Kansas doctor by day, sukkah savior by night

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In the office or the hospital right after morning minyan and working extended hours, radiation oncologist Jay Robinow has saved hundreds of lives. That’s his day job.

Late into the night, Robinow has also saved hundreds of lives, but spiritually rather than physically. Since 2007, he has built and/or expanded more than 150 sukkot for people across the state of Kansas. Profit isn’t the motive of this sukkah venture, says the builder.

“Let’s just say this would not be a good case study for the Harvard business school,” Robinow tells JNS.org. “It’s definitely a money-losing business.”

That’s because any proceeds from Robinow’s sukkah projects go to the local kollel (institute for advanced Talmud study), and he also donates at least half of the sukkot and sukkah parts he has worked with. For example, Robinow often provides young couples with a sukkah during their first year living in his community of Overland Park, Kansas. He buys and builds sukkot as wedding gifts and lends a hand to those who cannot afford a sukkah, such as single mothers or large Orthodox families. He also makes a habit of donating and building a few sukkot each year for less-observant families interested in exploring this Jewish ritual. More often than not, the sukkah leads the latter families to greater engagement with Judaism, and sometimes even a transformation of their observance.

“In some ways, it’s become a kiruv (Jewish outreach) initiative. But that’s not its purpose,” Robinow says.

Robinow created the design for the sukkot he builds. He orders corner pieces from an online canopy store—he says “they know me by now and all about Sukkot”—and gets the rest of the sukkah parts fashioned at the local Home Depot. Because of his day job, he works late into the evening, often as late as midnight, to get the sukkot built each year.

Robinow recalls that the year the local Orthodox rabbi moved to town, the rabbi discovered just hours before Sukkot that he was missing his personal sukkah’s corner pieces.

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