An Update from the Shomrei Refugee Assistance Group
Tag Archives: Andy Silver
Wednesday Night Minyan
Shana Tova! I hope you are greeting 5782 with a resounding “Hineni!”- here I am, ready to take on the New Year with enthusiasm and commitment.
In that spirit, I am writing about the future of the Wednesday Night Minyan. Because of my pandemic work schedule, (teaching on Zoom Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday from 7:30-9:30 PM) I am no longer available to lead the Wednesday night minyan. (Even if we changed Wednesday to another night of the week, all this Zoom time would not be good for my mental health!) Continue reading
Refugee Assistance Update Sept 2021
Dear Shomrei Friends,
Here are some major items for your careful consideration. We realize there is a lot here, but there is a lot of need.
1) The Westfield Fun Club has informed us that many of the refugee families that both they and Shomrei have been assisting were severely affected by Hurricane Ida. The apartment complex where they live in Elizabeth was badly flooded and many have lost most of their belongings and cars. They have now been displaced and are being housed in temporary shelters and hotels by the Red Cross. The Fun Club is working with the IRC to help them begin the long and difficult process of dealing with FEMA and the state. If you would like to help, please consider making a financial donation to Temple Emanu-El, 756 East Broad Street, Westfield, NJ 07090, and earmark the funds for the Westfield Fun Club. In addition, one family is without any clothes or shoes. If you have the following, please contact the Fun Club at email hidden; JavaScript is required. All clothes should be washed, folded and neatly packed. Please donate like you are giving a family member the clothes. Continue reading
Refugee Assistance: Helping Afghan Families
We have been researching the best ways to provide support to Afghan families who are being resettled in our region. As a start, we are teaming up with the grass roots organization One World, One Love, which has done amazing work with many refugee families during the past few years. The organization is now starting to help the Special Immigration Visa (SIV) families who are arriving in our area from Afghanistan — 10 families (approximately 50 people) so far, with many more expected to come. They have asked us to help provide the following items for the new homes that are being set up for the families: Continue reading
Monthly Wednesday Night Minyan on Summer Hiatus
Our monthly Wednesday evening minyan wrapped up another successful year. That’s 13 years – not bad for a minyan that was supposed to last only one month. We will take a summer break and resume in some form after the High Holidays.
It was quite a year: a Presidential election, a pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, an insurrection on our Capitol where we added the Prayer for Our Country to our regular evening service and a war in Israel. More than ever, we needed to be together and to feel a sense of community. The Zoom minyan gave us that opportunity.
Thanks to all the participants who made the virtual minyan possible. Special thanks to Rabbi Greenstein, Lisa Z., Geoff, Michael Finck, John Lasiter and Andy Silver for their hard work, often behind the scenes.
The Little Minyan That Could
Our monthly Wednesday night minyan will resume on October 14, 2020. Thereafter, it will be on the first Wednesday of the month. This year, however, we are making one change. Like everything else during the pandemic, we will be Zooming “Maariv” into your homes.
For those of you who are new to Shomrei, or have never attended this casual, ½ hour evening service, Andy and I welcome and encourage you to join us. And for those of us who have been physically attending this service in our living room, on the deck, or in our Sukkah for the past 12 years, thank you for keeping this intimate service flourishing. Continue reading
Refugee Assistance Update: Continuing Our Support
As we announced in our last update, the Westfield Fun Club, working with the International Rescue Committee, has asked us to “adopt” some refugee families in need of food and household essentials for the summer. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we have been able to commit to supporting three food-insecure families, at a cost of about $100 a week for eight weeks. Each of the families is headed by a single mom, and has one or two children.
Continued Assistance Needed
The Westfield Fun Club, with whom we have been collaborating over the past few months to deliver food and other essential household items to over 100 refugee families in the Elizabeth area during the pandemic, is winding down their Emergency Food Initiative. (See the email) The Fun Club happily reports that many of the families no longer need the emergency supplies since they have returned to work and/or have seen an increase in SNAP benefits.
However, there are still roughly a dozen refugee and asylum-seeking households – mostly senior citizens – who need our continued assistance. The Fun Club is arranging for these families to be “adopted” by other families or groups who can provide them with weekly deliveries of food and household items.
Shomrei Responds to Plea from Westfield Fun Club to Help Refugee Families
We received an email from the Westfield Fun Club regarding their continuing efforts to assist refugee families in the Elizabeth area (including the families we have been assisting) during the coronavirus pandemic. As you can imagine, the Fun Club has been inundated with requests for additional assistance, and is now helping 55 families, up from about 20 just two weeks ago. We have found that the Fun Club offers us many valuable ways to help the refugee families that we would not have on our own. The latest example is that they are making regular deliveries of essential food and supplies to the families during this crisis period.
Refugee Assistant Group Update 3/21/20
We have reached out to the refugee families that we have been assisting during the past three years to find out how they are faring in the coronavirus crisis. Many have had severe setbacks to what had previously been a slow but steady assimilation to their new lives in the United States. A number of the men who had jobs as drivers have lost those jobs; one who had a steady job for three years delivering for a restaurant was let go because he had a seasonal cough. Some of the schoolchildren who had depended on the schools for breakfast are now going without that meal.
Continue reading