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An American 13-Year-Old, Pregnant and Married to Her Rapist

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Dawn Tyree in her fifth-grade class photo in 1983, the year a family friend started to sexually abuse her. CreditCourtesy of Dawn Tyree

Dawn Tyree was 11 years old when a family friend began to molest her. A bit more than a year later, she became pregnant from these rapes, and her parents found out what had been going on. But they didn’t go to the police; instead, they found another solution.

“It was decided for me that I would marry him,” Tyree recalled.

So Tyree, then 13, was married to her rapist, then age 32. She became one of the thousands of underage American girls who are married each year, often sacrificing their futures to reduce embarrassment to their parents. Statutory rape is thus sanctioned by the state as marriage, and the abuser ends up not in handcuffs but showered with wedding gifts.

Our State Department protests child marriage in Africa and Asia (worldwide, a girl 14 or younger is married every 11 seconds, according to Save the Children), but every state in America allowed child marriages. That has finally changed. Last month Delaware became the first state to ban all child marriages, without exception.

“This is a historic moment for women and girls, where we’re finally ending this relic from a sexist past that is destroying girls’ lives,” said Fraidy Reiss, who runs an organization, Unchained at Last, that fights child marriage. “It shouldn’t have been this difficult.”

One study by Unchained at Last estimated that there were nearly a quarter-million child marriages in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010.

Last year I wrote about Sherry Johnson, a Florida woman who had been married at the age of 11 to her rapist. After that article, many readers wrote to me saying that my facts were wrong and that their state had a minimum age of 18 for marriage.

Sadly, the facts were right. Yes, states set a minimum age of 18, but they also allow exceptions, such as with the approval of parents or a court, or when a girl is pregnant. Indeed, 20 states don’t set any minimum statutory age for marriage, according to the Tahirih Justice Center’s Forced Marriage Initiative.

That column about child marriage, along with other publicity and heroic efforts of many activists, prodded legislators to re-examine the issue, but the strongest opposition to a change has come from conservatives who argue that a pregnant girl should be able to marry the unborn child’s father. The idea is that such a marriage will avert an abortion, or at least increase the prospect that the child is raised by a married couple rather than by a struggling single parent.

I understand the goal. But in practice, these marriages involving child brides often don’t succeed and frequently lead to marriages between a young girl and her older rapist.

That’s what happened with Tyree, whose marriage was in 1985. She said the abuse began when she was in the fifth grade in California and her parents moved to Texas, leaving her behind to be looked after by a family friend, in effect a male nanny, who soon took advantage of her. “My abuser convinced me daily that I was old enough to be in a sexual relationship, and that other adults would not understand,” she said.

She kept the secret until she became pregnant. At that point, her parents were upset — presumably at the rapist, but also at the prospect of scandal. “My dad is conservative, so abortion was not an option,” she recalled, and she said everyone told her that her only path was marriage.

“We went to the county courthouse, and a judge asked if I wanted to be married,” Tyree remembered. “My answer was ‘yes.’ For a couple of weeks, I’d been told that marriage was best for me and that I needed to tell the judge that.”

Tyree missed seventh and eighth grades because of the pregnancy and the birth of her son, and because another child, a daughter, soon followed. Tyree became concerned that her husband was a pedophile who might prey on her children, so the marriage lasted just three years; at age 16 Tyree found herself a single mom.

In such cases, a bride can be coerced even if she isn’t beaten. “I was very scared and confused, and I wanted to keep my family happy,” she told me. “Being unwed with child would have been embarrassing to the family. I wanted to keep the peace.”

Yet she was blunt about what happened: “The marriage was a way to cover up the rape. The marriage was a way to keep me from being an unwed teen mother. The marriage was a way to avoid any child services investigation. The marriage was a way to avoid child neglect charges against my parents. The marriage was a way to keep my husband out of prison.”

“Being unwed with child would have been embarrassing to the family,” Dawn Tyree says. So 33 years ago, when was just 13, her parents persuaded her to marry her rapist. CreditAmanda Lucier for The New York Times

Some say that they oppose marriages at 13 but not at 17, and it’s true that some underage marriages work out fine. I grew up in rural Oregon, where one of my neighbors was a devoted wife who had married at 16.

Juliet was 13 when Romeo courted her (although that didn’t work out so well). But marriage often ends a girl’s education, and when something goes wrong, a 16- or 17-year-old wife faces particular difficulties: She cannot flee to a domestic violence shelter, which typically will not take anyone under 18, and in some states, an underage girl fleeing an abusive marriage is legally a runaway.

Marriage laws are mostly a matter for the states, but there is room for federal action. American girls in immigrant families are sometimes pressured to marry a distant relative abroad as a way of bringing him to the United States, and it should be a simple matter to ban spouse visas unless both parties were 18 at the time of the marriage.

“It’s degrading to let teenagers marry; it’s not a beautiful thing,” Sonora Fairbanks, now 39, told me, and she knows what she’s talking about: She was married when she was 16 to a man more than 10 years older.

Fairbanks was raised in a deeply Christian family, home-schooled and not allowed to date. She said her parents began talking to her about marrying her future husband when she was 15, partly for her to avoid teenage wildness, and she went along with it because she felt stifled and thought the only way to escape was through marriage. Oh, and she was eager to discover sex. “I was a typical horny teenager,” she explained. (Fairbanks’s marriage turned poisonous and eventually disintegrated.)

It’s frustrating that legislators cling to archaic marriage laws linked to so much abuse; at Unchained at Last, the spreadsheet listing marriage laws by state is labeled “BYHAWS,” short for Banging Your Head Against the Wall Spreadsheet. But now, with Delaware leading, it seems the wall may finally be giving way.

“We finally have one state that shows us that it’s possible,” Reiss told me. “One state down, 49 to go.”

N.Y.C. Eatery Caters to Huddled Masses Yearning to … Cook!

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NEW YORK – The opening of a new restaurant here is hardly a headline-making event, but the launch of Emma’s Torch earlier this month had an unusual flavor. That’s because the kitchen staff at this Brooklyn eatery are refugees, asylum seekers and human-trafficking survivors who are training to work in the American food industry.

Creating a community around food is at the heart of Emma’s Torch. The restaurant, which was initially a pop-up kitchen, teaches professional cooking skills to those who have fled persecution, and then helps them find a job. No prior experience is necessary and the students are all authorized to work.

Founder Kerry Brodie, 27, was working as a communications director in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and later at the Human Rights Campaign, when she realized she wanted to do something to benefit society. “I felt that by working in public policy – though it was really rewarding – I wasn’t really working with people,” she tells Haaretz.

After volunteering in a homeless-shelter kitchen, she realized that fond memories of cooking with her family weren’t that different from those around her. So she thought, why can’t we use that kind of universal movement experience to create long and lasting change?

Brodie quit her job, entered culinary school and opened a tiny pop-up kitchen in Brooklyn, with two refugee students at a time, learning the basics of the American brunch. But as the demand from both customers and applicants grew, Brodie and her team realized they needed to expand to a permanent space and expose the students to additional types of meals.

Now, eight participants are trained at any given moment and the program aims to graduate 50 to 70 trainees by the end of 2019. During the two-month paid internship, the students learn the secrets of working in a professional kitchen – from how to medium dice a potato to what the main mother sauces are.

Among the organizations that partner with and underwrite Emma’s Torch are the veteran HIAS refugee organization, the International Rescue Committee, Sanctuary for Families and various church-based groups.

But the Emma’s Torch program doesn’t stop there. It also joins forces with local chefs and kitchen managers to integrate the graduates into the New York restaurant scene and helps them find work.

 

Passionate about diversity

Naseema Bakhshi is a recent graduate who now works at Chelsea Market’s Dizengoff restaurant – one of a number of eateries opened by Israeli-born chef Michael Solomonov – preparing hummus and Israeli salads. A refugee from Afghanistan, she arrived in the United States in 2017 with her six children, and says her co-trainees and new colleagues have become her new extended family.

Her face framed in a colorful hijab, the 42-year-old Afghani is a true hugger, warmly embracing everyone she meets. She says she is grateful for the second chance she got in life.

“I lived in Afghanistan and then Pakistan, where I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t safe, my children couldn’t go to school,” she says while warming chickpeas in a large pot in the Dizengoff kitchen. “I come to New York, I have a job, a home, every person is my friend. I have insurance and Medicaid. I came with nothing, but now I have everything.”

Bakhshi’s new “family members” are truly international. Indeed, applicants come from countries ranging from Syria to Guinea to Venezuela. It is only natural, then, that those leading the Emma’s Torch program find themselves at times on the pupils’ bench.

“We learnt our shakshuka from our students,” Brodie chuckles, referring to the Israeli egg-and-tomato dish. “Naseema taught me about dissolving saffron using ice and how to make chutney kebab.”

Dima Pasiakin, 31, is midway through his training. He fled Russia last year with his husband Michael, after they were prosecuted under the country’s anti-gay legislation, and applied for asylum in the United States. Inspiringly cheerful, he did not let his circumstances halt his aspirations to someday become a chef with his own restaurant. After studying to improve his English, he joined Emma’s Torch.

“The most important part is that we are working there, actually making the food for people,” he says. “In our very first day there we discussed our country’s cuisines, our favorites, and from time to time we cook something that we like, something to share with the others.”

Diversity at Emma’s Torch isn’t just about the places where people come from, but also what they’re passionate about. “For me, it was humbling to realize that actually every student has different tastes and experiences,” Brodie recounts. She adds that she learned her Saudi student actually prefers to prepare Italian dishes and the Syrian refugee’s favorite cuisine is Korean.

Together with Alex Harris, the chef/culinary director, the team has developed a menu that takes into account the basic skills students must acquire to succeed, what’s seasonal and delicious, and what flavor profiles will spark a sense of familiarity that will make them feel at home in a professional setting – and also be appealing to the customer’s palate.

Giada Randaccio Skouras Sweeny

‘Nice Jewish lady with chutzpah’

The “New-American” menu on offer at the restaurant embodies a blend of cultures and includes items as simple as avocado toast and as unique as black-eyed pea hummus. Another popular dish is the pistachio bread pudding, a baklava-inspired dessert (see recipe below).

The idea of kitchen training as a social vehicle for change has been around for a while. Liliyot restaurant in Tel Aviv, where members of staff include at-risk youth, and the socially engaged Sunflower Bakery in Gaithersburg, Maryland, were among Brodie’s inspirations – both of them initiatives that help people help themselves and strengthen the community through food.

“I don’t think of this as a charity, it actually benefits me,” Brodie smiles. “I get to eat delicious food and live in a city that has amazing diverse cuisine – and that’s because we welcome the stranger.”

Brodie considers herself a proud American Jew and Zionist who was raised to fight for a just society. “I think what has strengthened us as a country historically has always been fighting and advocating for refugees,” she says.

Giada Randaccio Skouras Sweeny

It’s no surprise that Brodie named her initiative after Emma Lazarus, the poet whose 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus” is engraved on the Statue of Liberty – or, as Brodie calls her, “a nice Jewish lady with chutzpah.”

The Emma’s Torch team sees its work as a way of securing Lazarus’ legacy. “What makes us a great and a strong nation is welcoming people,” says Brodie, herself a child of South African immigrants and great-granddaughter of Lithuanian refugees.

“This is an important reminder that people share a common humanity,” she concludes. “My memories of cooking with my mother aren’t that different from the memories of the student from Saudi Arabia cooking with her mother. And if people can remember that, then I hope they can remember we should be building bridges and not walls.”

Brooklyn’s Newest Seasonal American Restaurant Is Run by Refugees

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The newest restaurant in Brooklyn has a mission beyond serving seasonal fare — it doubles as a training program for refugees.

Emma’s Torch, formerly a pop-up, opens this week in the former Wilma Jean space in Carroll Gardens, at 345 Smith St. near Carroll Street, offering a menu with dishes like herb-roasted chicken with harissa and grilled branzino with pepper stew.

But founder Kerry Brodie’s idea started long before this opening. She founded Emma’s Torch as a pop-up after volunteering at a homeless shelter, where her favorite part of the day was serving breakfast. “The women in the shelter would talk about cooking and the food from home,” she says. “I became intrigued by the idea of using food to do more than just feed people. Maybe we could use food to nourish and empower them.”

She eventually quit her communications job at the Human Rights Campaign and went to culinary school, graduating in May 2017. One month later, Brodie opened a pop-up cafe in Red Hook, with chef Alexander Harris (Union Square Hospitality Group, The Pierre Hotel) as culinary director.

They devised a professional development program for refugees, asylees and survivors of human trafficking: a two-month paid apprenticeship providing culinary training, English lessons, and upon graduation, a job in the restaurant industry. Partner organizations like refugee resettlement services and advocacy groups refer people to the program, and then Emma’s Torch connects its students to a network of NYC restaurants for jobs.

It worked. Over six months, they trained eight students, who are now working the line in kitchens across the city including at the Dutch, Little Park, and Chelsea Market’s Dizengoff.

But perhaps even more importantly, people seemed to like the food that the cafe was putting out, she says. “About 70 percent of the guests didn’t know what Emma’s Torch was; they were walking in because they read a great Yelp review and wanted to have a really nice brunch,” says Brodie. They decided to expand to a larger, permanent space in Carroll Gardens and add dinner service. On May 16, the new Emma’s Torch opens on Smith Street in a glass-walled corner space.

The bright, cheerful interiors were done by Rachael Ray’s home designer Michael Murray, who also supplied the furnishings. Names of partner organizations and donors are engraved on wooden spoons hanging from the walls, alongside a collage of vintage labels from Roland Foods, which supplies much of the product being prepared in the open kitchen.

The cuisine is seasonal American and designed to familiarize the students with the flavors and ingredients of their adopted home. Still, there are nods to some of their places of origin in the form of shawarma spice on the lamb shank or a sticky tamarind glaze on the barbecue wings. And then there’s the signature black eyed pea hummus, which infuses a classic American ingredient into a Middle Eastern recipe. Take a look at a full menu below.

It’s an apt metaphor for students like Mazen Khoury, who moved here from Syria five years ago and is currently halfway through the two-month training program. Although Khoury owned a restaurant in Syria, he could only find jobs at Arabic and Turkish restaurants in Brooklyn despite a goal of working in fine dining. It was only after his sister heard about the Emma’s Torch program and applied on his behalf for his birthday that he started receiving formal culinary training.

The first lesson he learned at Emma’s Torch? Punctuality. “The first two days I didn’t come on time and they sent me home. Now I try to show up half an hour early,” he says.

Front-of-house staff here are regular paid staff, separate from the culinary training program. But even there, where possible, the restaurant hires people from disenfranchised communities, such as refugees or from the Exodus Project, a program that assists young people affected by the justice/correctional system.

But the kitchen staff is nearly all students in the two-month culinary program, with the exception of chef Harris. When Khoury graduates, he wants to work in a fine dining French or Italian restaurant, and since Emma’s Torch works with partners like Andrew Carmellini’s Noho Hospitality Group, that goal is very much within his reach. For now, he’ll concentrate on perfecting the beer-braised brisket and blueberry buttermilk pancakes at Emma’s Torch.

The Charity Fund Exec Who Helps Good People Do Their Best For Others

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Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of The Good People Fund. (Courtesy)

 

NEW YORK — As the founding executive director of the Good People Fund Naomi Eisenberger considers her job to be “the antidote to all that’s going on out there.”

Based in New Jersey, the $13 million fund is a relatively under-the-radar grant-making organization targeting social and humanitarian projects in the United States and Israel. Projects range from helping ultra-Orthodox women in Israel through the divorce process, to making sure homeless shelters get adequate supplies of personal hygiene products. One grantee brings music education to underserved kids in New Orleans, and another helps feed the hungry in Tel Aviv.

“I like to see good people do good things,” said Eisenberger, 72, who assumed her role after spending more than 10 years as the managing director of the Ziv Tzedakah Fund.

Eisenberger is also one of the founders of the #GamAni movement, which is the Hebrew translation of #MeToo. The movement was launched in 2016 after a female grantee contacted Eisenberger for advice on how to handle an instance of sexual harassment. Soon after hearing the story, Eisenberger developed a survey with Martin Kaminer, a trustee of the grant making Kaminer Foundation. The nearly 200 responses Eisenberger received convinced her it was time to act. Today #GamAni is training Jewish non-profits on how to properly address and prevent sexual harassment.

The Times of Israel recently sat down with Eisenberger to talk about how she targets her charities, why she believes she has the best job in the world, and what she hopes for her granddaughters and the young women of their generation.

The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of The Good People Fund, makes a site visit to Kaima and its CEO, Yoni Yefet-Reich, in Israel. The program seeks to give direction and hope to kids at risk through organic farming, leadership development and business learning, and is one of the Israeli organizations supported by The Good People Fund. (The Good People Fund)

 

The fund works with a broad spectrum of organizations in the US and Israel. What is the common thread linking them together?

Clearly, the common thread is good people. I will often say to people who ask, there are a myriad number of good programs out there that need funding, but for us there has to be that individual, or that small number of people, who have vision and passion.

I can sit down with a potential grantee and know within five minutes if it’s going to be a “yes” or a “no” based on their personality and how they present themselves. Sometimes there’s too much ego and I’ll pick up on that right away. Generally speaking, these are just ordinary people. These people are our guides on how to live a good life.

People might be surprised to learn not all of the GPF grantees are Jewish, and that not all of their clients are Jewish.

We are an organization based in Judaism. We’re guided by Jewish thought. As much as we are commanded [by Judaism] to help everybody, we do. Obviously the programs in Israel are Jewish, but they need to be open to everybody. Some of them are clearly self-selecting, such as programs that deal with ultra-Orthodox women. Of course there’s not going to be any non-Jews in there.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a donation that said “Use only for Jews.” I have gotten donations that said “Only use for Israel,” or, “Don’t use for Israel,” but I think everybody understands we are here for everybody. We fund things that are Jewish, we fund things that are synagogue based and we fund things that are church based. We are ecumenical.

I have a tendency to want to help people who have fewer resources than others. It’s just how I was raised. It was what I saw at home. My parents were very involved as volunteers. My father was president of the synagogue and he was a volunteer fireman and he was president of his Kiwanis. It never dawned on me to do anything different, and I hope I have passed that on to my kids.

Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of The Good People Fund, addresses heads of grantee organizations in Israel at a 10-year anniversary gathering and celebration in February in Tel Aviv. (The Good People Fund)

 

In a headline driven culture where big donations and big organizations get the attention, can you speak to the philosophy of micro-philanthropy and how that can be a model for people looking to make a change?

I never look at the glass half full. I abide by the premise that small things can make a significant difference.

When someone asks me to explain the Good People Fund I use the starfish parable. There’s a grandmother and grandchild walking on the beach and there are a thousand starfish on the shoreline. The grandchild starts throwing them back in the water, one at a time. The grandmother says, “Why are you doing that? You’ll never get them all back.” And the kid says, “But it makes a difference to the ones that I did throw back.”

That’s how we look at this, changing one life at a time. That is always what guides me.

People who want to put their names on buildings are not going to understand us. We deal with modest sums of money. At tops our grants are $15,000 to $20,000. For small organizations that’s a good deal of money. We’re not dealing with people who have millions to give away.

The #GamAni movement has been described as a #MeToo movement among those doing Jewish communal work. Is that an apt description?

I’ll preface it by saying #GamAni is indicative of where I think we, as an organization, should be. I see us as partners with our grantees. So this young woman had just come back from coffee after meeting with a potential donor and he had accosted her. She didn’t know what to do. She felt horrible, she felt dirty. She reached out to me.

I felt personally tied to the issue because she was my grantee. So I started looking into whether anything had been done on harassment. I couldn’t let it go and I called Martin [of the Kaminer Foundation]. We put together a questionnaire and the responses absolutely raised the hair on the back of our heads like you would not believe.

The private #GamAni Facebook page allows a common place for people to share experiences. I know a few perpetrators have been identified, but they have not been dealt with yet. [Eisenberger declined to divulge names as the Facebook page is a closed group.]

Participants march against sexual assault and harassment at the #MeToo March in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on November 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

 

A very significant issue of sexual harassment in the Jewish world was uncovered, but what is happening is no different than what is happening on Wall Street, what is happening in the media, really what is happening everywhere.

But do I equate this with the #MeToo movement? No, and I’ll tell you why. I have a lot of concern about the #MeToo movement and the excesses of it. There have been a lot of people drawn and quartered who I think should not have been.

What progress has #GamAni made and what pushback have you received for it?

I apprised my board from day one and told them if you want me to step back I’ll step back. But, because we are part of the communal world I don’t see this as a disconnect for our mission.

I did have two donors who expressed displeasure that we are doing this. Both of them equated it with #MeToo and the excesses of #MeToo. I explained it overlaps with our work, and that I could not step away from this any more than I could step away from our other work. I was taught to be this way and this is the way I live my life.

For the most part the organized Jewish communal world has gone along with it. I think some of the organizations may not be going along happily, but they are going along because they saw the train has left the station on this.

Naomi Eisenberger, right, executive director of The Good People Fund, helps in food rescue efforts of one of the group’s non-profit partners, Second Helpings Atlanta. (The Good People Fund)

 

One of the things we did was to bring some training to Jewish communal organizations, some of which are very small. Last December we had 12 New York based organizations for a daylong training. The ultimate goal was for them to develop their own policies. Most had none in place, or the policies weren’t adequate. It was uncharted territory for them.

There is a call for more women in leadership roles, but having women at the top doesn’t guarantee the culture will change. How do you really change the culture?

This is an evolution. I’m hoping by the time my 16-year-old granddaughter, or maybe my 12-year-old-granddaughter, reach the workplace they will start to benefit from what their grandmother was part of. When I look at myself, and think “How did you get here? What does it matter at 72?” First of all being a victim myself has driven me. That’s near the top. Also, I’m always looking for the underdog. It’s just who I am. It’s always where I’m going to go.

Could it have been professional suicide to do this [#GamAni]? Maybe, but I’d like to hope there are a few good people left in this world and I believe that there are. Truthfully, what I do every day is what keeps me going. There isn’t a bad moment in my day, and who has a job like that?

The Good People Fund announces Israel and US Grants

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The Good People Fund (GPF) has announced nearly $1.5 million in Israel- and U.S.- focused grants as part of its mission supporting and advancing grassroots, community-based organizations meeting some of the most compelling and pressing societal challenges.

Across the spectrum of social and humanitarian needs – from poverty and hunger, to eldercare and youth-at-risk – the grants underscore GPF’s commitment to innovative, impactful work that improves and lifts lives and communities and are models for replication elsewhere.

Since its inception in 2008, Millburn, NJ-based GPF has directed nearly $11.3 million to more than 130 nonprofit organizations in Israel and the United States. Of the nearly $1.5 million announced today for the fiscal year that ended June 30, $1,008,033 will go to Israeli organizations, and $455,690 will be directed at programs in the United States.

The Good People Fund targets initiatives in key crucial areas, including: Human Needs; Inclusion; Health; Women’s Empowerment; Children and Youth Welfare; Elder Care; Hunger and Food Rescue; Alternative Healing of Body and Mind; Literacy and Education; Military and Veteran Welfare; and, Refugee Support.

A full list of new grantees appears at www.goodpeoplefund.org.

‘Love feeds the soul’ on tikkun olam trip to Appalachia

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I doubt many people have ever heard of McRoberts, Ky. It’s a small, isolated town — population around 900 — smack in the middle of Appalachia, near the Virginia and West Virginia borders.

After a 12-hour drive from New Jersey, I arrived in McRoberts last week with a delegation of Jewish community service activists from Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn, where I serve as rabbi. During our time there, our seventh year visiting McRoberts, we deepened our relationships and built on past seasons of engaging in tikkun olam.

One question I am often asked is: “Why Kentucky, when there are so many places closer to home that need help?” Because, I answer, it’s critical that we make a dramatic break from our comfort zones and gain exposure to people and places we otherwise would never encounter.

And now, at a time when the social fabric in our country is severely frayed, Jewish social service projects like ours contribute a small but essential “mending.”

In the post-Hurricane Katrina years, a delegation from our congregation went to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf region and, joining thousands of volunteers from Jewish communal organizations across the country, collectively made a significant impact. But it had always been my vision to develop a long-term and ongoing relationship with one place — one community — beyond the more predictable spectrum of Jewish service projects.

Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of The Good People Fund in Millburn, is an old friend and a willing collaborator. When I asked her advice, she suggested McRoberts, located in what may be one of the poorest counties in the nation.

So years ago, we went to scout the area, and I became reacquainted with the rural poor who, as a result of their geographic isolation and a rapidly changing economy, have almost no social or economic infrastructure; McRoberts, being in the middle of coal country, also has few jobs available.

We met middle-aged grandparents raising their grandchildren because the middle generation was caught up in the opiate epidemic. We met residents using water from streams polluted with toxic runoff from mines. We met people whose resilience in the face of adversity was as great as anything I have ever seen.

In 2010, our first corps of social service volunteers arrived in McRoberts. We set to work, repairing houses, painting buildings, cleaning streets and public parks, and unloading and distributing much-needed products from a 40-foot-long food bank truck.

That first year, we were met with resentment and little cooperation. Upon our arrival, the town hall, where we had arranged to store the food, was locked. The mayor, who had the key, could not be found. The forklift we needed was curiously unavailable. Few people would even talk to us. Still, we returned again and again.

One year, the food truck did not show; due to miscommunication, it was never loaded. Naomi and I put our heads together and sent our vans to three grocery stores in the area, 15, 30, and 45 minutes away, respectively. We bought $4,000 worth of peanut butter, pasta, tuna, diapers, and other staples.

The locals asked, “Why? Why are you doing this? The food truck didn’t come; it’s not your fault or responsibility.” I answered for the group: “In the Jewish tradition, when you promise food, you have to deliver — there are no excuses.”

That was when they learned we were Jewish. But more importantly, from that point on, we got enthusiastic cooperation in McRoberts. We had earned a measure of trust and gratitude.

After we returned home, I received a letter from a person in McRoberts, someone I never met; even now, years later, I don’t know who sent it. The letter read in part: “I will tell both of you something few people know about me — I am a victim of incest…. I left home at 18 and married a man that was also abusive…. I live in constant pain…I also lost a son.”

“With my past,” the letter went on, “[I am] a little leery of trusting people and believing people are good and caring. BOTH of you have proved that people that care about the well-being of others do exist….  No words could ever describe how very important that is to me. I am a better person for knowing you and I have you to thank for the healing of my heart and spirit.

“I told you this…so you can understand the impact you have had on my life,” she continued. “The food that you purchased fills the belly — but the love you share feeds the soul. To me, that means so much more…. There are a lot of people here without a lot of hope in their lives. They live day by day just trying to survive the best way they know how and then suddenly ANGELS appear…and they are reminded: Good people do exist.”

And so this year we again made the 12-hour trip to another existence. First-timers, as always, were blown away by what they saw. The situation in McRoberts is unique in their experience, and some of them came home depressed and perhaps a little angry. We will continue to talk about our mission, and some congregants will find that their time in McRoberts has changed them in ways they never imagined.

The most important lesson I have learned is that hope and respect for others are the greatest gifts you can give. That is a lesson sorely needed in these times.

Rabbi Steven Bayar is religious leader of Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn.