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Sarah Schaffel, Bella Goldberg and Rabbi Stoller take a break while painting a house in New Orleans' 7th Ward.
Steve Sadin | For Sun-Times Media | @sadinsteveApril 16 8:22 a.m.
When disaster strikes, members of Deerfield’s congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim leap into action.
Whether a hurricane hits New Orleans or a tornado touches down in Washington, Ill., Joplin, Mo. or Moore, Okla., congregants are ready to pitch in.
“We were in a clergy meeting when the tornado hit Moore,” Cantor Ross Wolman said. “We started getting texts asking, ‘When are we going?’ Nine days later we were on a plane to Oklahoma City.”
After the clergy meeting ended, Wolman called Susie Selbst, who co-chairs the congregation’s social action network. She sprung into action with her email list and began to make contacts in the disaster zone.
“I hooked up with someone who was a member of a reform congregation in Oklahoma City,” Selbst said.
Initially, Selbst did not plan to go herself. That changed, however, when she thought about her children, ages 10, 13 and 15.
“I want to show my kids when something happens you can really be hands on,” she said.
The congregation’s zeal to assist victims of natural disasters began in 2009, when Rabbi Brian Stoller organized a trip to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. It was five years after the storm struck — but that was the point.
“The people’s needs continue when the world’s attention leaves,” Stoller said. “What happened in New Orleans helped inspire a desire to help when lives have been turned upside down by a natural disaster.”
Members of the congregation will make a sixth consecutive trip to New Orleans over Memorial Day weekend.
Since the first few trips to help Katrina victims, the congregation has developed an organized program to mobilize its members and others from the community to head to a disaster area. The latest example came when more than 30 people spent a month this winter in Washington, Ill., after a tornado struck in November.
Knowing some items from central Illinois were blown nearly to Deerfield, the group had an opportunity to help people find possessions they believed were lost forever, like photographs and documents.
“We helped sort out things that had flown 100 miles away,” Selbst said. “It was very meaningful because people came by and were reunited [with their belongings] while we were there. When things like this happen, people feel the need to go right away.”
While the group of 30 spent one day in Washington, it was an entire weekend in Oklahoma for 14 other congregation members. The effort began immediately upon arrival.
“As soon as we got off the plane we went to Goodwill,” Wolman said. “We sorted clothes and food. The place was 300 square meters. The kids set (things) up so people could get food.”
Before the weekend was over, the group teamed up with an Oklahoma City congregation to expand its relief efforts. They replanted a community garden that was destroyed by broken glass blown on the winds. The shards had to be removed before planting.
In Oklahoma, as on other trips, parents brought their children along, often participating as families.
“Both of the trips (Washington and Moore) were represented by younger families, parents in their 40s with teens or tweens,” Selbst said. “People take their kids to teach them to give back.”
Not all the efforts are out of town. When Deerfield’s First Presbyterian Church decided to house a homeless shelter for PADS Lake County, it needed a different congregation to host one Sunday a month, according to church Director of Education and Mission Tom Cunningham.
“[B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim] was one of the first to respond,” Cunningham said. “The work they do is a blessing.”
The congreation, along with First Presbyterian, Christ United Methodist Church of Deerfield and Village Presbyterian Church of Northbrook, each staff the shelter one Sunday a month.
Ruth Miller is the person in charge of organizing the shelter for B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim. She finds volunteers for five different shifts between 1 p.m. Sunday and 7 a.m. Monday. Though she has to scramble for some of the overnight slots, for the most part she has a waiting list. Some of the slots are also filled by families.
“We have young families in the first shift,” Miller said. “They set out the mats, pillows and get everything ready.”
The congregation has a full-time staff member, Kelly Goldberg, who oversees the social action programs as part of her duties as the youth and family engagement director. She has gone on some of the New Orleans trips and helped organize a day of service for the Martin Luther King holiday last month. She plans to make it an annual event.
“Families of all ages want to make a difference in the lives of others,” Goldberg said. “It feels like a good way to teach your children to give back.”
What makes the social action effort at B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim so intense? If you ask members, they say they are inspired by clergy. The clergy has a different opinion.
“It’s the people,” Stoller said.