Mezuzahs offer relief to US hurricane victims

AFTER HURRICANE Harvey hit her city earlier this year, Houston resident Chava Gal-Or felt she wasn’t doing enough to help her neighbours.

“I was lucky and hardly had any damage from the storm”, she said. “But 29 people from my community lost everything.”

Ms Gal-Or, who moved to the Texas city two years ago to work as the Director of Congregational Learning at Temple Sinai, decided that distributing new mezuzot free of charge to hurricane victims could help “bring them comfort wherever they go”.

Since posting the idea on both her personal Facebook page and on a professional page for Jewish educators, the project, called Door L’Door — a spin on the Hebrew expression l’dor v’dor, or “from generation to generation” — has grown quickly.

She collected about 150 mezuzahs, and raised $500 (£377) to buy and distribute more.

The Jewish United Fund donated 100 cases and scrolls and Fair Trade Judaica sent more than a dozen.

“The first person to donate mezuzahs was a friend of mine who is Lutheran,” she told the JC.

At first he told her he’d buy two on eBay for $5 each. She laughed.

“I told him that that wouldn’t work, and that if he wanted to donate a klaf [mezuzah scroll], it would have to be kosher and would probably cost at least $36,” she said.

He called a store in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and “sure enough, these fiveinch klafim came to my door”.

Since then, an artist friend sent mezuzah covers made of bike pedals, and school groups have helped.

She plans to run some of the donated mezuzahs past a local scribe, or sofer, to make sure they’re kosher.