capt. Art Andres. "And this is a place where people pay good money to find rest or peace or something."A compact man with black-rimmed glasses, a salt-and-pepper beard and a black yarmulke, Brod held a prayer service for a Jewish firefighter.On Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, Brod couldn't work until after sunset. So firefighters signed themselves in, writing on a yellow legal pad that they had come from departments in Chino, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Tuolumne and other places. They ate a traditional stew that had been prepared before sunset the night before, when the Sabbath began.As the men and women ate each night, Brod shared his interpretation of the week's events. "One match destroys a thousand homes just like that," he told firefighters. "If we have the power to destroy the world, we have the power to make it better."The firefighters sat in quiet with their thoughts.Brod slouched on a folding chair in the camp's restaurant-size kitchen as he recounted the week's events. A button had popped open on his shirt, but he didn't notice.His two cellphones interrupted. A friend in Maryland was checking to see if he was OK. The other caller offered to bring oranges and coffee. Meanwhile, firefighters played billiards and table tennis.After dinner, Brod went outside and climbed into his white Ford Expedition to check on his guests. He darted past cabins with nearly all the windows lighted, and slowed only to chat with firefighters. Their eyes were weary and their voices hoarse."So you own this whole place?" croaked one firefighter."God owns the world," the rabbi replied.

Scenes From an Inferno

Another story also caught my interest, this time from The Los Angeles Times:
The pairing of the rabbi and the firefighters was a natural one.He had beds. They had been sleeping on asphalt. He had food and showers. They were grateful. Rabbi Yosef Brod should have rushed down the mountain a week ago, when the Slide fire was burning toward Camp Gan Israel, the 75-acre Jewish camp he runs in the San Bernardino Mountains. The fire charred nearly 13,000 acres and wiped out 201 homes as it spread.But Brod, a rabbi with the Chasidic Lubovitch, or Chabad, sect, stayed. "Have a nice day," he told his employees as they evacuated. "Drive carefully."Over the weekend, about a dozen fire engines were parked by the giant Hanukkah candelabra at the camp. One firefighter chatted on a cellphone while another shivered in his boxers. A third asked Brod what the symbols on the cabin doors meant -- they were prayer scrolls called mezuzot that are meant to keep their occupants safe.State prison officials also came by, looking to house inmate mop-up crews in the camp's bunks.Brod says he kept the camp open because he believed that God would shelter the pine-shaded site, which the Chabad organization bought for summer and winter camps and weekend retreats. So Brod called his wife after the evacuations were ordered last Monday and said he wouldn't be driving home to West Hollywood.The rest of the story describes how Rabbi Brod provided food and shelter to firefighters, few of them presumably Jewish, while they tried to get the flames under control. Chabad is an organization of rigorously orthodox Jews, devoted in part to getting wayward non-Orthodox Jews to observe the many demands of the orthodox version of the faith. Yet he feels not just comfortable but obligated to help out the fellow members of his American family in their hour of need.From where I sit very far away this is an extraordinary scene. It is almost impossible to imagine a Lubavitch Rabbi so truly incorporated into the society around him if the society is in Western Europe, or Russia, or elsewhere with a significant Orthodox Jewish community and a significant history of dark anti-Semitism. He is integrated but not assimilated, free to observe his demanding faith while helping out those who have completely different traditions. And they in turn are glad to take, driven by curiosity about his practices rather than resentment or conspiracist suspicion, accepting as normal that this exotic man is truly one of them – as American as they are, even if some of his habits are a little unusual. The episode is in some ways so ordinary, yet so revealing if you read between the lines.This is an amazing country, despite the best efforts of our government and intellectuals. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

Bad times require angels, and often they are us

Similar acts of selflessness have been witnessed across the Southland.

At Camp Gan Israel in Running Springs, four Hasidic rabbis have been serving firefighters kosher meals while the blazes rage in the San Bernardino Mountains.

"This is a holy place," Josef Broed, a rabbi in the Orthodox Jewish movement called Chabad, told the Associated Press.

"God is going to watch over our place, and we will survive."

Faith community reaches out to fire victims

A Chabad synagogue near the fire line in northern San Diego County saw its rabbi commandeer a lunch truck from Los Angeles to feed the stadium masses. “All kosher, for Jews and non-Jews!” said Rabbi Levi Raskin of Chabad Rancho Santa Fe, which so far has escaped the fires.

FAITH-BASED RESPONSES

FAITH-BASED RESPONSES

Chabad House, at 6115 Montezuma Road near San Diego State University is offering emergency shelter.

Fla. governor: Kotel prayer saved state

Florida's governor said a prayer he made at the Western Wall spared his state from hurricanes.

Charlie Crist , speaking Sunday at a prayer breakfast at the state's Republican Party convention in Orlando, related how he had placed a note in the Western Wall asking God to protect Florida from hurricanes, according to Shmais.com, a Chabad news service.

"So far, so good," Crist said.

Crist, who governs the state with the nation's third-highest Jewish population, traveled to Israel in May to promote economic ties. He was criticized recently by the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union for hanging a mezuzah outside his office in Tallahassee.

Flood Chaos Hits UK Jews

Jewish communities across the country were this week counting the cost of the worst floods to hit Britain for 60 years, as families were trapped in their homes, shul services were cancelled and funerals faced postponement.
Downpours in Gloucestershire forced Cheltenham Synagogue to shut its doors last weekend, while shuls in the Thames Valley and Oxford braced themselves for a deluge for fear they too may be struck amid reports that nearby riverbanks and drains may burst.
Michael Webber, Cheltenham Synagogue chairman, said: “We have been making sure everyone is ok. We couldn’t get into the synagogue on Friday and had to cancel our services for the first time as the car park was flooded up to the steps.”One Jewish home affected in Cheltenham belongs to sisters Judith and Eva Heymann. The front of their house was covered in 2ft of water on Friday and their electricity and water is due to be turned off to protect power stations and to stop sewage seeping into the supply.Eva told TJ: “The water went up above our feet, we are still mopping it up and the carpet stinks. The emergency services came round on Friday but there was nowhere for the water to go. We couldn’t even go to synagogue as we couldn’t get past the front doors“We have filled the bath and all our saucepans with water. I am not looking forward to our electricity and water being cut off.”Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire were the worst hit regions with around two months worth of rain falling last Friday, the heaviest downpours since 1947.Reverend Malcolm Weisman, the Chief Rabbi’s minister for small communities, yesterday waded through waterlogged roads to officiate at a funeral at Cheltenham Jewish Cemetery. He told TJ: “The waters are rising and there is a risk the nearby River Chelt will burst. I am tempted to commission someone to build a Noah’s Ark and get people in two-by-two so we can get a minyan to synagogue.”Torrential rain in Oxfordshire has placed the banks of the Thames and drains under increased pressure and forced hundreds to leave their homes for a makeshift evacuation centre inside the Kassam Stadium.Oxford Lubavitch has opened the David Slager Chabad Centre to Jewish and non-Jewish evacuees providing food and temporary accommodation. Rabbi Eli Brackman told TJ: “We have visited the stadium where people are being held to see if we can help out. We have put up a notice on our website and set up a 24 hour helpline.”Graham Jones, the manager of Oxford Synagogue, said: “There is a lot of uncertainty and apprehension. The biggest threat to the synagogue is the overwhelming blockage of sewers and storm drains.”Meanwhile Maidenhead Synagogue, whose congregants come from the flood-threatened Thames Valley areas of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey and Hampshire, took precautions to ensure the shul and community is protected.Maidenhead Rabbi Jonathan Romain said: “We had a much lower attendance at synagogue last weekend, certainly people found it difficult to get here. We are checking with all our members to ensure they are alright."We are bracing ourselves for any water coming from the Thames. All the prayer books have been moved onto the second floor and we are advising people to be alert and minimise damage by moving valuables.”