She described a journey through a darkness most know nothing about – that of a professional Jewish woman navigating the netherworld of prison life and later reemerging into society to reclaim her dignity and purpose.

Evie Litwok was at a New Jersey synagogue speaking at a social action Shabbat, and if her tale of a life bent to extremes by the criminal justice and penal systems created awareness through discomfort – and it did, judging alone from the air in the room – then she hit her mark.

“I am gifted with being articulate, and so I have to tell this story,” she said. “I need to use all my strength to make people aware and force change.”

That story is one of two decades fighting charges of white collar crime and culminating in two years in federal prisons – including a stint in solitary confinement. The experience introduced her all too intimately to social malignancies and human rights abuses festering and growing there, from homophobia to misogyny to racism and just about everything in between.

“I’ve never been physically or emotionally the same since then,” said Litwok. “I have no serenity anymore. I have no choice but to channel what I’ve seen and experienced into activism. I am a baby of the civil and women’s and gay rights movements, and I’ve never checked my activism, and I’m not going to now.”

The vessel of her impact is not only her own voice, but also the organization that she founded in 2015, Witness to Mass Incarceration (WMI). It is creating initiatives to raise public consciousness of conditions and abuses within the nation’s justice and penal systems and advocating for change.

The group is one of the Good People Fund’s newest grantees and received a matching grant to bolster its capacities, reach and effect.

Among WMI’s initiatives is a nascent but growing library of digital testimonies of formerly incarcerated individuals, giving a record of their experiences an archive and public platform. So far, about 25 people have sat for interviews.

The focus of the testimonies, and WMI in general, is on women and members of the LGBTQ community – individuals Litwok said are most vulnerable to abuses in the justice and penal systems and beyond.

“We must change the narrative from invisibility and victimization to empowerment through documentation, organizing and advocacy,” she said.  “Once someone sees the human faces of incarcerated people and hears stories, they will be more likely to support reform of a system that prioritizes punishment at every step.”

The group just this year launched a new initiative – The Suitcase Project – that seeks to ease the move to civilian life for those just released from prison and transitioning psychologically and physically to realities and demands that they are too often unprepared to face even within existing social services networks.

The project quite literally gives just-released people a suitcase with a laptop computer, a mobile phone with pre-paid minutes of usage, gift cards for groceries and clothing, and other essentials to help them build paths to productivity and self-worth.

The impetus for it came from Litwok’s own experience. She left prison in 2014, her resources depleted, her social support network nearly non-existent, and with scant prospects.

“Reentry is worse than prison,” she said. “Rarely is anyone waiting for you, rarely do you have housing, rarely do you have a community of support, or a job.

“I was given $30 and sent on a bus to Port Authority in New York. I was homeless and penniless for 16 months.  I understood poverty for the first time in my life.”

So far, two individuals leaving prison have received a suitcase, and a third will later this spring. Chasity, 33, began her journey back into society in January and said the Suitcase Project provides not only material support, but also represents and plants hope.

“It is just hard to re-enter with absolutely nothing,” she said, adding that she is starting undergraduate studies in criminal justice.  “So the suitcase opens doors to positivity and moving in the right direction as opposed to just being overwhelmed and feeling forgotten.”

The suitcase and its contents don’t come cheaply, and Litwok visits synagogues, like the one in New Jersey, to make the case for sponsorship of one, and in the process create a community of caring for those leaving prison and beginning new lives.

“The greatest thing we can do for each other in this life is to form and nourish community in all of its forms,” she said.

Speak with Litwok for any length of time and she will come to share the fact that her parents are survivors of the Holocaust, and that her closeness to that experience and her embrace of Jewish practice in prison informs and powers her passions and desire to make change.

“The Holocaust didn’t end for us in 1945,” she said. “It was a framework for me growing up, and how I see the world and the ‘other,’ and is simply part of who I am and a driving experience. If we really believe all that we say about ‘never again,’ then we can never allow those words to lose their meaning and value, and always be working to snuff out injustices and abuses so they don’t become the norm.

“I am up against the clock in my life at this point, and this is all that matters now. I don’t need to impress anyone for the rest of my life. I don’t care about making money. The driving Jewish values that we talk about don’t mean anything unless we make them mean something. I hope I’m doing that.”

By. H. Glenn Rosenkrantz

Today, Israel is home to more than 150,000 Ethiopians, with more than half living below the poverty line. In that number are many teenagers who were born in Ethiopia and made aliyah as infants and young children. For most, there is no understanding or recollection of their country of origin.

Dr. Stu Chesner, a noted psychologist who has lived in Israel for many years, understands the unique needs of young people, many of them Ethiopian, who struggle to fit in and began Magen, a new Good People Fund grantee, to provide a holistic approach to academic, emotional and social intelligence.

The Ethiopian kids in this picture arrived in Ethiopia today in search of their roots and to better understand their heritage. It was our honor to underwrite the trip for three of these young people. We can only imagine the insights they will gain from this journey “home” and how those insights will help them mature and become productive adults.

Mannequins here and there.  Swaths of fabric strewn across drafting tables.  Sewing machines and design sketches scattered about.   And lots of chatter and dark coffee.

Yotstrot’s studio in Tel Aviv is a hub of creative energy so common in this city.  But this one is different.  Start talking to the women here, and you will see that besides designing fashion, they are creating new versions of themselves.

“Here, I am learning and understanding that I am a person and not an object, and I can define myself on my own, and not through someone else,” said Lia, a transgender woman in her early 30s who is finding confidence, support and future at Yotsrot as she exits life in the sex trade.  “I have choices now.”

Hofchot et Ha’Yotsrot, or Turning the Tables, was founded in 2011 as a force for women’s empowerment, a venue nourishing community and incubating economic security, advancement and transformation for Lia and others climbing out of the vortex of prostitution.

Lilach Tzur Ben Moshe, Yotsrot’s executive director and founder, was a fashion editor at a leading Israeli online news site and used to commute each day past Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station, where much of the sex trade takes place. She became disturbed and agitated at the exploitation and ugliness of it all to the point of action, using her own background in design to create a way out.

“The greatest motivation for me was seeing in my own eyes, every day, women who are being used, sold, and exploited in prostitution,” she said. “It hit me in in my strongest point of power as a woman and I knew I had to do something to change it.”

Since its establishment, Yotsrot has assisted more than 300 women with vocational training in design, sewing and pattern making in studios in Tel Aviv and Haifa.  Ongoing training in digital marketing – a skill necessary for any creative entrepreneur in the 21^st century – is also offered with the support of The Good People Fund.

But this is so much more than nuts and bolts training.

In a world in which any sort of trigger can mean a skid toward unintended behaviors, for anyone, Yotsrot is a venue of mutual support and understanding to catalyze self-esteem and fuel dreams.   A network of social workers, counselors and others is committed to ensuring that everyone meets their own definition of success and future.

For Lia, who came to Israel from Russia in the early 1990s, that means ultimately using her new confidence to uplift children through performance art.  For Or, originally from Ethiopia, it means using some of her newfound creative and technical skills to become a graphic designer.

Yotsrot and everyone involved got a major shot of community validation last year during Tel Aviv’s fashion week, when Yotsrot designs got full runway treatment and exposure, worn by Israeli celebrities, including the wife of the city’s mayor.   Another public fashion show will take place in May.

“Knowing every women and every journey she has made, showing on the most lighted stage there is that women in prostitution have so much to offer,” Ben Moshe said, “and seeing and feeling the excitement and the amazing effect on women, this was a moment of pure happiness and pride.”

The organization has had other public moments, actively pushing for anti-prostitution legislation in Israel and being part of a coalition that helped pass a law criminalizing the hiring of prostitutes beginning next year.

“After years of working towards changing public perceptions regarding the damages of prostitution, change has come,” Ben Moshe said.

Back at the Yotsrot studio in Tel Aviv, Lia was fitting a dress she designed for the upcoming fashion show.

“Here, we find out that we can become, and that we can create, and not just break things, including ourselves,” she said.  “And that’s everything.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz

With three young children in tow, including one seven-month old in a harness, she examined a box of corn flakes and then moved on to get some crackers, watercress and green beans.

Just another family trip to the grocery store?  Hardly.

This single mother is in her 30’s and is among the millions of people across the country who are food insecure.  Whatever income and assistance she gets is not enough for her to feed herself and her family.

“This place is helping to keep me and my children fed and healthy because I can’t afford to on my own,” she said, asking that her name stay private. “I am here every week.  I’m not sure what I would do without it.  It is a blessing.”

Her destination is the Interfaith Food Pantry of the Oranges (IFPO) – a Good People Fund grantee – housed three Wednesday mornings each month at the Church of the Epiphany and Christ Church in Orange, NJ.

The organization supplies a wide array of food and other items, like toiletries, that make a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of individuals and families in Orange and East Orange, outside of New York City.

From its beginnings about 25 years ago, when it served about 10 clients per week, IFPO has grown tremendously and now boasts staggering numbers, reflecting the need and the organization’s ability to meet it with community partnerships and the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

In 2018 alone, IFPO’s food and services reached an estimated 18,000 adults, 2,200 seniors and 15,500 children, and about 300 people visit each week.

“There is wealth in this area, but just a mile up the road are people in real need,” said Andy Soloway of nearby Maplewood, one of about 500 volunteers for the organization.  “That’s why we are here.”

This is so much more than a food-giveaway program, though, and one merely needs to walk through it one day to realize that IFPO has grabbed the best elements of marketplace, community center, social hall and farmer’s market, tied it all up with proven practices of customer service, and created one big, bustling and boisterous venue for giving and receiving good.

Living here is an intense respect for the dignity of those who come. They walk from table to table, each piled high with various foodstuffs – grains here, proteins there, vegetables too – so they can actively examine and choose products while engaging with volunteers who can go on about everything from preparation and recipes, to nutritional value and storage.

“We are a community of volunteers focused and committed to helping our neighbors in need with as much grace as we can possibly provide,” said Jodi Cooperman, a volunteer pantry manager and IFPO Treasurer.

“By greeting them, welcoming them by name, escorting and helping them, we are making their experience as good as it can be, making them as individuals feel valued and respected, and building a community of caring and dignity.   And they, in turn, are that much more grateful and appreciative.  It’s just so important.”

And the concept of “client choice” – by which clients choose only the products they like and need and that fit their lifestyles and health profiles – cuts down on food waste, which may occur in more traditional programs that distribute pre-packaged bags of groceries.

Congregating around one table on a recent Wednesday, clients were choosing an allotment of toiletry products, ranging from body gels and shampoos, to mouthwashes and deodorants.  This particular station, which exists due to a grant from The Good People Fund, is just as critical as the ones devoted to food, Cooperman noted.

“We all feel more dignity and self-worth when we feel clean,” she said, noting that federal food assistance programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) don’t cover the cost of toiletries.  “These are essentials.  Why should people have to choose between food and toothpaste?  We don’t want them to have to.”

IFPO is a collaborative effort of three synagogues and one church in the area. Volunteers are also drawn from other faith communities, as well as schools and civic groups, underscoring the power of the many to uplift those who may be struggling.

One Wednesday morning, a group of volunteer adults with special needs – from ECLC (Education, Careers and Lifelong Community), based in Chatham – were helping IFPO clients at the toiletries station underwritten by GPF.

In the process of doing good work and helping others with needs, these volunteers were learning real life skills themselves, part of a cycle of benevolence and nourishment that touches everyone associated with IFPO.

“I don’t count the hours or the days,” said one. “I come for the joy.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund

As the year 2019 approaches in but a few hours, we are so excited to receive the following email from Lilach Tzur Ben-Moshe, founder of Yotsrot, which uses vocational training, particularly as it relates to the fashion world, to help women leave prostitution and regain economic stability. Lilach, along with many others including our grantee, Rabbi Levi Lauer, founder of ATZUM, have worked tirelessly to end this scourge:

Hi Naomi,

Happy new year to you and to your family! May it be wonderful!

Just a second before the new year enters, history was made – the Knesset passed the law prohibiting the purchase of sex, and referring budget for rehabilitation. I’m so proud to be part of the great group of women, activists, PMs and prostitution survivors who made it happen against all odds. I know that women will still be sold in prostitution but today Israel said with out a doubt that this is wrong, harmful and inhuman. So today I’m proud to be an Israeli.
Thank you for all of your support in this miracle. 2019 is a bit happier indeed.
Lilach

We at the Good People Fund are proud of the support we have offered on behalf of our donors to make this law a reality. It was well past time!