Friday, November 4. 2005
Local Jews spend Rosh Hashana Helping on Gulf Coast
By Tamar Fenton
This year several local volunteers experienced Rosh Hashanah as never before. While their families were busy cleaning their homes in preparation for the holiday, ten men and one woman from the Twin Cities were busy doing a different kind of cleaning. Not your basic mopping and vacuuming to beautify their own homes, these volunteers helped strangers make their homes livable again by extracting huge tree branches that had crashed through roofs, removing trees that blocked their roads, and carrying logs and branches to collection sites where trucks carted them off.
Richard Esensten, Todd Cytron, Steve DeMont, Lee Friedman, Vivian Garvey, Ben Bornstein, and Ed Neubauer, were the first group of trained volunteers to arrive in Mississippi from the Twin Cities to work with Nechama: Jewish Response to Disaster , a Twin Cities based Disaster Clean up Organization. They were joined by three young men from California - Aaron Lewis, Andres Schwarz and Eric Isaacs, as well as Nechama administrator, Seth Gardner, board members Gene Borochoff and Phil Jacobs and Deployment Manager, Ken Streiff. Gardner, Borochoff, Jacobs and Streiff will remain in the Gulf Coast to welcome and work with another group of volunteers in the coming week.
The volunteers received their Nechama orientation and training at Jacobs Camp, a camp in Utica , Mississippi run by the Reform Movement. After a one-night stay there, they moved to Camp Shelby, a large military base two hours south, that is providing tents, food, and showers to hundreds of volunteers. There, Nechama leaders received assignments from local authorities and within hours, they were placed in various neighborhoods in Hattiesburg , Mississippi and charged with the responsibility to clear and remove downed trees on each property. Despite heat in the 90s and very high humidity, the volunteers worked from 7:30 AM until 6:30 PM most days.
According to Todd Cytron, most of the homes Nechama worked on belonged to elderly, infirmed, or poor people who were not able to do much of the necessary work to make their homes safe and livable again. Other than removing trees that blocked roads or driveways that would make it impossible to leave in case of an emergency, homeowners were on their own in the task of removing the rest of trees, even those that had split their homes in two, in some cases. Without the Nechama volunteers, they might have had to wait several more weeks or even months for assistance and forced to continue living in dangerous conditions until help finally could arrive.
One of the more memorable tasks Nechama volunteers took on was clearing trees from the home of Sammy Lee Hinton. Hinton was a music teacher in the New Orleans Public School System who had recently moved back to Hinton , Mississippi , his birthplace, after his home in New Orleans was destroyed. He shares his last name with the name of his hometown because his family's roots in that area are as old as the roots of the downed trees on his boyhood property. Although Nechama was not assigned to Hinton's property, which also included the small homes of his mother and grandmother, the Nechama volunteers could not refuse Mr. Hinton's request for help when he approached them at a neighbor's home. So at 4:00 PM, when most of the other volunteer groups had headed back to Camp Shelby for dinner, showers, and a little R and R, the Nechama group headed to Mr. Hinton's house to remove dozens of downed trees. Lee Friedman explained that “The area around Hattiesburg grew due to the timber industry. There are trees everywhere. Families have lived on the same land there for generations and you could imagine how proud they were of the nature all around them. The area was still beautiful, but it was powerful to see first-hand that the same trees that beautified the area were also the cause of so much destruction. Many homes were completely destroyed by the trees. We saw one home with over 30 trees toppled. Our group was only able to make a tiny dent is what needs to be done there, but we were able to do a lot for the people we helped.”
When Rosh Hashanah arrived, the Nechama volunteers headed to B'nai Israel Temple, a Reform Congregation in Hattiesburg , Mississippi . Despite being dressed only in their work clothes and boots, and in one case, a Herzl Camp t-shirt, they were warmly welcomed by the congregation. Making the decision to spend Rosh Hashana away from his family was a difficult one for Lee Friedman, a member of Beth El Synagogue, but this unique opportunity to help others as a way to express his gratitude for the blessings in his life made sense this year. The rabbi's sermon on Erev Rosh Hashana seemed to echo Lee's own reflections of his time in Mississippi with Nechama. The rabbi explained that there are 86,400 seconds in a day. Any seconds not used wisely, are lost to you. Making every second count is the goal, but we can renew our efforts each day when we are giving a new bank of 86,400 seconds to work with. According to Friedman, this concept made perfect sense in light of what Nechama was doing for others during the High Holiday season.
Another amazing aspect of the Rosh Hashana experience was the many connections the members of this tiny Mississippi congregation had to the Twin Cities Jewish community. Member Kevin Passer's brother, Dan, was a counselor with Friedman at Herzl Camp in the 1980s. Another family had spent a sabbatical year in Minneapolis a few years ago, during which time their daughter had attended kindergarten at the Minneapolis Jewish Day School. And the Nechama volunteers were not the only guests at the synagogue that night. They were joined by two Jewish National Guardsmen from St. Paul , who will be stationed on the Gulf Coast for the next six months and then will leave for Persian Gulf where they will be stationed in Iraq for a year.
Nechama has groups of volunteers signed up to spend a week in the Gulf Coast through October 18th. Nechama is also working with Bennington College in Vermont , Claremont College in California , Virginia Commonwealth College , the University of Miami , the Boston JCRC and Hillel to oversee groups of volunteer college students who will be trained and working with Nechama now and possibly during their fall and winter breaks from college. Currently over 100 students have signed on to spend their college vacations working with Nechama rather than the more expected choice of sunning and partying in some exotic location.
This year several local volunteers experienced Rosh Hashanah as never before. While their families were busy cleaning their homes in preparation for the holiday, ten men and one woman from the Twin Cities were busy doing a different kind of cleaning. Not your basic mopping and vacuuming to beautify their own homes, these volunteers helped strangers make their homes livable again by extracting huge tree branches that had crashed through roofs, removing trees that blocked their roads, and carrying logs and branches to collection sites where trucks carted them off.
Richard Esensten, Todd Cytron, Steve DeMont, Lee Friedman, Vivian Garvey, Ben Bornstein, and Ed Neubauer, were the first group of trained volunteers to arrive in Mississippi from the Twin Cities to work with Nechama: Jewish Response to Disaster , a Twin Cities based Disaster Clean up Organization. They were joined by three young men from California - Aaron Lewis, Andres Schwarz and Eric Isaacs, as well as Nechama administrator, Seth Gardner, board members Gene Borochoff and Phil Jacobs and Deployment Manager, Ken Streiff. Gardner, Borochoff, Jacobs and Streiff will remain in the Gulf Coast to welcome and work with another group of volunteers in the coming week.
The volunteers received their Nechama orientation and training at Jacobs Camp, a camp in Utica , Mississippi run by the Reform Movement. After a one-night stay there, they moved to Camp Shelby, a large military base two hours south, that is providing tents, food, and showers to hundreds of volunteers. There, Nechama leaders received assignments from local authorities and within hours, they were placed in various neighborhoods in Hattiesburg , Mississippi and charged with the responsibility to clear and remove downed trees on each property. Despite heat in the 90s and very high humidity, the volunteers worked from 7:30 AM until 6:30 PM most days.
According to Todd Cytron, most of the homes Nechama worked on belonged to elderly, infirmed, or poor people who were not able to do much of the necessary work to make their homes safe and livable again. Other than removing trees that blocked roads or driveways that would make it impossible to leave in case of an emergency, homeowners were on their own in the task of removing the rest of trees, even those that had split their homes in two, in some cases. Without the Nechama volunteers, they might have had to wait several more weeks or even months for assistance and forced to continue living in dangerous conditions until help finally could arrive.
One of the more memorable tasks Nechama volunteers took on was clearing trees from the home of Sammy Lee Hinton. Hinton was a music teacher in the New Orleans Public School System who had recently moved back to Hinton , Mississippi , his birthplace, after his home in New Orleans was destroyed. He shares his last name with the name of his hometown because his family's roots in that area are as old as the roots of the downed trees on his boyhood property. Although Nechama was not assigned to Hinton's property, which also included the small homes of his mother and grandmother, the Nechama volunteers could not refuse Mr. Hinton's request for help when he approached them at a neighbor's home. So at 4:00 PM, when most of the other volunteer groups had headed back to Camp Shelby for dinner, showers, and a little R and R, the Nechama group headed to Mr. Hinton's house to remove dozens of downed trees. Lee Friedman explained that “The area around Hattiesburg grew due to the timber industry. There are trees everywhere. Families have lived on the same land there for generations and you could imagine how proud they were of the nature all around them. The area was still beautiful, but it was powerful to see first-hand that the same trees that beautified the area were also the cause of so much destruction. Many homes were completely destroyed by the trees. We saw one home with over 30 trees toppled. Our group was only able to make a tiny dent is what needs to be done there, but we were able to do a lot for the people we helped.”
When Rosh Hashanah arrived, the Nechama volunteers headed to B'nai Israel Temple, a Reform Congregation in Hattiesburg , Mississippi . Despite being dressed only in their work clothes and boots, and in one case, a Herzl Camp t-shirt, they were warmly welcomed by the congregation. Making the decision to spend Rosh Hashana away from his family was a difficult one for Lee Friedman, a member of Beth El Synagogue, but this unique opportunity to help others as a way to express his gratitude for the blessings in his life made sense this year. The rabbi's sermon on Erev Rosh Hashana seemed to echo Lee's own reflections of his time in Mississippi with Nechama. The rabbi explained that there are 86,400 seconds in a day. Any seconds not used wisely, are lost to you. Making every second count is the goal, but we can renew our efforts each day when we are giving a new bank of 86,400 seconds to work with. According to Friedman, this concept made perfect sense in light of what Nechama was doing for others during the High Holiday season.
Another amazing aspect of the Rosh Hashana experience was the many connections the members of this tiny Mississippi congregation had to the Twin Cities Jewish community. Member Kevin Passer's brother, Dan, was a counselor with Friedman at Herzl Camp in the 1980s. Another family had spent a sabbatical year in Minneapolis a few years ago, during which time their daughter had attended kindergarten at the Minneapolis Jewish Day School. And the Nechama volunteers were not the only guests at the synagogue that night. They were joined by two Jewish National Guardsmen from St. Paul , who will be stationed on the Gulf Coast for the next six months and then will leave for Persian Gulf where they will be stationed in Iraq for a year.
Nechama has groups of volunteers signed up to spend a week in the Gulf Coast through October 18th. Nechama is also working with Bennington College in Vermont , Claremont College in California , Virginia Commonwealth College , the University of Miami , the Boston JCRC and Hillel to oversee groups of volunteer college students who will be trained and working with Nechama now and possibly during their fall and winter breaks from college. Currently over 100 students have signed on to spend their college vacations working with Nechama rather than the more expected choice of sunning and partying in some exotic location.
Posted by Seth Gardner
in News
