Losing the faith
Houston’s Jewish community confronts the reality of political inaction post-Harvey.
What’s a rabbi to do when his congregation loses its faith?
Around one out of every 13 Jewish families in Houston flooded during Hurricane Harvey. Nearly 2,000 Meyerland households have been displaced. Key cultural institutions suffered unprecedented damage.
Communities all across Houston were struck by Harvey’s devastation — rich and poor, black and white, Hispanic and Asian — but along the banks of Brays Bayou, the Jewish community has suffered a series of disasters that threatens its very existence. After being knocked down so many times — the Tax Day flood, the Memorial Day flood, Harvey — Jewish institutions in Southwest Houston now wonder whether they should simply stop trying to get back up and instead move somewhere else.
Houston’s elected leaders must take this as a sign that their recovery efforts are failing.
“There’s very little faith in our political system that it’s going to find a solution or it has the desire ultimately to stand up to those forces that are going to oppose whatever decisions come down the line,” David Rosen, Beth Yeshurun senior rabbi, said during a meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board. “People have been asking for years: Why hasn’t the Army Corps of Engineers been here before working on this? Where is our congressional delegation?”
The politicians have posed for their photo ops. Representatives John Culberson and Al Green visited the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz stopped by a synagogue. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn made a showing over Labor Day.
“They say the right things,” Lee Wunsch, President and CEO at Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, told us.
Action, however, remains difficult to come by. As a result of this political impotence, a section of our city sits on the precipice of a total collapse.
A tight-knit Jewish community serves as a foundation for all of Southwest Houston. Hundreds of kids — not just Jewish ones — attend summer camp, child care services and sports leagues through the JCC. Later this month, the community center will be holding its annual book fair.
Before Harvey, Seven Acres Jewish Senior Care Services was the largest Alzheimer’s residential center in the southwest United States. Now the elderly have to double up on the building’s higher floors, waiting for repairs.
There’s no guarantee another flood won’t strike before the new paint dries.
Ideally, Culberson would be the go-to official for this community in need. He proudly wears an Israeli flag lapel pin. He helped Rosen’s congregation temporarily relocate to Lakewood Church for the Jewish high holy days. He sits on the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, which directs funding for federal projects, including the Corps.
Yet Project Brays — a Corps plan to reduce bayou flooding — remains years behind schedule. City and state officials have been forced to step up with a $47 million loan to the Harris County Flood Control District because Congress failed to provide enough resources. The most recent recovery bill lacks the comprehensive support that Houston needs. Local hearings have revealed that homeowners might have to wait more than two years to get federal assistance.
Meanwhile, Cornyn has promised a robust aid bill for Harvey recovery to come in November.
“We don’t want the federal government to kick the can down the road,” he said.
Texas’ senior senator should ask the people of Meyerland how many kicks they’ve counted over the past three years.
As for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the leadership in Austin?
“I think our state has taken a pretty negative attitude toward Houston generally. It represents to the state government a liberal hellhole,” Rosen told us.
“I don’t think they’ve shown on a state level much interest in what’s happening to their largest city, the fourth largest city in the country, what it means to this country economically, what it means to the state financially.”
We’re waiting for Abbott and Patrick, Cornyn and Cruz, to prove Rosen wrong — but faith in our political leaders is hard to come by.
“We’ve been waiting for the Messiah all our lives,” Motel the tailor tells his rabbi at the end of “Fiddler on the Roof,” as his community is forced to flee their home in Russia. “Wouldn’t now be a good time for him to come?”
“I guess we’ll have to wait someplace else,” the rabbi replies.
Our local Jewish community was founded by matriarchs and patriarchs who fled pogroms and concentration camps. They sailed to unfamiliar ports at Ellis Island and Galveston, and faced new sorts of discrimination in Houston where, after originally settling in the Riverside Terrace neighborhood, they set down permanent roots in Meyerland.
If the neighborhood suffers a fourth flood, expect to see another destination added to that secular exodus — one that might be located beyond city limits. When that happens, we won’t just be losing faith. We’ll be losing a part of Houston.