Achiezer operation provides relief to those in need

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Walking down Oak Drive in Far Rockaway on a sunny fall day, it’s briefly hard to remember the devastation that hurricane Sandy inflicted on this and the surrounding areas, but the upended trees and load growl of generators bring back reality. This is a community in crisis.

Inside the Bender home on this pastoral street is the transplanted nerve center of Achiezer, an organization founded in 2009 to coordinate under one umbrella the various services available in the community to assist those in need. They began on Sunday before the storm, fielding calls from their office on Central Avenue and transferred to the Bender home when the lights went out that Monday night.

Eight women sit tensed around the dining room table each manning either a multi-line phone or tapping on laptops. A moderate hum of activity fills the room, the women consulting with each other as the phones ring, men walking in and out discussing, meeting, asking questions, providing solutions. A large notepad on an easel has a list of available amenities—a folding table, Tefillin to lend, a ride to Flatbush, a generator to lend. And through all the low-key hubbub, a little girl naps peacefully on a nearby sofa. At this hub of activity, assistance to the local areas affected by Sandy is coordinated and dispensed, food, clothing, shelter, pumping water, cleaning out damaged homes.

“It’s quite an operation,” said Rabbi Boruch B. Bender, Achiezer’s founder and president. “It’s hard to believe—unless you see it you can’t believe it.” He pointed out that FEMA, Senator Charles Schumer, and other politicians came to see the operation and were “dumbfounded.” Calls were coming in “from all over the world” and the rescue and assistance effort was coordinated with Hatzoloh, the JCC, and other organizations, noted Bender. Chaverim, Masbia and Chai Lifeline, among others, are also helping. Medical clinics were set up: in Far Rockaway for children, in Lawrence for adults.

Many are still without electricity and heat, many have lost cars, their homes damaged by flooding. Some are staying with family, friends and neighbors. Shor Yoshuv, at this time still without power, has become a distribution point for clothing, housewares, food and meals. The spacious gym in the cavernous building is stocked with racks and tables of new clothing. “The response is so incredible,” said Bender. Donations have come from Brooklyn, Queens, Silver Spring, Baltimore, Toronto, Monsey, Passaic, Cleveland. Calls have come in from California and Chicago; a truck loaded with housewares from Chicago was held back for lack of space for the goods. Israel has also flown in relief. Women, men and girls from local schools come to volunteer to sort the clothing. A busload of girls from Monsey came in to help.

One woman began collecting clothing on her front porch on Tuesday after the storm but so many donations came that she had to move it to the Shor Yoshuv gym. The setting sun blazed through the high windows over the crowded racks of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, tights, socks, tzitis, rows and rows of shoes, towels, blankets, sheets, pillows. There are many involved, organizing, directing, sorting, many themselves without heat or electricity at home. Chaya Sara Genack, Sara Yaffa Ross, Sara Rosenberg, Bilhah Moradi and Wendy Brecher discussed the efforts and complications as they worked. Genack was concerned that “not so many are coming to take” and that “volunteers are needed to drive people who need to get here” and that the “volunteers are tremendous.”

“It’s crazy destruction everywhere,” said Rosenberg. “Erev Shabbos there was too much food coming in. A lot of people don’t know where to go. People are too overwhelmed. People shouldn’t be nervous or embarrassed. There is enough (clothing) to choose from.”

“We have so much beautiful stuff,” said Brecher. “Come. We can receive a phone call, we can shop for them and try to deliver, too.” One family walked through the racks, guided and aided by volunteers, quietly and soberly accepting coats and sheets. In spite of the overall crisis of the situation, all work is being done calmly, with caring, understanding and true ahavat Yisrael (love for one’s fellow Jew). The Shabbat after the storm, Rabbi Moshe Weinberger of Congregation Aish Kodesh lauded the community’s efforts, noting that there was so much of an overflow of potato kugel into Far Rockaway from the Chassidic communities that non-Jews were eating the Shabbat delicacy as well.

The dining room of Shor Yoshuv is also set, providing meals for those in need. Canned goods are stacked on a table for distribution. Other sites for meals include the White Shul, Young Israel of Woodmere and the Young Israel of Bayswater with breakfast beginning at 8:30 am, lunch at 12:30 pm and dinner at 4:30 pm. Chabad is serving meals also till 4:30 pm and a hot dinner from 4:30 to 8 pm.

Outside of Shor Yoshuv, Shai Markowitz, director of young leadership of Agudath Yisrael, stood by bags of labeled clean laundry that people had dropped off and a laundry service returned clean, for free. “It’s amazing,” he said. “They had to stop people (from donating), there was so much coming in.” A large shaimos truck stood at the curb. Markowitz said that many sifrei Torah from Congregation Ohab Zedek in Belle Harbor were destroyed.

Area schools are struggling to open more than a week after the storm. Hebrew Academy of Long Beach’s elementary school building, right off the boardwalk there, is shut down, as is their DRS High School for Boys on Ibsen Street in Woodmere. Two empty storefronts off the parking lot by Gourmet Glatt have become satellites of the elementary school, holding classes there for 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. The Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst will house the 6th, 7th and 8th grades; 1st will be at SKA High School for Girls. The 9th and 10th grades of DRS will be in Yeshiva of South Shore and the 11th and 12th grades will be in Congregation Beth Sholom. Rabbi Dovid Plotkin, the principal of HALB elementary, stood in the doorway of one of the storefronts, helping coordinate and set up rudimentary classrooms. He said that he was grateful for the “support of the entire community. The achdus (unity) is incredible. Thank G-d.” Chaim Hollander, the associate administrator, noted that they were having an abbreviated day since there was no bus transportation due to the lack of traffic lights. Torah Academy for Girls in Far Rockaway was still without electricity as of Wednesday but opened its high school under generator power from 8:30 am to 1 pm.

Back at the Achiezer nerve center, Suri Bender, Rabbi Bender’s wife, recounted stories of the dedication of the workers and volunteers. “The phones don’t stop ringing,” she said. “It’s going around the clock.” She noted that social workers stayed on the phone throughout the storm trying to calm people who were trapped and unable to be rescued. “As the tide started rising, we were hit with emergency calls, their first floors were filling up with water. We were working in conjunction with Hatzoloh to get people out of their houses. There were a lot we couldn’t get to. There was a handicapped, elderly man stuck in a house. Hatzoloh, 911, the fire department—no one was able to get to him. My husband and brother-in-law, Aron Rosenberg, got in the car saying ‘we’re not going to let this man die.’” They attempted to reach the man but were turned back by high water and downed power lines. When they were able to reach the man by phone 45 minutes later, he said that he was “very, very cold” and they set out again, hailed a large truck they spotted and the two young men in the truck gained access to the man’s apartment and carried him out on a chair in his underwear to a warm home. The water was waist high.

People volunteer because they ”read the stories,” said Bender. “They want to help. It can happen to anybody.” He added that that man was “left with nothing. Our work is not over with him; we will help him rebuild.”