Nine brides, nine grooms

Claire Kamhi Hachnassat Kallah Fund gears up for busy few months

B y  M a y e r  F e r t i g

Nicole Gleitman is not a caterer but between now and April 11, she plans to make nine weddings. Three will be in Israel.

In her sister’s memory, she runs The Claire Kamhi Hachnassat Kallah Fund, which used to operate the Claire’s Treasures thrift shop in the Five Towns.

After a two-year hiatus from fundraising during which she relied on private donors, Gleitman is looking for assistance to share her mitzvah of preparing deserving young couples to build a Jewish home together.

“Due to these difficult economic times, the number of young couples in our community who are in need of financial support has increased dramatically,” she wrote in a fund raising e-mail last week.

To help a couple marry, including the wedding and setting them up in an apartment furnished with necessities, “soup to nuts,” is $15,000 to $20,000 — “and that's not a lot of money,” Gleitman said.

With that said, she is very careful not to spend scarce Tzedakah dollars on couples that are looking for help with extra materialism, as she put it.

“The fund helps people who truly need the help,” she stressed.

An important exception is providing a nice hotel room for newlyweds to spend their wedding night. Gleitman considers that a priority, when possible.

“To me, on the first night of your marriage, you have to really feel good about the step that you took, and if you walk into a yucky apartment, you can't feel good about a good start,” she explained.

The Moroccan-born, Paris-raised Gleitman speaks perfect French, so it was not difficult for her to strike up a conversation with Isabelle, the young Frenchwoman who did her hair in a Miami salon several months ago.

Gleitman invited her to dinner and heard her story about the boy in Israel who she broke up with over distance, despite both feeling a connection.

The next week she paid for the young woman to accompany her to Israel where the couple became engaged by the following weekend. Gleitman plans to make their wedding at David’s Citadel Hotel on Feb. 7, one of three weddings she plans to make during the trip.

Six weddings being assisted by the Claire Kamhi Hachnassat Kallah fund will take place locally over the next few months.

One will take place at the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst with the assistance of young men and women who attend the Davis-Renov-Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys (DRS) and Stella K. Abraham Yeshiva High School for Girls (SKA).

The girls will make a Shabbos Kallah, a shower and a sheva brachot, as well as build the chupah and print the invitations. The boys will be the wait staff (catering by Mauzone) and will arrange music, flowers and photography.

“We just have a lot of weddings and no money,” Gleitman laments.

Mail tax-deductible checks to Claire's Treasures at 128 Willow Road, Woodsburgh, NY 11598. E-mail or call:

gleitmom@aol.com or (516) 650-0498.