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A Personal Note to Our Friends and Donors

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Naomi K. Eisenberger, Executive Director

A Personal Note to Our Friends and Donors

In July of 1967, I was taking summer courses at Rutgers University-Newark campus. My husband was also enrolled and we traveled together to “the city” from our safe suburban apartment.

Newark, or Brick City as it’s sometimes called, was once home to a significant Jewish population made famous by Philip Roth in many of his works. By 1967, Newark had become home to a large African-American population, poverty and despair, and an often-corrupt city government. Added to this toxic mix was the shadow of the war in Vietnam and riots that popped up across the country in opposition.

I don’t recall what specific incident it was that started Newark’s rioting, but the outcome is something I will never forget. I recall block after block after block, burned and destroyed, businesses looted and 26 lives lost. The city was an armed camp and classes, for at least a few days, were canceled.

Over the past several days, I’ve struggled with two things. Watching the pain and the destruction across the country, I can’t help but compare it in many ways to 1967, and I’ve felt nothing but anguish that over the intervening years so little has changed.

My second struggle is how to articulate it to you, our friends and donors.

Since its inception 12 years ago, GPF has strived to be all about creating “good,” and not navigate through the divisive or political. We’ve kept our focus on projects that uplift individuals and communities day by day with hope, dignity and a future.

Over the past four months we’ve worked together addressing the very real outcomes of a virus that has killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S. – many the weakest among us. Since Memorial Day, we face an uglier and more existential threat – the bandage holding this country together has finally fallen off and we are a nation standing on a very precarious ledge.

So the question is, how can we as individuals and as the GPF family not just respond, but alter our lenses, conversations and sensitivities in order to do our part to heal our communities and create a new and more enlightened reality.

Several days ago, I received an email from Lia Taylor Schwartz, the executive director of our grantee organization, Connections, which curates relationships between youth in New York City’s child welfare system and volunteer mentors. In it, she wrote:

“This is not an easy topic, but it is a necessary one. Many of us who have not personally felt the pain of racism have enjoyed the privilege of not having to engage in these challenging conversations. It can be terrifying to begin the dialogue and our immediate instinct may be to avoid or become defensive. I’ve personally been doing this work of undoing institutional racism professionally for over five years and each day I learn how much more I still have to learn. I implore you to push through this discomfort and begin the long journey of listening and grappling with topics of race and inequity …”

As we look to the future – one that begins now and not some undetermined time to come – I will be taking her sound advice, not only as an individual, but also from my seat within our GPF family. We will lean on each other, learn from each other, and together seek new opportunities to build out our circle of “good.” This is on all of us.

Please reach out if you need or want to talk. I’m here. I wish you a meaningful Shabbat Shalom.

Naomi

 

Good People ARE Great People

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The smiles on the faces of these dedicated hospital workers at  Montefiore Medical Center, Moses Campus, Department of Pharmacy say it all! Who knew that a steady delivery of all kinds of snacks would bring such joy? While doctors and nurses provide the hands-on life-saving needed to help in this crisis, it is the pharmacy department that prepares all the medications needed and races them to the floors. While their sign says “Good People are Great People” we think that they are the Great People!

Soup’s On…in the Days of Coronavirus

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Many of us are probably in the middle of preparing a pot of chicken soup—albeit a much smaller pot than we’ve prepared in years’ past.

As Passover approaches in but a few hours, we thought this beautiful story might bring some cheer as we celebrate a holiday alone and anxious about all that is happening around us. These two pictures were sent to us by Gideon Ben Ami, founder of Pesia’s Kitchen in Israel. Gideon, forever the entrepreneur and imbued with limitless passion for helping others, is intimately familiar with the “routine” hunger that pervades Tel Aviv’s poorest neighborhoods. And so, with no knowledge of the pandemic that was about to break out, took a donated Zim Lines container and turned it into a small kitchen—quite literally a soup kitchen.

With our help, along with others who understood his idea, in a matter of weeks that bare container was transformed into a clean and bright kitchen complete with commercial grade equipment and volunteer chefs. Since it opened earlier this week, the volunteers have been cranking out gallons and gallons of rich, nutritious soup and distributing it those in South Tel Aviv who now have little or nothing.

From all of us at The Good People Fund, Chag Pesach Sameach and next year, may we all be joined with family and friends once again.

A Miraculous Ending

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For those of you who have followed this blog over the years, you may recall the tragic story of Awaad, a young man the Good People Fund was able to help throughout his extraordinary journey. After escaping what would have been a lifetime of conscription  in his native Eritrea, Awaad found his way to Sudan. Kidnapped by Bedouins, he was held for ransom in the Sinai, imprisoned in Israel’s Holot prison for two years, and eventually ended up on the streets of Tel Aviv.

In 2015 our friend, Gideon Ben Ami of Pesia’s Kitchen met Awaad at the hospital after hearing a news story about the young Eritrean who was attacked by a mentally deranged man wielding a machete, and brought to the hospital with his hand completely severed from his arm. Because of Gideon’s compassion and with the additional help of doctors and some good people from Zichron Yakov, Awaad recovered after his hand was reattached. With further help from others, Awaad received political asylum in Switzerland a few years later.

One would think that this would be the happy ending to a tragic story but, alas, it was not.  Awaad spent three years in Switzerland in a restricted compound where he could not work, and developed tuberculosis. Again, by some miracle he recovered and eventually managed to reach England where yesterday, after six months, his journey at last reached an end…”he received notification that he has been legally accepted into the British Isles! He will be allowed to work, study English free, live in England where he chooses, and in a month be able to get a British passport, and if all goes well, will become a British citizen in 5 years.”

Very rarely does the Good People Fund get to hear the end of the story where we were stepped in and helped save someone’s life. This was one of those exceptions and we could not be more grateful to the donors who give us the tools to make such miracles possible.

Border Update…Not Just a Teddy Bear

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A few weeks ago, before the city of El Paso gained a tragic notoriety never expected, we wrote of Dr. Eva Moyo, a professor of social work at UT-El Paso who could not stand idly by while migrants–men, women and children–poured into the city with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

As Dr. Moyo learned of items needed, we sent her on a shopping trip. The list was long. In addition to the expected soap, diapers, underwear and toothpaste, were more specific items that spoke to the unique needs of people who may have walked days seeking safety–vitamins,  anti-fungal cream, foot powder,  triple antibiotic cream and more.

Thanks to the generosity of congregants at Temple Israel-Ner Tamid in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, children on the border have benefited from another important item…a cuddly Teddy Bear to calm fears and stop tears.

Safety and Respect in the Workplace

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The Good People Fund is proud of its early leadership role in the Jewish community’s growing conversation about respectful workplaces and gender harassment in our communal spaces.  To date, much of our work has been channeled through a single project that has become known as “B’Kavod” (“With Respect”).

While we are gratified that meaningful progress has been made, much work remains to be done.  It is a source of satisfaction that as a result of our efforts, others in growing numbers, have joined in our focus on this important issue.  In light of this progress, we have decided to formally end our participation in the B’Kavod project and reassess how in the future we can most effectively continue to play a constructive and leading role in this ongoing dialogue.

Going forward, we expect to identify new, innovative, efficient, and effective means to continue to play a meaningful role in the Jewish community’s ongoing focus on this important issue.

We will keep you informed as things evolve.