FEEDING THE FAITHFUL
Volunteers help Jewish, Muslim communities affected by Harvey
They’re working and communing to ensure that members of Houston’s orthodox Jewish community can maintain an important aspect of their faith, staying kosher — or abiding Jewish dietary laws.
Elise Cohen Passy has witnessed her home flooded three times in the past three years. A resident of Willow Meadows in Southwest Houston, Passy says that people ask her why she chose to stay through so many floods. Her answer comes without hesitation: “For the community.”
Days after Hurricane Harvey caused her home to take on water yet again, Passy is sharing a kosher dinner at a cafeteria table at Robert Beren Academy, Houston’s Modern Orthodox private day school, a recipient of that community in action.
Volunteers of all ages greet people like Passy as they enter the cafeteria, and more volunteers stand behind the buffet line, eager to serve. Clusters of families and friends, including new friends, fill the seats at long tables. The room hums with conversation, warmed by connections made over a hot meal. Some folks discuss their flooded homes, but the spirit in the room is hopeful and helpful.
They’re working and communing to ensure that members of Houston’s orthodox Jewish community can maintain an important aspect of their faith, staying kosher — or abiding Jewish dietary laws.
After the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey’s rains, volunteers and organizations mobilized quickly to meet the widespread need for kosher meals by families whose homes flooded.
The community kosher kitchen operation started up right after the storm, providing more than 1,000 meals a day. Now almost two weeks in, they’ve ramped up to more than 2,000 daily meals. The Beren Academy location is open for dinner for those who want to sit and eat with other community members. They also provide many to-go meals. The plan is to keep the kitchen running for another several weeks, at least through Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins at sundown on Sept. 20.
It’s a similar story in the Houston area Muslim communities where many families aimed to maintain halal — food prepared according to Muslim law —
even after the storm caused food-related challenges.
Halal grocer Raza Hussein, who operates Karachi Bazaar in Richmond, had to close his store for two days because of street flooding. After that, he was able to reach his store by boat and open it to provide for the local community. Hussein says he offered food and other goods to local families, whether they could pay or not, because he knew that many were still coping with the aftermath of the storm.
A silver lining for the halal community: The Muslim holiday of Eid, or Feast of the Sacrifice, fell on Sept. 1, and actually resulted in a surplus of goats and sheep at local farms, in anticipation of the holiday.
But that didn’t help the many Muslim families who were locked in by flooding and unable to get to the farms to procure a sacrificial animal. And in the Muslim community in Beaumont, there was no such surplus. According to Imam Mohammad Ahmad Khan of the Baytown Islamic Center, it’s already hard to get halal meat in Beaumont, and it became even harder when flooding cut them off from their usual supply in Houston.
Khan helped organize relief efforts at his mosque in Baytown in partnership with his alma mater, Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif. On Sunday, volunteers delivered 6,500 gallons of water and a 26-foot truck with halal food, water and other supplies to the Islamic Society of Triplex in Beaumont.
For Khan, the religious imperative to provide material help is fundamental. “You cannot reflect the supremacy of God,” until you see yourself in other people,” he said. “You can’t achieve higher spirituality until you love others as you love yourself.”
Empathy and sympathy for all others, Muslim or not, is part of Khan’s religious orientation. “Our community came through, by providing three shelters with support and sending supplies to Beaumont,” he said. “Some volunteers even came out of floodwaters themselves to help.”
Avigayil Helprin, a local resident and volunteer with the kosher food efforts, is moved by what she calls “a community-wide effort to make sure people feel like somebody cares.” For Helprin, providing food for those in need is a religious mandate.
“We’re taught that saving a life is like saving a world. We’re taught to do hesed (acts of lovingkindness). We feel the pain. We can’t just sit by when we see someone suffering — whether a Jew or someone else,” Helprin said.
But sometimes it’s the seemingly mundane needs, like faith-based food, that can get lost behind the larger disaster concerns such as housing or health.
For instance, after Passy’s coworkers learned she flooded, they brought her food. But it wasn’t kosher, so Passy couldn’t eat it, but she didn’t let it go to waste: “I shared it with the volunteers working at my home.”
It’s part of the reason why Passy appreciates the focus on providing some hurricane survivors a kosher meal.
“They are taking care of us,” she says, so that “floodies” (families whose homes flooded) can focus on cleanup and recovery.
Passy works for LifeGift Organ Donation Center, a Houston-based nonprofit dedicated to organ and tissue procurement for individuals in need of transplants. On the Friday before Hurricane Harvey hit, Passy was with a family whose deceased child became an organ donor. According to Passy, it was important to the family “to continue with life, to let that be their daughter’s legacy. Some people dwell on the stuff they lost, but my job gives me perspective” on embracing life.
Passy recalls that the first of her home’s three floods happened the day before her son’s graduation. Then, too, the community stepped in to help, and the graduation celebration was catered by people who had flooded. This time, Passy’s family is living temporarily with the same family who hosted them after the first two floods. As she reflects on the triple flooding and her supportive community, she says, “My kids will tell you I collect people. I collect friends. My collection is stronger than ever.”
And, perhaps, so is her faith.
“What’s beautiful about the whole experience,” Passy says, “is the eclectic nature of faith communities coming together. Having faith means you help people, you go outside yourself.”
For example, she says, Mormon and Catholic church groups have been out in her community, volunteering with relief and rebuilding efforts.
“We are all God’s people,” Passy says. “We all have to help.”
Imam Khan agrees. Caring for others, he says, “is an essential part of being a human being.”
Sometimes caring means nothing more, and nothing less, than providing a homecooked meal and a table full of friends to share it.