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- ב"ה - Hurricane HarveyGrappling With Disaster in Texas
Dear Friends,
As so many of us worldwide keep our hearts focused on Texas, please join us in praying for the safety and welfare of every one of its residents. Our sages teach us that along with prayer, resolving to perform additional mitzvot and Torah study on their behalf, and especially performing the mitzvah actions, can do much to assist everyone in need.
The heart-tugging stories of love and care from the disaster areas, stories of unbridled human caring irrespective of political and other differences, can surely serve as beacons of light for us all to focus also in “normal” times on the shared destiny and innate goodness of humankind.
Some of the light emerging from this still-unfolding story has been ignited and spread by Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in Texas. Utilizing every possible means at their disposal – and then some – even as many of them contended with flooding in their own homes and institutions, they spearheaded creative efforts to provide shelter and food for many in need, mobilized citizens to check up on other citizens, amid an array of other activities, as needed. Needless to say, these efforts continue apace.
You can donate to a special disaster relief fund here.
—The Chabad.org Team
The Latest from Texas
With Stores Flooded, Kosher Food Has Run Out in Houston
Chabad-Lubavitch of Houston is hoping to truck in supplies from N.Y. and Miami by Dovid Margolin
A volunteer at Aishel House at theTexas Medical Center in Houston, prepares kosher food for flood victims. With stores that carry kosher food items flooded, there are no new supplies available for many staples.
Houston has always had a limited amount of kosher food. Even as its Jewish population has rapidly grown in recent years, as has the general population, it remains geographically distant from kosher manufacturing bases on the coasts and the heartland. Each week, trucks carrying kosher food arrive from hundreds if not thousands of miles away. A handful of chain supermarkets, such as H-E-B Grocery, carry kosher meat, poultry and milk to supply Houston’s Jewish community. Hurricane Harvey flooded two of these main supermarkets and caused the other two to shut down as well—one has been turned into a shelter by authorities—and supplies are now beginning to run low.
“We have placed an order for kosher meat in Miami, and it’s leaving there on a refrigerated truck Tuesday morning, heading this way,” Rabbi DovidGoldstein, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Houston who is coordinating the kosher food-relief effort for the community, told Chabad.org. Chabad-Lubavitch of Texas Regional Headquarters plans to make a kosher food pantry available to the Jewish community as supplies reach the area.
They can only do that, however, if the roads are cleared of water.
“Even for those who were fortunate not to lose electricity, like us, it’s a matter of days until we have no milk and other basics,” says Rabbi Yossi Zaklikofsky, a Chabademissary whose own home was flooded and serves as leader of the Shul of Bellaire. He added that many of those who did lose their electricity lost whatever kosher food they had stockpiled. “And when the stores do reopen, it is open question as to what they’ll actually have that’s salvageable.”
For now, basic staples like rice and cereal are available in unflooded grocery stores. But thousands of people in Houston are still sheltering in place, and when that order is lifted, food supplies will inevitably plummet.
A makeshift upstairs food storage spot in the home of Rabbi Yossi and Esty Zaklikofsky,Chabad emissaries whose own home was flooded and are working around the clock to help others.Pinny Bard-Widgor moved to Houston from New York just last week with his wife and children. As weather reports poured in prior to Shabbat, Bard-Widgor decided to take his family to Fort Worth, a five-hour drive away. Local friends told him that he was overreacting. He still doesn’t know the extent of damage to his new home.
With his family safe in Fort Worth, Bard-Widgor flew to New York on Sunday evening for work, and is now helping Goldstein coordinate a kosher-food shipment from Brooklyn.
“We’re working on getting a truck of perishables and another of nonperishables,” says Bard-Widgor, though he was still having difficulty getting hold of a refrigerated truck. Goldstein reports that food shipments are being arranged from Dallas as well.
In addition to supermarkets and kosher restaurants (all of which have also been flooded), a number of Jewish families in the Houston area order kosher food via a co-op, meaning that together they place a bulk order every three months. They then store the food in a large freezer. The next order was set to arrive on Sept. 4; as of now, it doesn’t look like it will make it. All of this is taking place with Rosh Hashanah and the High Holidays fast approaching.
“If we don’t get food down here this will become a big problem fast,” Zaklikofsky tells Chabad.org. “Are we surviving? Yes, for now.”
To assist in the effort, donate to the hurricane relief fund here.
Read
As Houston Flood Waters Rise, So Does the Kindness of Strangers
Selfless assistance from anyone who hears the call by Faygie Levy Holt
As soon as Rabbi Yossi Zaklikofsky of Bellaire, Texas, put out the word that there was flooding in his home, friends and strangers alike showed up to help.
Almost as soon as the half-foot of water receded from the Bellaire home of Rabbi Yossi and Esty Zaklikofsky and it began to drain from the surrounding street, there were knocks on the family’s door. Neighbors came by to help clear away any damaged sheetrock and carpeting from their home.
“People from all backgrounds, everyone was just knocking on our door offering to help,” says Rabbi Zaklikofsky, co-director with his wife of the Shul of Bellaire. “They spent hours here. It was an incredible display of human kindness. As soon as people heard about it through a neighborhood group text they were here.”
What made it even more special, the rabbi tells Chabad.org, was that he hadn’t even met many of the volunteers before. “I was speechless,” he admits. “I just expressed my gratitude to them for responding at a moment’s notice to a stranger. One of our friends spent seven hours here spearheading the whole effort.”
Neighbor helping neighbor has been the rule since the rains began falling in earnest last Saturday, and the calls for help have been increasing daily. On Tuesday, a pair of 70-year-old reservoir dams that protect downtown Houston and a levee in a suburban subdivision began overflowing, adding to the rising floodwaters from Harvey that have crippled the area after five consecutive days of rain. At least ten people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced. Officials have no real idea of when the life-threatening danger will end, when recovery will begin or how long it will take.
For now, with the official rescue channels inundated with emergency calls, some took matters into their own hands, taking boats through flooded water to rescue those in need. Others opened their dry homes to friends and neighbors who were not as lucky.
“For our home, personally, we are picking up the pieces and figuring out what to do next,” says Zaklikofsky. “At the same time there are areas of Houston that are just beginning to flood, which puts thousands of of more homes on a path to [potential] destruction. Our hearts go out to them and we pray to G‑d that this comes to an end as soon as possible so people are out of the path of danger.”
Among those who are now bracing to see what happens in their home are Rabbi Mendel Feigenson--co-director of Chabad of Sugar Land with his wife, Chaya--and three of his children. The Oyster Creek, which abuts his backyard, is rising and nearly over its banks.
“We are on the second floor and watching it very closely,” he says. “If the water starts rising we are going to have to leave. On the one hand, they tell us to evacuate, but the roads are flooded so we don’t have access to go anywhere. We are in the hands of Hashem.”
Among those who are now bracing to see what happens in their home are Rabbi Mendel Feigenson--co-director of Chabad of Sugar Land with his wife, Chaya--and three of his children. The Oyster Creek, which abuts his backyard, is rising and nearly over its banks.
Feigenson is in constant contact with his neighbors and reports that many are in similar situations. “Everyone is scared and worried,” he says. “We encourage each other and people are just trying to ride out the storm.”
Yesterday, as the Brazos River, which feeds local tributaries in Sugar Land, began flooding, Feigenson made the decision to take the Torah scrolls out of the one-story Chabad House nearby and move them into the second floor of his home, which is where he and his children are staying. (His wife, who was in Israel and slated to return yesterday, is stuck in New York as there are no flights into Houston right now.)
“We are saying Psalms and praying,” says the rabbi. “We know that the G‑d is with us and it is my job to keep [my family] calm.”
Evacuating Torah scrolls from Chabad of Sugar Land.Feigenson goes on to say that “this is one of the worst disasters, and it’s a big mitzvah to help the community get back together any way people can. People have lost their homes.”
Adds Zaklikofsky, “All help will be needed because the entire city has been devastated.”
To that end, the Chabad Houses from across the Houston area have banded together to organize and coordinate relief efforts. Among the tasks they are working on is coordinating volunteers from both within the Houston community and beyond the Texas border.
“People have already expressed an interest in coming to Houston,” says Zaklikofsky. “It’s an amazing display of humanity and ahavat Yisrael, unconditional love of a fellow Jew.”
Other Chabad emissaries are tasked with matching families who need a place to stay with people who have offered to open their homes. The Chabad emissaries are also working on setting up both a kosher food pantry and supply pantry as soon as possible.
“Trucks of kosher food have been put in place to come here from out of state,” reports Zaklikofsky. “And, we are gathering donations from anyone in the community who has supplies they want to donate, whether it's canned food or cleaning supplies. At the same time, the Chabad Relief Fund will go out and purchase many supplies to be available as the [monetary] donations come in.”
To assist in the effort, donate to the hurricane relief fund here.
Read
Hurricane Harvey Relief Comes From Unlikely Places
International fundraising effort to help Texas flood victims by Menachem Posner
People the world over are contributing to a new fund to support the efforts of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in Texas who have been providing material and spiritual aid to all even as their own homes have been flooded.
Darwin, Australia, is separated from Houston, Texas, by the international date line, the equator and 14,882 kilometers of Pacific blue. Yet Gaye Shultz of Darwin is one of the many who have donated to Chabad of Houston’s relief efforts as part of local fundraising campaigns orchestrated by Chabad emissaries around the world.
Houston was hit hard by Hurricane Harvey, and continued heavy rain have meant flooding and devastation in many parts of the city. With kosher stores and communal institutions underwater, and kosher food running out in the city, Chabad emissaries are in the midst of coordinating kosher food convoys to be brought into the city once the roads are clear enough to allow trucks to enter.
“We live in a community where we are far removed from the Jews in Melbourne and Sydney,” says Shultz, who was born in the UK but has lived in Australia most of her life. “The hurricane made me realize that fellow Jews in Houston are experiencing hardship. It’s all about Jews helping each other, no matter the location.”
Since Darwin has no synagogue or Jewish communal organizations, Shultz and her husband, Ed, are served by Chabad of Rural and Regional Australia (RARA), directed by Rabbi Yossi and Malki Rodal, who are among many Chabad emissaries all over the globe to have held fundraising campaigns in their respective communities, with all funds being sent directly to the Houston community.
In the short-term, the concentrated efforts are on ensuring that people are physically safe and out of the water, fed, and accounted for. In the coming days and weeks, the focus will shift to rebuilding, as people return to homes ravaged by water and mold, accelerated by temperatures that are expected to reach 90 degrees in the coming days.
“Geographical distance is nothing in comparison to the connection that we have,” says the rabbi, who has reached out to 450 households across the Australian continent, asking them to donate funds for the community in Houston. “We see this on a daily basis as we reach out to Jewish people scattered all over Australia, and the same is true on a global level as well.”
To contribute, please visit www.chabad.org/hurricanerelief
Read
A Chabad Rabbi’s Hurricane Harvey Diary
Chronicle of a Houston-area rabbi’s thoughts, feelings, and actions by Chabad.org Staff
Rabbi Yitzchok Schmukler, right, visits with evacuees at a shelter in Houston. He is chronicling his experiences during the ongoing devastation in Texas.
Aside from Hurricane Harvey’s sheer destruction, for many of the millions in the Houston metropolitan area, the worst has been the not knowing. Not knowing where and when the flooding would stop. Not knowing whether going up to the attic was a good idea or a bad one. Whether to get in a vehicle and try to get to higher ground or to shelter in place. What has happened to family, friends, neighbors, homes, businesses.
Writing in Tablet, Rabbi Yitzchok Schmukler, who directs Chabad of the Bay Area in League City together with his wife, Malky, chronicles his thoughts, feelings and actions as Harvey bore down on his family, home, and community.
By late Saturday night, after terrifying, torrential downpours throughout Shabbat the thunder and rain intensified.
“We slept little. Who could sleep? Were we safe in our home? Our kids wanted to know. Our quaint neighborhood of Clear Creek Village gets its name from the small river that runs alongside it. Would our street flood? What about our neighbor Shlomi and his family? Shlomi is our close friend and the de-facto gabbai at our Chabad House. He, his wife, Samantha, and two small children recently moved into the neighborhood to be within walking distance of the Chabad House. Behind his house are beautiful woods that lead up to the creek.”
At 4:35 a.m. Shlomi texted Schmukler that water was coming into his house. An hour later water in his neighborhood reached the mailboxes, too high to evacuate.
“He’ll have to seek higher ground within his one-story house – but where? The attic. But you can get trapped in the attic.”
Later that day Shlomi and his family are rescued, soon joining the Schmuklers in their home, which sits on higher ground.
Play Video
A Chabad Rabbi’s Hurricane Harvey Diary
Play Video
A Chabad Rabbi’s Hurricane Harvey Diary.
“…we haven’t heard from [one of our friends] since the start of the storm. He lives alone and his house backs to a lake. He’s not answering any of his phones. I feel terrible as I think about the worst – why haven’t I reached out to him earlier? I start putting together plans for a search party. Before we head out, one last try.”
The Scroll
HOLDING ON TO HOPE AMID CATASTROPHE: A HOUSTON RABBI’S HURRICANE HARVEY DIARY
“Here I am, a Chabad Lubavitch Canadian-born rabbi setting out on a rescue expedition with his all-American gentile neighbors.” by Yitzchok Schmukler
LEAGUE CITY, TEXAS—Despite a night of torrential rains throughout Friday night, I made a decision to walk to our Chabad of the Bay Area storefront center early Shabbat morning. “What if even one person decides to show up?” I said to my wife, Malky, “I wouldn’t want them to arrive to a closed door.” One person did come, and that was me. But I knew a Chabad House doesn’t close its doors, certainly not by our own free will.
Shabbat passed peacefully enough with us catching sporadic Hurricane Harvey updates from the radio we jokingly nicknamed bas kol (“heavenly voice”), left on at low volume in the laundry room, for emergency notices.
But then came Motzoei Shabbat (Saturday night), and the driving rain and cracks of thunder were frightening. We slept little. Who could sleep? Were we safe in our home? Our kids wanted to know. Our quaint neighborhood of Clear Creek Village gets its name from the small river that runs alongside it. Would our street flood? What about our neighbor Shlomi and his family? Shlomi is our close friend and the de-facto gabbai at our Chabad House. He, his wife, Samantha, and two small children recently moved into the neighborhood to be within walking distance of the Chabad House. Behind his house are beautiful woods that lead up to the creek. “Everything is okay,” he assured me over the phone. “Remember if it gets bad, you can always come here” I replied.
Sunday. 4:35 a.m. Shlomi texts: “I have water coming in the house. How are you guys?” I reply that we just have some roof leakage, but are otherwise okay. I try to catch a bit more sleep.
5:07 a.m. I get a text: “My floor is covered.”
The jarring emergency alert on our phones goes off again – I jump out of bed. “FLASH FLOOD WARNING IN YOUR AREA.” It’s been that and tornado warnings all night.
I can’t sleep, there’s no way I can sleep. I call Shlomi. We quickly go through contingency plans. Can he evacuate? There’s no way, he says, the water is up to the mailboxes on his street. He’ll have to seek higher ground within his one-story house – but where? The attic. But you can get trapped in the attic.
If Shlomi’s flooding, many others are as well. There is some big devastation. It hits me. People will need physical and emotional support.
6:00 a.m. I launch a WhatsApp group: ‘JBayArea Flood Suprt Grp’. Friends in the community begin to check in. It’s already helping to calm nerves and bring a sense of security. It helps to know you’re not alone.
Malky and I wake up our kids and tell them we are going into rescue and support mode. We are going to be helping people in need. They clear a bedroom and start tidying up. Our kids get it, and I’m proud of them. The thought crosses my mind how the children of Chabad emissaries are such an organic part of what we do.
At Shlomi’s the water level is almost a foot and rising and we’re all worried. 911 is inundated with rescue requests, the instructions are unless it’s life threatening, don’t call. Seek higher ground, go to your roof.
How can I sit passively by? “I’m coming to get you out of there,” I text. “Call 911 and request an evacuation. I will go to my neighbors and try to come to you with vehicles or boats.” I run to my next door neighbor’s house. He and his sons are avid boaters; they will surely have what it takes. Fifteen minutes later Pete, his son Cody and I depart on a rescue mission armed with a pickup truck, life jackets and four kayaks on a hitched trailer. My own custom gear consists of my old Montreal snow boots hastily smeared with Vaseline and two layers of cotton pants to hopefully prevent snake bites in the water. Here I am, a Chabad Lubavitch Canadian-born rabbi setting out on a rescue expedition with his all-American gentile neighbors. I’m taken by their kindness – they didn’t hesitate and jumped right in to help.
We successfully ford through a few blocks of high water and just about to launch the boats when Shlomi calls: a dump truck has shown up and some people with a boat are on his street. They are coming out. Our rescue mission is aborted but we are sure glad he’s safe. Pete drives me over to check on the Chabad Center. It’s above flood waters, but parts of the ceiling have caved in from leaks and there are puddles inside near the doors, but it looks like it will mostly fair OK.
My daughter and I collect Shlomi’s family along with their poodle, Benny, from the emergency shelter they’ve been evacuated to and we set them up in our home. Their cheerful dispositions hide the drama they’ve just experienced.
I had read an article on Shabbat in the book The Early Years about how the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s parents had turned their homes into a refugee relief center during the First World War. If a crisis happened here, I recall thinking, would I be able to step up to plate like that? Their selflessness is a source of inspiration.
Sunday night is threatening to be another night of storms. Will our house still hold its perch above the floodwaters? The creek’s already broken through its so-called 500-year-flood levels. What will happen tonight? For the first time, I feel fear. Malky and I call the kids together and discuss our plan of action if we are compelled to do a midnight evacuation. The kids are a bit afraid but we assure them that this is only a contingency plan so that we can be well prepared.
My thoughts turn to the dedication event we have planned for September 10th to welcome our very first Torah Scroll. My to-do list said this would be the week to get all the final preparations in order. This event means a lot to us and is important that it be a big success. There were signs and food to be ordered and outreach efforts to ensure strong support and a great turnout – now how would we get these things done? What about the beautiful new Torah ark we had just built. It is sitting in our carpenter’s garage waiting to be stained. It’s likely flooded, I’m thinking, as his house sits on a low lying street.
Malky speaks to our 15-year old daughter. She’s supposed to be flying back from camp in Florida tomorrow, but all Houston airports are closed. She was eagerly looking forward to spending a week at home before she goes off to a year of high school out of town. We will take it one day at a time.
I feel grateful that Malky is able to give her the time she needs. Malky and the older kids have been doing an amazing job keeping everyone well fed despite creeping scarcity of food supplies in the pantry. I’m also grateful that our house has so far been spared and that we can help people, and I’m grateful for the strong emotional support we are getting from our family around the world.
We awake Monday to the startling realization that there is one of our friends whom we haven’t heard from since the start of the storm. He lives alone and his house backs to a lake. He’s not answering any of his phones. I feel terrible as I think about the worst – why haven’t I reached out to him earlier? I start putting together plans for a search party. Before we head out, one last try. This time, he answers, thank G‑d!
My phone is abuzz with relief efforts being coordinated by Chabad-Lubavitch out of Houston. Chabad emissaries and community members are coming together, forming committees and taking on responsibilities to provide kosher food, housing and anticipated home recovery help to the thousands of families affected.
of our community members has a high-profile pickup truck, and three of us head out and spend the afternoon visiting with the evacuees – evacuees? I find it hard to call them that – they are our neighbors! We make the rounds and share an encouraging word and a listening ear. I am awed by the support they are being given, hundreds of people being housed, fed and clothed by numerous volunteers. It is heartening to witness that inner spark of goodness come to the fore at a time like this. Maybe this is the reason we are all here, one of the evacuees tells me.
It’s still raining incessantly and the water on our street is rising. Whatever happens tomorrow, one thing I know, that there will be an ever greater light of goodness and kindness shining.
Rabbi Yitzchok Schmukler, originally from Montreal, founded Chabad of the Galveston Bay Area near Houston, together with his wife, Malky. They are the proud parents of six wonderful children.
16 yr. old surfer Kathy Korner, with her friends, 1957.(Photo: Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
One sunny weekend morning this past spring, I drove to Duke’s, a festive Hawaiian-themed restaurant in Malibu, to visit with a woman named Kathy who has worked there for the past fifteen years. Her official title is Ambassador of Aloha; the job description includes greeting diners when they walk in the front door and charming regular patrons, many of whom are her friends. Kathy comes in for two shifts a week: Sunday morning for brunch, and at night on Taco Tuesdays. Taco Tuesdays are more casual, and typically she wears slacks. For brunch Kathy likes to gussy up a bit. When I visited her, she was dressed like a parrot. Her dress was covered in a bright floral pattern and she wore magenta lipstick. The tropical bird-like glamor was accentuated by her incessant motion and flirtatious behavior with guests.
Kathy’s co-workers are mostly Pepperdine University students, but she assures me they treat her like an equal. “I feel when I go to that restaurant, I’m extended family,” she said. “There’s no, sort of, ‘Oh my God, how old is this woman? She doesn’t even know how to work her mobile phone!’”
People ask to take photographs with her multiple times per day. “I feel like saying, ‘a dollar,’” she jokes. “It’s a great story, I’m alive and well, girls are surfing,” she says of her micro-celebrity. “Where else could Gidget be but at Duke’s?”
The word Gidget, if it evokes anything in one’s mind, likely compels mental images of gingham bikinis, improvised luaus, and berserk 1950s-style optimism. Maybe Sandra Dee, pre-alcoholism, is pictured, or Sally Field before she was a flying nun. One definitely does not imagine a Jewish septuagenarian, married to a Yiddish scholar, with a tendency toward recreational hitchhiking. But that is who Kathy Zuckerman is, and Kathy Zuckerman is Gidget.
Gidget: The Little Girl With Big Ideas was written by Kathy’s father, the Czech-born screenwriter Frederick Kohner, in less than a month in 1957 and published the same year by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. It skyrocketed up the best-seller list, went on to sell 30 million copies, and was translated into dozens of languages, including Hebrew. The Los Angeles Times described the book as “Midsummer madness about beach bums, surf boards, Malibu, and a fifteen-year-old American answer to Francoise Sagan.” Other reviewers compared it to The Catcher in the Rye, and everyone seemed to agree that it was just delightful. Gidget spawned a movie, and then a TV series, as well as multiple sequels set in Hawaii, Rome, and suburban matrimonial bliss. The franchise is often credited with popularizing surfing with American teenagers.
Written in a charmingly antiquated first-person slang, the book tells the story of Franzie, the plucky daughter of German intellectuals recently relocated to west L.A. She is cute and blonde with protruding eyeteeth. She resists orthodontia but not various snake-oil remedies meant to augment her bust (at times, the reader will be struck by the odd realization that the book was written by an actual father from the point of view of his actual daughter). Franzie has the kind of linguistic swagger endemic to self-consciously and erratically kept diaries. Her English teacher is “barfy-looking,” the ditzy girls at the beach are called “coozies,” and they give her the “heebie geebies.” Franzie thinks the Adriatic Ocean is “crummy” but that the Pacific is “bichen.” On the Fourth of July, she accompanies her parents to Malibu; while they sun themselves and “talk a lot of boring stuff,” Franzie snorkels, gets caught in a tangle of kelp, and is rescued by a surfer named Moondoggie. Together, riding tandem, they catch a wave in to shore. She describes it—“earsplitting buzz” … “zoom” … “foam tossed over my shoulder”—and then says with triumph, “I felt so jazzed up about this ride I could have yelled.” The rest of the book documents Franzie’s new infatuations: with riding waves, with Moondoggie, with the as-yet-undocumented lifestyle that was midcentury surfing.
The story, though fictionalized, is not too dissimilar from Kathy’s high-school life and antics. She too had émigré parents who enjoyed lounging on the beach, she too finagled her way into an odd and insular tribe and took up surfing at a time when most teenagers were going to the drive-in and attending sock hops, she too had a crush on an older surfer. Kathy, like her alter-ego, was a diminutive five feet in height and nicknamed The Gidget—a portmanteau of “girl” and “midget”—by the mostly college-aged men who had made the Malibu shore their full-time summer residence; reluctantly they allowed her to join the gang, with the provision that she was to smuggle them food from her mother’s pantry. Kathy remembers importing radish-and-peanut-butter sandwiches to the beach and joked in 2007 that “That’s where my Jewishness came out, I suppose.”
It was his daughter’s journal entries and lively accounts of her time at the beach that inspired Kohner to write the book. At the end of each day, a salt-crusted and adrenaline-infused Kathy would return to Brentwood, which in the previous decade had become the uncanny home to many German and Austrian intellectuals, including Thomas Mann, Theodor Adorno, Arnold Schoenberg, and Bertolt Brecht, and tell her father about all her nutty new friends and about how much fun she had had in the water. And in a sense, the novel that resulted was written in Kohner’s third language (the first being German, the second English, the third American teen-speak). It reads like a novel, but in many ways the book hews closer to subcultural reportage: The idiom is expansive, the technical details are profuse, the narrator functions like the kind of personable tour guide present in so many pieces of impressionistic journalism.
Kathy, who belongs to the Malibu Surfing Association and was inducted to the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, has worked hard in recent years to publicize the book, which was reissued in 2001. When her agent warned that there was the possibility of a one-print run, Kathy decided she’d take up the mantle and start talking, really for the first time in fifty years, about what it was like to be Gidget. But she emphasizes that it’s her father’s book—less than her own story—that she wants to keep alive.
***
The interior of Kathy’s home, which is filled with serious books and dog-eared issues of The New Yorker, seems to have more in common with an Upper West Side apartment than the beach bungalows and celebrity-owned mansions that surround it. When I visited her there the day before Easter, the garden was in full bloom and the kitchen table laid with chocolate eggs she would soon hide for her grandchildren. “I guess this isn’t very Jewish,” she laughed, before offering me one. Marvin, her husband of fifty-two years, made espresso, puttered a bit, but mostly stayed enclosed in his study, doing last-minute work on his forthcoming book about the Jewish Labor Bund.
We positioned deck chairs in the middle of the lawn, and Kathy proceeded to tell me about her life. When she was thirteen, her father got a job in Berlin working with Artur Brauner, so the family rented out their Brentwood home to the screenwriter Ernest Lehman (credits include North by Northwest, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music) and moved to Germany for two years. She attended an American school, mostly with the children of military personnel, and is grateful to her parents for in large part succeeding at insulating her from the “the sadness that had occurred there just nine years prior.”
When she returned to California, her American peers suddenly struck her as provincial, with, as she puts it “the little clubs and leather jackets.” She said, “I couldn’t relate to the girly-girl thing, and so when I found Malibu, I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to learn how to surf. I’ve found my place.’ I suppose everybody needs a place, the sociologists call it a third place, you know, home, school, and then I had Malibu. I was driven to learn how to surf.”
She bought her first surfboard in June of 1956 for $35. It was emblazoned with a totem pole and made by Mike Doyle, a boy her own age, who would go on to become one of the most famous shapers in the industry.
Though her new friends were older, male, and sometimes derelict, surfing wasn’t yet a pastime associated with delinquency. They would drink beer occasionally and sometimes cheap red wine from a bota bag, but drugs were not present. The lifestyle was also years away from getting commercialized. There weren’t yet corporate sponsored surf competitions or streetwear brands. “Maybe that’s what I really liked about the scene,” she said, “that it was way off dead center.”
But Kathy’s days at the beach, as described in both her own diaries and her father’s fictionalized summary of them, were as much about boys as about waves. She remembers stuffing her bathing suit with Kleenex and hoping that Bill, the inspiration for Moondoggie, saw her whenever she caught a wave.
One day that first summer, her father picked her up at the beach, and she turned to him in the car and said, “I want to write a story about what’s going on at Malibu. They call me Gidget. Everybody has a nickname.” To which he replied, “Well, you’re not a writer. You keep your diary, but why don’t you tell me? I’ll write that story for you.” Pleased with the suggestion, Kathy granted him permission and for the next three weeks fed him information about her life. “Jazzed” appeared often in her diary, as did “fiasco” and “comber,” the then-popular term for a wave. “I think it was attractive to him because he was a writer,” she said. “He had the vision that, ‘Wow, my daughter is sharing with me something.’ And it seemed—I guess—highly unusual at the time. Like, ‘She’s hanging out at Malibu, she’s talking about surfing, she’s talking about boys, and she’s using some language that nobody’s heard of.’ And nobody’d heard of surfing, particularly, or very few. And he used his charm and grammatic purpose as a writer, and he sat in his studio, which is not far from the main house, and he typed this thing out.”
Kathy did not read the manuscript when it was done, but she remembers the call from the William Morris Agency that came, during dinner, a few weeks later. Her father picked up the phone and the voice on the other end of the line said, “You and your wife can go skiing—this is going be a play, this is going be a TV show, this is going be a comic strip, this is amazing, you’ve hit the jackpot, Mr. Kohner.”
The predications all came true. And though Kathy would occasionally tag along on radio interviews and once met Sandra Dee on the set of the movie, the success was not hers but her father’s. And though Kathy’s ardor for surfing (and Moondoggie) lasted only two summers, the entertainment properties it inspired continued on for decades. Kathy quit surfing by the time she went away to college at Oregon State, where she discovered both Hillel Club and, as she puts it, “that real men love Gidget.” At school, she flirted with her English professor, babysat for Bernard Malamud’s kids, and got interested in lighting Hanukkah candles.
After graduation, she joined the newly formed Peace Corps but was rejected during training for being “too boy crazy.” She met Marvin (one of their first dates took place on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) and married him in 1965. For two years, Kathy worked as a high-school English and substitute teacher in the San Fernando Valley. “When they started calling me Mrs. Fuckerman, instead of Mrs. Zuckerman, I was like, ‘You know what? This is too far to travel from the west side for any sort of disparagement of my character.’”
By then she had a baby and soon would have another, and though Kathy herself grew up in a secular household (she remembers her father going to temple on Rosh Hashanah and to the cemetery on Yom Kippur with his brothers, but that’s it), her own sons were bar mitzvahed. Neither, however, surfs, and of Marvin’s relationship to the ocean Kathy says, with a vagueness that almost sounds euphemistic, “He was a transplant from New York, so we didn’t do it that much. I mean we’d go to the beach, but …”
At this point, Kathy adjusted herself away from the sun just as Kobe, a semi-feral cat, putatively theirs, slinked over and began meowing. It sounded like a fog horn. Kathy rolled her eyes and tossed a glass of water on it.
***
If anything complicates Kathy’s job at Duke’s it’s not the parking-lot crowds or piña colada-drunk tourists, but rather the seven-mile drive home. “You’ve got to be fearful of something, so I’m fearful of the highway,” she told me. Typically Marvin drops Kathy off in Malibu at the beginning of her shift and she then finds herself a ride home. “I boycott driving on the highway at the moment,” she said. “I don’t want anybody honking at me. I don’t want to go faster than my comfortable speed zone. That’s not to say that whoever gives me a ride home isn’t going be a wackadoodle.”
This commuting situation was, in part, why I was at Duke’s in the first place. The day before, as I was leaving their house, Kathy and Marvin got into a brief discussion about the following day’s logistics, and I offered to come for lunch and give her a ride home. Also, of course, I wanted to witness her impish charisma under more hectic circumstances than a one-on-one patio chat.
It being 2016, though, I had decided against renting a car for the trip and was instead relying, quite happily, on Uber, a service Kathy had neither used nor heard of. She needed to be on the road by 2 p.m. so she’d have time to hide those Easter eggs, and so at 1:55 I requested a car. A black Toyota Corolla pulled up minutes later, and we hopped into the back seat. Kathy complimented the driver’s adherence to the speed limit and wondered aloud if, in the future, Marvin might be able to order her Ubers for her from home on his iPad. She spoke of Malibu gentrification, and again in glowing terms of the restaurant and their embrace of her. Kathy, though literally famous for her small size, takes up the collective psychic space of whatever room—or in this case, sedan—she happens to occupy. She sparkles in that way that only celebrities ever do.
And so, when we arrived in the Palisades fifteen minutes later, it was less surprising than it should have been that our driver, a black woman in her forties from Chicago, asked for an autograph. We were still a few blocks from Kathy’s house, but she had told the driver to stop because she’d like to walk the few blocks home. “Why sure!” she said, pulling out a stack of postcards bearing her own bikini-ed image. She wrote out a brief, friendly note and signed her name. The driver thanked her and Kathy hopped out of the car with great efficiency. “Bye!” she waved.
We turned around in the middle of the street. I looked out the window and caught a last glimpse of Kathy, scampering through a neighbor’s yard.
“Wait,” I asked the driver. “Did you know who that was?”
“I didn’t,” she answered, “I just got that sense. Who is she?”
***
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Alice Gregory is a writer living in Brooklyn.
'Circle of Peace,' the center's 9/11 remembrance event in 2016.(Photo: Scott Griessel)
A new kind of “neighborhood” is nearing completion in West Omaha, Nebraska—a place where Jews, Muslims, and Christians will share spaces, food, ideas, joy, and pain.
Over 10 years ago, a group of Omaha’s religious and lay leaders hatched an idea: Build three, brand-new houses of worship—a temple, a mosque, and a church—located close together on the same plot of land; ensure that the design scheme feels borderless, flowing, and inviting of interaction; encourage communication between communities—promoting, among other things, cross-religious education and, well, understanding; put into place the right leaders to foster these activities; have plentiful parking; coexist; shock the world.
If all goes according to plan, all the elements of the Tri-Faith Initiative should be in place by 2019. A new, 58,500 square-foot building on 14 acres for Temple Israel, a Reform congregation and the oldest in Omaha, was completed in 2013; a new 16,000 square-foot masjid, run by the American Muslim Institute, held an opening celebration service in its new $6.5 home last month, at the end of Ramadan, that was so packed they had to clear out furniture in the lobby to create enough prayer space; and a new house of worship for Countryside Community Church broke ground this summer. There will also be a Tri-Faith “commons” building, a fourth edifice still in the planning phase that will function as a central meeting place of sorts and ideally house an executive director and a small staff, according to organizers.
The “fifth element” of the project is an open landscape that, when completed, will have fruit trees and manicured brush and flowers and water and meditative spaces that will function as an environmental glue of sorts for the entire campus. “Basically it will become Spain—the good days of Spain,” said Aryeh Azriel, a Tri-Faith co-founder who served as Temple Israel’s rabbi for 28 years before retiring last year. Bifurcating the land is Hell Creek, which people will soon be able to traverse via “Heaven’s Bridge.”
There’s an easy joke that CNN, The Daily Show, and NPR have all leaned on in their coverage of Tri-Faith: A rabbi, a pastor, and an imam walk into a bar… Message being: Sure, these faiths share Abrahamic origins, but they also share ancient animosities. Can this really work?
Tri-Faith organizers say that their co-religious initiative is the first of its kind in the United States. And they believe that Omaha—a shiny blue dot in an otherwise red region—is the ideal canvas upon which to paint their vision.
***
The story of the Tri-Faith Initiative essentially begins in December 2005 when Jewish and Muslim community leaders met to discuss a pressing religious matter: parking. But these pragmatic-minded talks quickly flourished and the group began to “dream outrageously,” as Azriel put it.
At the time, Temple Israel’s aging building was in need of constant repair, and there was a need for more space—the congregation, over the course of five decades, had more or less doubled in size, said Bob Freeman, a former president of Temple Israel and Tri-Faith co-founder who chaired its board until 2016. Additionally, Temple Israel’s members were moving westward, a longtime trend for many of Omaha’s Jewish families. As a result, there was real interest in relocating.
There were advantages to the current location, however, as a Methodist church and Omaha’s Community Playhouse had previously been built next door, creating a “park-like environment around our temple building and free overflow parking on those few peak-use days that congregants appeared in great numbers,” said Freeman, who used to live near the temple and was not initially enamored with the idea of moving to West Omaha. “My view was: If we’re going to move, we ought to try to consciously replicate some of those characteristics that we had,” including the ability to choose neighbors (rather than leave that up to developers who would likely have differing priorities). Said Freeman: “The logical starting point was other religious buildings in town—a church, a mosque; their peak-use days aren’t going to coincide with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and you would have compatibility of use as a neighbor.”
Freeman and Azriel had learned that some members of Omaha’s growing Muslim community were also desiring change, and wanted to create a new mosque further west. They had coffee with a number of lay Muslim leaders—including Syed Mohiuddin, a renowned cardiologist who lectures at Creighton University, and Karim Khayati, a technology and business professional—who believed in what would soon coalesce as the pluralistic philosophy of Tri-Faith. As these talks were regularly taking place, Mohiuddin, Khayati, and a handful of Omaha’s Muslims leaders decided the time was right to catalyze their brewing vision: to officially incorporate a progressive-minded Islamic organization, and establish an affiliated mosque.
At first, the new organization was named the American Institute of Islamic Studies and Culture. Today it’s known as the American Muslim Institute, or AMI. Mohiuddin, who can trace his family roots to Syed Abdul Qadir Gilani Al Amoli, a 12th-century preacher who founded the Qadiri Sufi Order of Islam, now serves as the organization’s president; Khayati is the vice president.
“When [Freeman and Azriel] said they were looking for a partner, we said, ‘We are in,” recalled Mohiuddin. “Without them, there would be no Tri-Faith.”
In order to complete the Abrahamic triad, a Christian partner, The Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska, was brought on, and in November 2006 Tri-Faith’s leadership penned a visionary, pluralistic Memorandum of Understanding, spelling out the overall vision: “…To build bridges of respect, trust, and acceptance, to challenge stereotypes of each other, to learn from one another, and to counter the influence of extremists and agents of hate.”
Now, Tri-Faith’s organizers had to get their respective congregations to buy in—not only to Tri-faith’s vision and philosophy but also to relocation.
In the end, out of 700 congregational families, Temple Israel lost just one.
According to Azriel, there was “pushback” from Temple Israel’s congregants and other Omaha residents worried that Tri-Faith would become a target for terrorists. “Their issues were centered around fear or really, ignorance,” said Azriel, citing the effect of Middle East politics on many of their outlooks. If these congregants were willing, Freeman or another Tri-Faith backer would set up personal meetings—lunches, coffees—with a member of Temple Israel and an AMI leader, such as Khayati, Mohiuddin, or AMI’s secretary Nuzhat Mahmood, who serves on the Tri-Faith board of directors. Typically, Temple Israel congregants walked out with a fresh perspective. “We were determined to win to some ‘converts’ [to supporting this interfaith initiative],” said Freeman. In the end, out of 700 congregational families, Temple Israel lost just one.
There was also resistance from The Jewish Federation of Omaha, which tried to convince Azriel to bring Omaha’s Jewish congregations together, rather than partner with other faiths. “I said, ‘What?’ That requires God and a lot more intervention,” he recalled, with equal parts humor and realism. “It’s much easier [to accomplish] with Muslims and Christians than it would be with the Jews.”
By 2011, Temple Israel, AMI, the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska (the Christian arm of Tri-Faith), and the Tri-Faith Initiative (a 501c3) purchased four individual parcels of land at the corner of 132nd and Pacific Streets on what used to be the Highland Country Club, a golf course established by Jews in 1924 because they were barred from joining other clubs. (Freeman’s maternal grandparents once belonged to the club.) It later became Ironwood Country Club, which failed financially, and the land was sold to a developer in 2010.
The new space for Temple Israel, whose congregation formed in 1871, broke ground in June 2012. On August 25, 2013, members of Temple Israel paraded a Torah scroll from 7023 Cass St., where it had been located since 1954, to its brand-new, $21 million modern digs that had just completed construction at 13111 Sterling Ridge Drive in West Omaha. Two weeks later, on Shabbat, Temple Israel held a dedication ceremony in its new chapel, featuring a speech by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the President Emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism. He deemed the day “a great and historic moment in the history of American Judaism.”
The Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska remained a Tri-Faith partner until April 2015, as it was facing fundraising troubles. It transferred its stake in the project to Countryside Community Church, an ecumenical congregation that has operated since 1949. The opportunity to get involved with Tri-Faith was a dream come true for Reverend Eric Elnes, the church’s senior pastor, who had been feeling pangs of “weird intuition” that were knocking around in his head and heart for a year. “I was just blown away [by Tri-Faith’s vision],” said Elnes.
Elnes said he believed in Tri-Faith’s forward thinking so much that he was prepared to lose families to other churches. Elnes and his staff, including Reverend Chris Alexander, the church’s associate pastor, guessed that about 70 to 80 percent of the congregation would agree to join. Out of 600 families, they lost about 100 households. “In the end we were right,” said Elnes.
In time they’ve raised $26 million, $4 million of which is coming from the sale of its current space. The rest, said Elnes, is coming from its congregants and private and philanthropic donations, including the Sherwood Foundation, a nonprofit headed by CCC member Susie Buffet, who has also helped finance Tri-Faith.
Mohiuddin believes that the church’s move is the most extraordinary of the three since CCC had no urgent reason to move. “We love our building,” Elnes told NPR in December 2015. “There is literally no good reason to move whatsoever, except to follow this Tri-Faith Initiative, which has really, absolutely moved our hearts.”
***
Jews have come to Omaha in waves since the mid-19th century. Today, an estimated 6,000 Jews reside in Omaha, down from a peak of more than twice that in 1912. Along the way, the city has been home to the first chapter of AZA—Aleph Zadik Aleph, the male arm of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organzation for high school students—and some of the first chapters of the National Council of Jewish Women and Hadassah.
One recent afternoon, Marty Shukert, who served as the planning and community development director for the City of Omaha for seven years, and is now a principal at a prestigious architecture and design firm there, showed me around the city. He pointed out, among sundry other things, various historical Jewish landmarks—from repurposed synagogues and formerly dense Jewish neighborhoods, and where members of his family used to live, to the can’t-miss headquarters of Omaha Steaks, a massive beef marketer that was begun (and is still run) by the Simons, a Jewish family that immigrated to America from Latvia 100 years ago. (They are members of Temple Israel.)
Omaha native Shukert is an unofficial local historian. In the late 19th and early 20th century, he said, most Jews lived along Omaha’s Near North side, which was also densely African-American. Beginning in the 1930s and ’40s, Omaha’s Jewish population gradually began to move westward, toward Midtown and neighborhoods like Dundee. In 1941, the first synagogue for Beth El, for example, where Shukert is a congregant, was dedicated at its former home at 49th and Dodge, in Dundee, a former streetcar suburb.
In the 1950s, many Jews lived in a neighborhood called Dillon’s Fairacre—but everybody called it Bagel. “The Bagel neighborhood became the receiver of upwardly mobile Jewish families with kids who were establishing households after the War, and moving on up,” said Shukert, who at the time lived in a more working-class neighborhood called Benson. In 1950, Beth Hamedrosh Hagadol and B’nai Israel merged and became Beth Israel, the Orthodox synagogue. That same year, Beth Israel moved into a new shul built on 52nd Street (it moved west in 2004 to 126th St). In 1954, Temple Israel, the Reform synagogue, last but not least, moved even further west (street numbers rise as you move west), to 72nd and Cass Streets, from its downtown location, where it had stood since 1908.
Into the late ’60s and ’70s, many Jewish families continued to move even further west; the Jewish population was decentralizing. One major influence on this trend, said Shukert, was the new location of the JCC, which in 1973 moved from its downtown location to West Omaha, at 132nd and Dodge. The synagogues followed suit. In 1991, Beth El, the Conservative synagogue would complete the westward migration—all the way to 144th and Dodge. Beth Israel would eventually move too, to 126th. So, too, would Temple Israel, to its current location as part of the Tri-Faith Initiative, at 132nd. Carol Gendler, a resident of Omaha for 60 years, believes that even these moves weren’t far enough west: “People live in the 200s now,” she said.
***
I met Azriel for coffee at the Starbucks directly across from Countryside Community Church’s location at 8787 Pacific Street. In order to give Temple Israel’s new rabbi, Brian Stoller, some space, Azriel keeps an office in the church, where he serves as its scholar-in-residence, an unpaid position. “I teach Christians Judaism,” said Azriel.
Born in Tzfat in 1949 to Bulgarian parents, Azriel was stricken with polio when he was just six months old; the illness has rendered one of his legs nearly unusable, currently causing him to walk with a significant limp. Until a few years ago he didn’t have to use a cane, but he said he’ll likely be in a wheelchair soon, a fate Azriel is completely fine with. “[Being stricken with polio] gave me a lot of time to grow up and develop from inside,” said Azriel. “It gave me a reason to be alive.”
Under Azriel’s watch, Temple Israel has a solid history of interfaith dialogue and community-building. According to Freeman, for the past 20 years, there’s been a rotating interfaith Thanksgiving service that combines hundreds of congregants from a local Methodist church, a Catholic church, and Temple Israel. Azriel, who was on the mayor’s inter-ministerial alliance, has participated in a number of interfaith panels, events, and lecture series, for instance.
Azriel’s leadership has been steadily liberal, his voice often accompanying stories of social activism. In an article regarding Azriel’s retirement, the Omaha World-Herald reported that the rabbi “has displayed energy, passion, and perseverance on community issues including fair housing, welfare reform, and gun violence.” In 1997, Omaha mayor Hal Daub presented Azriel with a “Living the Dream” award for his “work in the community on such projects as the low-income home-building, black/Jewish dialogue, a community garden project [that dates back to 1992] and last year’s black/Jewish Passover Seder,” reported The Jewish Press. Azriel has also led numerous efforts to raise money for the Food Bank, as well as engage in interfaith dialogue and collaborative community projects.
He has also been an ardent supporter of same-sex marriage, performing a “commitment ceremony” at Temple Israel’s old location in June 1999. Though he had support from the temple’s leaders, the event proved controversial within the congregation itself, reported the Omaha World-Herald. A similar ceremony took place at a church across the street two years prior, and the reverend who performed that ceremony, Jimmy Creech, was friends with Azriel. Today, same-sex unions are welcome at Temple Israel. Same-sex marriages have been legal in Nebraska since June 29, 2015. Prior to that ruling, Azriel signed the Heartland Clergy for Inclusion #ReadytoMarry proclamation, one of 73 clergy to do so, including Rabbi Josh Brown, also of Temple Israel. (Rabbi Craig Lewis, of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, a Reform congregation in Lincoln, the state capital, was the only other Nebraska rabbi to support this proclamation.) Elnes was also a signatory on the Heartland Clergy for Inclusion proclamation, along with Alexander. CCC performs same-sex marriages; in fact, the United Church of Christ was the first Christian denomination to ordain an openly gay person in 1973 and the first to affirm same-sex marriage in 1995. (AMI does not recognize same-sex marriages.)
Azriel calls Brian Stoller, who was officially installed as Temple Israel’s senior rabbi at the beginning of 2017, “caring” and a scholar. Stoller, an affable Texan, served for nine years as associate rabbi at B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield, Illinois, before moving to Omaha with his family.
‘I want my shelves to be filled with texts from my Tri-Faith partners’ traditions. I want to be able to have facility with them and to teach with them.’
Stoller’s spacious office at Temple Israel is lined with books: the Babylonian Talmud, an English edition by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and other various rabbinic literature, from the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah to the Shulchan Aruch. Two shelves, however, are emptier than others—those are reserved for books about Islam and Christianity whose seminal texts, liturgy, and philosophies he’s steadily and purposefully learning. “We all see ourselves as part of Abraham and Sarah’s tent,” he said. “I want my shelves to be filled with texts from my Tri-Faith partners’ traditions. I want to be able to have facility with them and to teach with them.”
On one shelf is a framed photograph of Stoller with former Illinois Senator Peter Fitzgerald, for whom he served as press secretary for four years, ending in 2003. In 2008 Stoller earned rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati; he is working toward earning a Ph.D. in Halakhah, or written and oral Jewish law, under the tutelage of Rabbi David Ellenson, chancellor emeritus of HUC—who had previously been a scholar-in-residence at Temple Israel, and is coming to speak at Stoller’s official installation in November. At the moment, Stoller is focused on getting his bearings within his own congregation, meeting internally with staff, as well as conversations and studying with members of his congregation, learning about their needs. “There will be growing pains, challenges to navigate,” he said. “We have to recalibrate our understanding of what it means to be a Jewish congregation.”
***
Outside the AMI mosque is a towering minaret resembling the five pillars of Islam—Shahada (Faith), Salat (Prayer), Zakāt (Charity), Sawm (Fasting) and Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca). Mohiuddin explained the meaning and importance of each pillar to me in his soft, comforting voice. “This is a mosque built in Omaha, for Omaha people,” he said.
The building itself is clean and airy—half of the walls, it seems, are panes of glass, a purposeful design intended to signal to congregants, and to their Tri-Faith partners, that the building is open to them. It’s part of a commitment to learning about, and interacting with, Jews and Christians as a way to the mosque’s congregants’ way of life, from prayer and beyond. “At night, [AMI] is the most lighted, most brilliant building in the whole area,” Mohiuddin said. “We wanted the community to know: We are here for you.”
AMI’s imam, Mohamad Jamal Daoudi concurred, saying, “We are the enemy of what we don’t know.”
There are now four mosques in Omaha, serving an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 Muslims, according to Mohiuddin, a population that has steadily grown, often because of conflict overseas. In 2014, Abdul Raheem Yaseer, the assistant director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, told the Omaha Daily-Herald that Muslims came to Omaha beginning in the 1940s and 1950s—black Muslims from Chicago who found work at packing houses and area farms. The first mosque in town, the Islamic Center of Omaha, was created in the mid-seventies, and it still operates on 73rd Street, serving Muslims from India and Pakistan, said Mohiuddin. Many Muslims in Omaha have fled war, from Afghanis to Somalians and Sudanese, beginning in the ’90s. There are Muslims in Omaha from an estimated 20 countries now. Syrians refugees, though a small group, are a very recent arrival to Omaha. In the year from October 2015 to September 2016, Nebraska was tops in resettling refugees per capita.
Daoudi is from Damascus, but he has lived in the U.S. for 22 years. He served as imam for The Islamic Center of North Valley in Lancaster, California, followed by a stint at The Islamic Association of West Virginia, in Charleston, before receiving a Doctor of Ministry degree in 2005 from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. That same year, he became a U.S. citizen.
Daoudi has not been back to Damascus since 2012. Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, he said he’s lost plenty of friends, including a young tutor who was taken by Assad’s forces for facilitating Facebook communications for the opposition. Tri-Faith, he said, is the only thing that gives him hope. “I’m living because of the honor of God, honoring me just to be surviving,” he said.
Mohiuddin first arrived in Ohama in 1963, from Hyderabad, India, where he was born in 1934. He believes that there were only three Muslims in Omaha at the time—all of them from India—and they would get together occasionally. After receiving a medical degree from Osmania University, he came to the U.S. to attend Creighton University for a post-grad program, but he was eventually forced to leave the U.S. when his J-1 visa ran out. So he moved to Canada and enrolled at the Université Laval in Quebec City, earning a degree in medicine. In 1970, Creighton asked him to return, offering him a full-time job teaching the department of cardiology. Mohiuddin said he’s stopped doing hospital work, focusing on outpatient care and giving lectures. Now, he hopes to cede his role as AMI president to Khayati, 45, who grew up in Tunisia and came to Omaha in 1998.
The notion of “pushback” was different for AMI since, unlike CCC or Temple Israel, the newly established mosque did not have an existing congregation to “answer” to; AMI’s vision came first, and the rest followed. “We’re not going to please everybody,” said Khayati, “not going to be one size fits all for every Muslim every person.” The mosque’s commitment to the interfaith initiative, Khayati said, might be too progressive for some: “We’re not the conservative side of Islam.” And yet, within 12 weeks of opening, the mosque has gone from having 30 to 40 daily members to around 200.
Part of AMI’s purpose is to overcome “a sense of isolation”—a sentiment that serves as a microcosm of sorts for the Muslim community at large in the U.S., which has been subject to scrutiny, however unfairly, since 9/11. “Somebody hijacked our faith,” said Khayati.
But 9/11 also helped bring the religious communities in Omaha together. After the Twin Towers were struck, Azriel sprang to action: He sensed his Muslim neighbors needed protection, a friendly presence. Very early in the morning, he called a few members of the congregation, and about 20 of them of drove over to the Islamic Center of Omaha and formed a human circle around it. People honked their horns as they drove by, but there was no violence that day. Afterward, Azriel and his congregants were invited into the mosque to pray, a moment he describes as “wonderful,” then returned Temple Israel to debrief. “I think it opened the gates to the Muslim community to see how sincere we are,” said Azriel.
“To me, that’s the start of the Tri-Faith,” said Elnes. “It’s burned into my memory.”
Rabbi Aryeh Azriel & Rev. Eric Elnes at the Circle of Peace 9/11 Remembrance event in 2016. (Photo: Scott Griessel)Fifteen years later, last September, hundreds of members of the Tri-Faith community gathered on their fledgling campus to celebrate, in solidarity, their commitment to the fight against the negative perceptions and stereotypes of Muslims brought forth after the events of 9/11. Here, then, they sang together, listened to poetry together, and formed another circle, a Circle of Peace. Together they held red, white, and blue ribbons up to the sky—materials that were later made into a tapestry that is currently on display in CCC’s Common Ground coffee house. Elnes called the Circle of Peace “a humble act of mass construction.”
***
Elnes, who has served as senior pastor at CCC for nine years, told me that pluralism is one of the issues he’s most interested in championing. His office is accented with religious accessories—except his are not primarily Christian. Above his desk, for example, are five tiles he picked up from Pike Place Market in Seattle, each representing five of the world’s major religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
Another issue Elnes is passionate about is LGBT equality. He helped found a group in 2002 of Christian clergy in the Phoenix area, called No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice. They created the Phoenix Declaration, affirming their collective belief that “homosexuality is not a sickness, not a choice, and not a sin.” It calls for an end to LGBT discrimination, and for LGBT inclusion in the Christian faith. It was signed by 160 Arizona clergy, has been through two iterations, and has “become the theological backbone for progressive Christianity in the U.S.,” said Elnes. “The tradition I come from never wrestled with that idea of going to hell. It’s never taken root in our denomination.”
In 2006, Elnes, 53, and a handful of fellow clergy walked 2,500 miles (with the aid of a support vehicle), from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., “to help people realize there’s more than one way to be Christian”—and inspired in large part from the 12 affirmations of the Phoenix Declaration. “We were pretty angry about the way that Christianity was moving the country,” said Elnes, whose journey to promote progressive Christianity took four-and-a-half-months and resulted in a book and documentary called The Asphalt Gospel.
At the time, two affirmations, in particular, proved most controversial. The first is the portion that supports LGBT equality within the faith: “Engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God’s very image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or economic class.”
The second affirmation—and the one that proved even more controversial, even with “moderate Christians,” than the one arguing for LGBT inclusion—was the very first one, which argues for pluralism, the notion that there are other paths to God outside of Christianity: “Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity.”
“We wanted to make sure it’s clear that we weren’t the only game in town,” said Elnes.
***
Like Elnes, Stoller sees clarity in Scripture that exhibits the notion that there are many paths to God, regardless of religion. Deep into our conversation he shot up, inspired, and pulled the Jewish prayer of the shelf, opening it directly to Ma Tovu, a prayer that often begins a service. “Ma tovu ohalekha Ya’akov, mishk’notekha Yisrael,” recited Stoller, a passage, he said, that speaks to him about learning to live in both private and public spaces simultaneously. The opening line of the poetic Ma Tovu translates to: “How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel!”
“Ohel is our temple, mishkan is this [Tri-Faith] neighborhood,” said Stoller. “We have to learn as a community how to live with integrity and openness in both spaces. My mission as rabbi of the congregation is to help our community learn how to live Jewishly both in the tent (ohel) and in the mishkan. We’re both, we’ve got both here. What you have in the synagogue is beautiful and what you have in Tri-Faith neighborhood goes beyond the synagogue walls.”
A primary path toward understanding at Tri-Faith is education. There is, for instance, a course in which Stoller, Elnes, and Daoudi will lecture on heroes and personalities within each other’s faiths. Daoudi will speak about Hagar and her son, Ishmael, from the Quran; Elnes will teach about Jesus and Paul from the Christian perspective and how those stories intersect with Judaism: “We are slowly developing programs, lectures, activities to get together,” Elnes said.
Daoudi’s views on pluralism, and on the flexibility of Islam, began in Damascus. His sheik, the late grand mufti of Syria, Ahmad Kuftaro, under whom he studied, “worked all his life to bring his religion around one table,” said Daoudi. He added that when he was living in Damascus, cardinals were visiting with the mufti and with his community all the time. “I grew up very well acquainted with seeing the other [clergy], meeting with others, working with others.” It’s a design he sees reflected in Tri-Faith—a project whose vision seeks to understand and ameliorate any history of Muslim-Christian strife, such as during the Crusades. “We are one family, we all belong to Adam and Eve,” said Daoudi.
“We are all created in God’s image,” echoed Azriel, who believes that the most important passage in the Bible, at least as it relates to Tri-Faith, describes when Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury Abraham. “Why would the Bible tell us that the two sons that were supposed to be enemies forever—how come they came together to bury their father? We can come together. We can create a different reality.”
***
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Jonathan Zalman, a staff editor, runs The Scroll, Tablet's news blog.
President Vladimir Putin the first hour of his new post. Boris Yeltsin announced on national television Friday, Dec. 31, 1999 that he had resigned and that presidential elections will be held within 90 days to officially replace him.(Photo: Laski Diffusion / Liaison Agency)
It is impossible to evaluate events in Russia today without understanding the mysterious series of bombings in 1999 that killed 300 civilians and created the conditions for Vladimir Putin to become Russia’s dictator for life.
The bombings changed the course of Russia’s post-Soviet history. They were blamed on the Chechens, who denied involvement. In the wake of initial success, Russia launched a new invasion of Chechnya. Putin, who had just been appointed prime minister, was put in charge of the invasion and his popularity soared. Six months later, he was elected president.
On July 14, 2016, I filed a request for documents on the bombings from the State Department, the CIA and the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. I wanted to know whether the U.S. had information to support the view—which is widespread in Russia—that the Russian authorities themselves blew up the bombings in order to bring Putin to power. The responses I received showed that the United States had considerable evidence that the Russian authorities were responsible for the bombings, but chose to ignore it.
The bombings have influenced U.S.-Russian relations to this day. The policy of self-censorship in the case of the bombings has been applied to every one of the Putin era crimes in which there was evidence that the real author was the regime. The 1999 apartment bombings were followed by the 2002 Dubrovka Theater hostage siege, the 2004 Beslan school massacre, the murder of former Federal Security Service (FSB) agent Alexander Litvinenko in London and the murders of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow. In each instance, U.S. policy was to ignore the evidence of official involvement and move on. It was this that made possible the Obama “reset” policy and helps to explain why President Donald Trump, as a candidate, questioned Putin’s responsibility for the murder of journalists and oppositionists and later, as president, justified Russian crimes with the statement, “We kill people too.”
One of the things I wanted to learn as a result of my FOIA requests was the U.S. assessment of who was responsible for the bombings. The State Department provided six documents but nothing about an assessment. I made a renewed request, and March 22, the State Department responded that documents concerning the U.S. assessment of the bombings would remain secret. The CIA refused to produce any documents and the FBI produced nothing that was not publicly known.
In a draft Vaughn index, a document used to justify withholdings in FOIA cases, the State Department said the release of that information had “the potential to inject friction into or cause serious damage” to the relationship with the Russian government which was “vital to U.S. national security.” The response did not mean that it was the assessment that would “inject friction.” The assessment may have been withheld because it would incidentally reveal “sources and methods.” It is the former possibility, however, that is consistent with the attitude that has characterized U.S. behavior in regard to the bombings ever since they occurred. This silence, in turn, has had consequences for the whole fabric of U.S.–Russian relations. By not raising the most important issues, the Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations have allowed Russia to present a false image of itself which, over time, we ourselves have come to believe, undercutting belated efforts to object to Russian crimes and making us vulnerable to Russian manipulation.
***
The 1999 bombings were fortuitous for Yeltsin and his corrupt entourage. They shifted the attention of the country from Yeltsin’s corruption to the Chechens, a very convenient enemy. After Putin’s election as President, Yeltsin was pardoned for all crimes committed while in office and the issue of the criminal privatization of property under Yeltsin was quietly dropped.
But there would have been few questions about the role of the bombings in Putin’s rise to power if it had not been for a fifth bomb discovered on Sept. 22, 1999, in the basement of a building in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow and quickly deactivated. The bomb tested positive for hexogen, the explosive used in the four previous blasts and had a live detonator. The building was evacuated and Ryazan was cordoned off. On Sept. 24, the bombers were arrested. They turned out to be not Chechen terrorists but agents of the FSB.
The arrest of the agents, who produced FSB identification and were quickly released on orders of the FSB in Moscow, required an explanation. Nikolai Patrushev, who had replaced Putin as FSB director, announced on national television that the bomb was a fake and what had occurred was not an attempted terrorist act but a training exercise. He congratulated the people of Ryazan on their vigilance.
From the beginning, the explanation that the Ryazan bomb was part of a training exercise made little sense. When I went to Ryazan in April 2000, residents of the targeted building said it would have been “idiotic” to test them for vigilance after the bombings of four apartment buildings had already plunged Russia into a state of terror.
Dmitri Florin, a former Ryazan policeman, who was on duty that night, published a memoir in Live Journal, a Russian social media site, in which he made clear that the Russian authorities were lying when they said that the incident was a training exercise. The panic and chaos that he witnessed first-hand were consistent with only one thing—an attempt to blow up a fifth building. Almost immediately after the discovery of the bomb and the positive test for hexogen, Florin wrote, the police in Ryazan were issued bulletproof vests and automatic weapons and ordered to remain on the street without a break. Central police headquarters in Ryazan, which had been nearly empty, began to resemble a wartime military staff. In the words of one policeman quoted by Florin, “it was as if the city had been hit by an atomic bomb.” The entire leadership of the Ryazan police arrived and orders were issued in an endless stream over the radio.
In Russia, the law on civil defense requires that exercises in a residential area include a plan that is confirmed in advance with the local authorities. In Ryazan, not a single local government agency was aware of the intention to hold an “exercise.” For two days, the local authorities, including the local branch of the FSB were convinced that they were dealing with an attempted terrorist attack. Every policeman was handed a composite sketch of two of the three suspects based on the descriptions provided by residents of the building who saw persons carrying sacks into the basement. The following day, the sketches appeared in every store window in the city.
It was particularly significant that the local FSB was not informed of an exercise. If this was really an exercise, local FSB agents believing that they were searching for genuine “terrorists” could have easily shot the FSB agents who were carrying out the so called “exercise” unaware that they were part of the same organization.
Meanwhile, the official Russian media, including the Kremlin news service, ITAR-TASS for two days (Sept. 23-24) announced the news that “with the help of the citizens,” Russia had prevented a new terrorist attack. On the morning of Sept. 24, the Russian air force began the bombing of Grozny, ostensibly to destroy terrorist bases. Putin, who was in Kazakhstan on a state visit, confirmed there was an attempted attack. That same day, Vladimir Rushailo, the minister of internal affairs, told a meeting of the ministry’s organized crime unit that a terrorist act had been averted. At midday on Sept. 24, however, the three FSB agents were arrested and identified. It was now necessary urgently to change the story of an attempted terrorist attack. Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the FSB, went on television and explained that the bomb was a dummy and what had taken place was a test of vigilance by the FSB.
***
Despite its absurdity, very few persons were willing to challenge the FSB version of events. This was critical because if the FSB had put a live bomb containing hexogen in the basement of the building at 14-16 Novoselov Street in Ryazan, they were almost certainly responsible for the four bombs that did go off in Buinaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, which also contained hexogen.
A few brave individuals did try to investigate the Ryazan incident. When the State Duma, which was controlled by the regime, voted three times against opening an inquiry into the incident, an independent social commission was created that included several deputies, among them, Sergei Yushchenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist with the independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Yushchenkov was shot dead outside his apartment building on April 17, 2003. Shchekochikhin was poisoned in July 2003. Litvinenko and Politkovskaya also investigated the bombings only to be killed. In the wake of these murders, a curtain of fear descended in Russia over the issue of how Putin came to power.
The United States did not face these pressures but showed no inclination to raise the many disturbing questions about the apartment bombings and the Ryazan incident. On Feb. 8, 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in response to a question from Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), as to whether there was any evidence linking the bombings to Chechnya, replied, “We have not seen evidence linking the bombings to Chechnya.” When she was asked, “Do you believe the Russian government is justified when it accuses Chechen groups as responsible for the bombings?” Albright refused to respond. “The investigation into the bombings is ongoing,” she said. This response was given more than four months after FSB agents were arrested for placing the bomb in Ryazan. Albright then added helpfully that “acts of terror have no place in a democratic society.”
In fact, the documents that I obtained under the FOIA show that, from the beginning, the State Department was not ready to view the information it had about the bombings objectively. In a report issued Sept. 16, after the fourth apartment bombing in Volgodonsk, the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) reported that Putin on Sept. 14 had described Chechnya as “an enormous terrorist camp.” It referred to accusations in the newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomolets that the government itself was responsible for the bombings by saying, “key political groups have not hesitated to try to exploit the situation for their own political ends.” It described the newspaper as “Luzhkov sponsored” [Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, was Yeltsin’s leading political rival] and wrote, “Most observers publicly support the government’s claim.”
But Moskovskiy Komsomolets, at the time, had a reputation for independence and integrity. In his 2012 book, The Moscow Bombings of 1999, John Dunlop, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote that in 1999, Moskovskiy Komsomolets had “a stable of well-informed, high-octane investigative journalists” and did the “heavy lifting” in investigating the bombings before being joined by other leading newspapers such as Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Obshchaya Gazeta. On Sep. 15, Moskovskiy Komsomoletsin one of the reports that the State Department dismissed said, “a tentative conclusion [reached by independent investigators] was that the Chechen mujahedin had no relationship to the terror acts in the capital… The terrorist acts … were, with almost 100 per cent certainty, carried out by professionals.”
The U.S. unwillingness to raise the subject of the bombings continued even as suspicions about the FSB’s role began to surface in the State Department’s own reporting. In a cable from the Moscow embassy, an embassy political officer reported that a former Russian intelligence officer, apparently one of the embassy’s principal informants, said that the real story about the Ryazan incident could never be known because it “would destroy the country.” The informant said the FSB had “a specially trained team of men” whose mission was “to carry out this type of urban warfare” and Viktor Cherkesov, the FSB’s first deputy director and an interrogator of Soviet dissidents was “exactly the right person to order and carry out such actions.”
The political officer reported that another source, a person close to the Russian communist party whose candidate Gennady Zyuganov was defeated by Putin in the March, 2000 Presidential election said that he believed Ryazan raised serious questions about “the conduct of the security services and the source of last year’s apartment bombings.” He said that the communist party was reluctant to pursue the matter for fear of being “tarred as ‘unpatriotic’ if it makes public accusations against the security services.” The political officer reported that his other sources, described as “observers of the Moscow political scene” also expressed doubts about the official version of the Ryazan incident
The United States was also aware of other evidence that the apartment bombings were a false flag attack. On September 13, 1999, Gennady Seleznev, the speaker of the Duma and a person close to Putin, announced that a building in Volgodonsk had been bombed. On the day of his announcement, a building was bombed but in Moscow, on Kashirskoye Highway. The building in Volgodonsk was not blown up until Sept. 16 , three days later. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, took to the podium of the Duma on Sept. 17 and said, “Do you see what is happening in this country? You say an apartment building was blown up on Monday and it explodes on Thursday. This can be evaluated as a provocation.” When Zhirinovsky continued to demand an explanation, his microphone was cut off.
In the face of this kind of evidence, the United States should at least have asked publicly for an explanation of the inconsistencies in the Russian official account. But that was apparently not what US policymakers wanted. In subsequent years, U.S. government Russia specialists, when asked about the bombings, quickly changed the subject. Academics and journalists, concerned about visas and access, also found it easier to write about Russia without discussing how Putin came to power.
***
The world never really forgot the apartment bombings. On Sept. 24, 2014, the youth wing of the opposition Yabloko party held a conference in Moscow to mark the 15thanniversary of the Ryazan incident. During the 2011-12 anti-Putin demonstrations, signs appeared referring to “Ryazan sugar.” [The Russian authorities claimed that the Ryazan bomb, which was quickly removed by the FSB, was made of sugar.] The tolerated Russian opposition press avoids the subject but the bombings are still discussed in detail on banned opposition sites such as Kasparov.ru.
In 2015, PBS released a Frontline documentary on Putin titled “Putin’s Way,” in which I was interviewed at length about the bombings. It was the first time, outside of my own writing, that a mainstream media outlet had accepted the explanation that the FSB had carried out the attacks. Two important books also appeared supporting the idea that Putin came to power through an act of terror. These are Dunlop’s book and Karen Dawisha’s “Putin’s Kleptocracy.” After I was expelled from Russia in December 2013, I wrote a new book, “The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin,” which includes a detailed discussion of the history and significance of the apartment bombings.
On Jan. 11, 2017, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), raised the issue of the bombings explicitly during the confirmation hearings for secretary of state designate Rex Tillerson. Only John McCain (R-Arizona) had raised the issue previously and he did so in a much more guarded fashion. This was a possible sign that the bombings, ignored for so long, will finally become a subject of serious Western debate.
In fact, the West cannot afford to ignore such an atrocity, even 18 years after it occurred. The CIA, in response to my request for documents, has said that because of the need to protect “sources and methods” it cannot provide documents or even acknowledge that the apartment bombings were investigated. I believe that the existing evidence establishes the guilt of the FSB in blowing up the buildings beyond a reasonable doubt even without further confirmation. But documents in CIA and State Department files that include assessments of the 1999 events and the information on which they are based have the potential to make this guilt even more convincing.
If Russia’s rulers committed terrorist acts against their own people in order to come to power, it means that they differ little from those who place car bombs in crowded markets in order to polarize Shiites and Sunnis. I think it is obvious that such people cannot be reliable partners in the war on terror.
At the same time, a thorough examination of the bombings is necessary because it has the potential to blunt and perhaps put an end to the Russian propaganda assault against the West. Even the most deluded citizen of a Western country would be sobered by the awareness that the authors of that propaganda are capable of crimes far beyond anything with which they accuse the West. Needless to say, all talk of Putin as a defender of traditional moral values which is popular in some conservative circles, would, under these circumstances, come to an end.
Perhaps most important, the truth about Russia’s post-Soviet history could lay the foundation for an eventual genuine U.S.–Russia rapprochement to replace the self-deluding “resets” that appear to be so temptating for American Presidents. Russians, meanwhile, need to understand their own history. Facing the reality of Putin’s path to power may show Russians more powerfully than any Western propaganda ever could, the terrible cost of subservience to the state and the state’s disregard for human life.
Adapted from The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putin by David Satter. Copyright © 2017 David Satter. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.
David Satter was Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times and is presently affiliated with the Hudson Institute and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His new book, The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin will be out in paperback in September.
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How Chabad is Using Amazon for Relief in Houston
Donors can “pick up” basic supplies from online store for Houston residents by Dovid Margolin
Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff (left) hands Similac baby formula to a father in Houston. Chabad-Lubavitch Texas Regional Headquarters has been coordinating rescue and relief since the start of Hurricane Harvey.For people who are looking for another way to help those impacted by the flooding in the Houston region, Chabad-Lubavitch Center, Texas Regional Headquarters has created an Amazon Wish List with basic items that are desperately needed as supplies run out.
Naomi Bier, 28, has lived in Houston for the last five years. She left her apartment prior to the storm to wait it out with friends on higher ground, and has since been spending her time volunteering at Chabad of Uptown, just up the street from where her friends live. Bier also leads the local chapter of CTeen (the Chabad teen network), and it was a WhatsApp group conversation with fellow CTeen leaders from around the country that yielded the Chabad Harvey Amazon Wish List.
“Teens want to get involved, but they want to actually contribute needed items,” says Bier. Among the requested materials are diapers, bleach, cleaning supplies and kosher snacks. Since first appearing last night, the link has been shared numerous times on Facebook and by word of mouth.
“The reaction has been amazing,” says Bier. “We’ve seen a substantial increase of donations on the Amazon page all day.”
Shipping services to Houston have not yet resumed, although there is hope they will before the end of the week. The volunteers have been in touch with Amazon, which has thus far said it is still waiting for a clear path into the city.
While food is of paramount concern in the short term, prolonged pantry items, snacks, hygiene products and cleaning supplies will be in crushing demand in the long weeks ahead. By then, hopefully, box after box of Huggies Diapers, Gorilla tape, Tradition Instant Noodle Soup, Clorox High Performance Bleach and other wish list items, will be arriving at Chabad’s doors for distribution.
“We’ve all been overwhelmed by people’s willingness to help,” says Bier. “We’re so thankful.”
To help fill their list,check out the Amazon.com page here.
Readers are also encouraged todonate to the international Chabad hurricane relief fund here.
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Chabad in Houston Takes Action as Rain and Flooding Continues
Helping in person and online, even as Chabad emissaries cope with their own flooding by Faygie Levy Holt
With Houston shopping centers and supermarkets like those in the traditionally Jewish neighborhood of Meyerland completely flooded, and many highways and roads currently impassable, certain food supplies are becoming scarce.
The posts were heartbreaking: “We have 3 feet of water so far, but it’s still rising, and we need to make sure we can get the kids to safety ... ”; “ a rescue is needed—age 70 in house with water above his chest”; “We’re out of food ... running out of bottled water.”
There were calls for help and action from across the greater Houston community and beyond as people in dire need reached out to Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries on social media, by phone and in person. Some were seeking assistance and others are trying to offer it, using the Chabadcenters as a means to communicate in the midst of continued rain and rising waters in Texas as a result of Tropical Storm Harvey.
At the center of the storm—in Houston and its environs—even as they were busy coping with flooding in their own homes, Chabad emissaries set about making calls, preparing food and making arrangements to get it to people in need. All the while, they have been using WhatsApp and Facebook to connect with the community, as well as raise funds for ongoing assistance and the cleanup to follow.
Chabad of Uptown launched an online registration form early Monday morning so people who have been evacuated and require a meal can respond. Kosherbreakfasts have already been delivered to those in area shelters or holed up in local hotels. Residents expressed gratitude for the help: “Thank you, we are going now to the hotel!” posted resident Yaffa Melnikov Terrill as she headed off to pick up a hot meal.
“I have a bunch of volunteers here and some people staying in the house, and we are preparing bagels, scrambled eggs, hash browns and vegetables for breakfast,” said Chanie Lazaroff, co-director of Chabad of Uptown with her husband, Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff. “I sent out a batch already and a few more are going out, but we just got a flash flood warning, and the challenge is to keep ourselves and our volunteers safe even as we get out of the house to help others,” she tells Chabad.org.
Representatives from Aishel House, a project of the Chabad Texas Medical Centers, are also delivering kosher breakfasts to families and individuals who are sheltering at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.Especially hard-hit is the traditionally Jewish neighborhood of Meyerland, near the Brays Bayou.
Numerous emergency evacuations were reported as taking place in the area overnight from Sunday into Monday. “For some of the families, this was their second evacuation,” noted Chani Lazaroff. “They had already left their homes to another home with a second story, but then had to be saved by boat or helicopter.”
Meyerland is home to a number of synagogues, kosher restaurants and supermarkets with large kosher-food sections; many of those facilities are submerged. Almost nothing edible can be salvaged at most supermarkets and restaurants.
To help ensure that there will be kosher meals for those in area shelters, Chabad has reached out to the National Guard in the hopes of getting kosher Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs) to families who need it most.
According to Lazaroff, Chabad Houses across the state of Texas are preparing to bring in fresh meals and supplies of kosher meat, chicken and milk as soon as the waters recede and the city is reachable by trucks. The deliveries will likely include bottled water as well since much of the existing water is now contaminated.
Offering Food, Water, Generators and Encouragement
Closer to the Gulf Coast, Rabbi Yitzchok Schmukler, co-director of Chabad of the Bay in League City with his wife, Malky, says the situation in his area remains unpredictable as Clear Creek (technically, a small river) has surpassed flood stage.
A family with two small children who lives just two blocks away from them was forced out of their home yesterday and is now staying with the Schmuklers, whose own home has water leaking from the ceiling.
“Yesterday morning, we got together a support group on WhatsApp for people in our community, so we can all be in touch,” he tells Chabad.org. “It’s very active. People are sharing information about the emergency or reporting who is staying where, and even just offering encouragement to each other.”
Like other Chabad emissaries, the priority is helping those at risk.
“As a rabbi and a shaliach, it’s not just about us,” he says. “Today, I plan on going to the shelters in our community and city—those I can get to in the storm—and visit and see if I can help anyone, be it with moral support or in any other way.”
He praised social media like Facebook and WhatsApp as being critical tools throughout the storm. “We are hoping these social-media networks remain working because we see how helpful they’ve been. There is no question that these tools are aiding the situation tremendously.”
In the Corpus Christi area, which took a direct hit when Harvey first made landfall Friday night, Chabad emissaries Rabbi Naftoli and Nene Schmukler returned to the area with fresh food, water and generators.
Liron Dana O’Mary, a resident of Port Aransas—a city just outside of Corpus Christi that suffered significant destruction—posted a photo of her family with the rabbi and the myriad of food supplies he had brought with him, writing: “Thank you for all the goods you brought to us. [It] really warms our hearts.”
To assist in the effort, donate to the hurricane relief fund here.
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Texas Jewish Communities Grapple With Catastrophic Flooding
At least five killed by Hurricane Harvey; houses and cars under water in Houston by Faygie Levy Holt
Torrential rains from Hurricane Harvey have flooded roads, buildings and homes in Houston and other surrounding areas.Homes, cars and streets throughout Houston are under water as torrential rains from Hurricane Harvey—now downgraded from a Category 4 hurricane to a tropical storm—continue to drench the city and cause catastrophic flooding throughout the region. At least five people have died as a result.
More than 15 inches of rain has fallen as of Sunday morning in some parts of the city with more expected, and people are being urged to stay indoors since the water is rising so quickly. In the Meyerland neighborhood, a center of Jewish life in the city, more than 14 inches of rain has fallen so far.
“I am sad to report that many of our friends who flooded in the recent past are flooded once again, and there are many others who have never been flooded before,” says Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff, co-director of Chabad of Uptown with his wife, Chanie. “The rain is not stopping.”
The Lazaroffs, who live in the Galleria area, which traditionally is not prone to severe flooding, have a number of people staying with them who came for Shabbat lunch and were stuck when the rains flooded them out of their homes.
“There is a lot of tension, and the hard part is that it’s far from over,” reports Chanie Lazaroff. “There’s a lot of rain coming, and safety is the most important thing.”
More than 1,000 water rescues have been reported so far, with responders rushing to save people from flooded homes and stranded cars. Houston city officials note that emergency services are at capacity and warn residents to “shelter in place,” and not call 911 unless they were in imminent danger.
Rabbi Rabbi Naftali Schmukler of Corpus Christi takes a Torah scroll to safety after being ordered to evacuate on Friday.As the waters continue to rise, families have taken to putting life jackets on their children to ensure that they will stay safe in an evacuation. At least one Jewish community member was reportedly stuck in his car overnight.
In the Bellaire neighborhood of Houston, Rabbi Yossi Zaklikofsky, co-director of The Shul of Bellaire with his wife, Esty, reports that many homes are now flooded, including those that have never flooded before. The rabbi says his first floor is covered with nearly three inches of water, and that he and his family, including five children under the age of 10, have moved to the second floor of their home.
Gov. Greg Abbot declared a state of disaster for 30 counties in Texas on Wednesday, closing roads, schools and businesses in Houston, San Antonio and numerous other areas on Friday. They will remain closed all week, as will many government offices. The Lazaroffs have been in touch with community members by phone and through social media, and after reports of significant damage have set up a storm relief fund.
“Right now, it’s about making sure everyone has a safe and dry place to go,” says Chanie Lazaroff.
The scene in the predawn hours on Sunday morning is a sharp contrast to a rainy Shabbat morning in Houston. Jews in the area were able to get to shul for services because the heavy rains didn’t start until later in the day.
‘Coordinating With People Locally’
More than three hours to the south in Corpus Christi, which sits on the Gulf of Mexico and had been expected to be hard hit on Friday night by the first blast of the storm, the Chabad emissaries were ordered to evacuate along with the general population prior to Shabbat.
Taking the Torah scrolls with them to ensure their safety, Rabbi Naftoli and Nene Schmukler, co-directors of Chabad Coastal Bend, left with their young children to spend Shabbat with the Chabad emissaries in McAllen, Texas, away from the path of the storm.
“We know from friends that there is severe damage to Corpus Christi and surrounding areas,” says the rabbi, who, along with his wife, is expected to return to the city on Sunday.
They will take with them donations of bottled water, generators, dry clothes and other items that have been collected by Chabad of the Rio Grande Valley in McAllen, co-directed by Rabbi Asher and Dina Hecht.
“There are community members with stores in the city of Port Aransas that are completely demolished. We are coordinating with people locally, as well as with those who want to help with supplies, and who want to come and help physically,” says Schmukler, who has also set up a disaster relief fund. “We are getting calls from around the world; it is amazing to see the outpouring of care and support.”
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