Jewish students help repair Ike damage

GALVESTON — Students from Columbia, Brandeis, Yeshiva and Rutgers universities recently made their way to Galveston as part of a Jewish Disaster Response Corps effort to help rebuild neighborhoods after Hurricane Ike.

“I want to bring my community into the group of faith-based organizations which work to help after a disaster,” Elie Lowenfeld, Jewish Disaster Response Corps organizer, said. “I have never been welcomed as warmly as I was by the Galveston Jewish community.”

Loweneld’s group worked side by side with other organizations. The college kids traded their notebook computers for sledgehammers, paintbrushes, mops and other implements of recovery as they practiced new skills as home renovators.

“It was a unique experience for me,” said volunteer Ben Blumenthal, who attends Yeshiva University in New York City. “Here we were in Galveston, entrusted with the responsibility of helping people affected by Hurricane Ike to piece their lives back together. We met people who needed not only this type of work done, but also our love and support.”

Galveston’s Congregation Beth Jacob helped host the two groups of students during a two, one-week stints.

Mary Jo Osgood, a congregation member, said the synagogue’s kosher kitchen came in handy for the visiting volunteers.

The sessions were sponsored by One Mission Galveston, an interfaith ministry.

It turned out to be a cultural as well as ecumenical experience with many of the New York and New England youths citing the unanticipated warmth of islanders’ “Southern hospitality.” They also expressed shock at the amount of repair work that remains.

“I don’t know what I expected, but I was certainly amazed by the mix of Southern and Jewish hospitality,” said Eitan Mosenkis, who expects to graduate from Brandeis University in 2013. “We received much while there because of the faith displayed by those who had lost so much, and by the gratefulness that they constantly displayed. I’m really not sure if we shouldn’t rather have been thanking them instead of them thanking us.”

Mosenkis summed up his volunteer week as “truly valuable, eye-opening, educational and just plain fun.”

The gifts of time and labor are echoes of the response to the 1900 Storm, which destroyed or damaged 25 out of the 28 houses of worship on the island.

Temple B’nai Israel was one of the three sites that remained serviceable, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, and it served the community throughout that period of recovery.

“The sum of $26,427.33 was contributed by Jewish organizations and individuals for distribution among the Jewish sufferers,” the Jewish Encyclopedia states. “And this was disbursed by a local committee made up of representatives of each of the communal institutions.”

The university undergraduates gave up a portion of their winter breaks from school, leaving behind the frozen northern weather to come and experience hands-on helping in Galveston’s far milder clime.

“As a Jewish group, it was important for us to be a part of this work, working with Christian organizations in the communal effort to help the city of Galveston,” Lowenfeld said.

Rick Cousins can be reached at ourfaith(at)galvnews.com.