I am so proud to announce that the KI Board has decided to partner with the Jewish Disaster Response Corps as well as Nechama: the Jewish Response to Disaster. Nechama and the JDRC together with KI will be able to offer opportunities for Jewish volunteers from around the country as well as members of our own community to participate in the ongoing tornado recovery effort.

Beginning May, 16th KI will become a center for Jewish volunteers from around the country who will be coming to help in the recovery effort. We will be a home base providing facilities for: sleeping, cooking, eating, laundry and internet. Nechama will be the agency responsible for finding work for our volunteers as well scheduling and training of volunteers. The JDRC will facilitate all of the activities in the KI building including providing a mashgiach (kosher supervisor) and cook for the volunteers.

Our community has an incredible opportunity to help those around us who are in need. We are so blessed to be working with such dedicated people from each of our partner organizations. I know that together we can make a difference!

We have opportunities for for our own volunteering as well. Amy Citryn with Nechama will be coordinating field volunteers. If you would like to participate in the field clearing and rebuilding homes please contact Amy at recovery@kicong.org or you can call her at (205) 259-6986. Elie Lowenfeld with the JDRC will be coordinating “at home” volunteers including cooking, serving meals etc. Eli’s Email is athome@kicong.org.

Lastly, as we start to bring more and more volunteers into the building we will need showering facilities. Please let Elie know if you would be able to have some volunteers shower at your home near the shul.

Please contact me with any questions or thoughts.

Remember: Together We Are Alabama!

B’vracha (With Blessings),

Eytan Yammer
Rabbi, Knesseth Israel Congregation

Office: (205) 969-5913
Cell: (205) 201-0542
Home: (205) 747-0168
Fax: (205) 969-5912

www.kicong.org
Shiurim and Drashot: kicong.org/blog

3100 Overton Rd
Mountain Brook, AL 35223

Dear Rabbi Yammer,

The pictures of the destruction from last week’s tornadoes were powerful, yet it was the faces of despair, shock and confusion among the survivors on the news that compelled me to join you in traveling to Pleasant Grove yesterday.  Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this mitzvah.  Donating groceries and clothes just didn’t seem to be enough.  I needed to touch a hand, embrace a shoulder and reinforce your and Rabbi Weiss’s words of encouragement and faith…maybe even share some of my own.

We drove for several miles through what was mildly recognizable as a neighborhood, wondering where to stop and help in the fields of destruction. And then suddenly we all knew;  we stopped the car and without a word, our team went to work.  We had spotted an elderly gentleman rummaging through the ruins of what was once a home.  We learned that this was not even his house, but that of his ex-wife, the mother of his children.  The destruction was close to complete…no walls, no roof, only a few squares of cinder blocks half buried in the dirt outlining where the home had once stood.

Our friend told us that during past tornado warnings, his ex-wife would typically get into her hall closet. By the grace of G-d, or perhaps because of the urgency in the voice and rolled up sleeves of weatherman James Spann, this time she instead climbed into her bathtub and covered herself with a blanket.  A good thing, since there was no longer a hall closet.

The man showed us where the tub had once stood, but we had to take his word for it because there wasn’t a sink, a toilet, a wall….not even a single tile left to indicate a former bathroom. Our eyes came to rest on a small pipe, maybe a water pipe or a drain coming out of the ground as the only monument. Next he pointed two lots away to his left where the tub had been found, and then over towards his right maybe fifty yards, where his ex-wife had been deposited by the tornado under a pile of debris.

We got a chance to meet this lady a little later when she stopped by with her daughter. With my own eyes I saw this slight woman, a collage of purple bruises, cuts and bumps, yet I still found it hard to believe that she had somehow managed to survive the complete destruction that surrounded us!

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting to accomplish  in Pleasant Grove, but everything seemed so overwhelming, so difficult to wrap my mind around.   We spent our time there separating the rubbish into piles to be cleared later by trucks:  wooden planks, tree branches, metal, cinder blocks and what we ironically labeled as “trash”.  Only occasionally did we come across a personal item like a family photo or a stuffed animal, items in the debris  that thankfully kept the human aspect of this tragedy in front of mind.  And this was just one home, on one street, in one neighborhood, in one town, in one state that has been drastically affected by the recent tornado.

As we arrived back in Birmingham to our nice, clean, organized community, I thought about how much is still left to be done to return that disaster area back into an environment where our neighbors can live and work, and where their children can play.  Right now I can only continue to do my small part, along with hundreds and thousands of others, to try to bring peace, safety and stability back to our neighbors. I vowed that I am not done…the work is incomplete, and I will continue to return until normalcy is restored to those that have suffered so dearly.  I look forward to many more working trips to Pleasant Grove with you.

B’Shalom

Kerri

Sign up for a Pleasant grove trip here

Rabbi Eytan Yammer

Back in pleasant grove this morning, we helped out in the first baptist church then proceeded to the field of desolation that was once a neighborhood.

As we came upon the home of Betty (pictured above seated with Rabbi Yammer) and Jack , Jeff, their eldest son, was emerging from his parent’s home.  This structure still had the form of a house.  The tornado had lifted the house off its foundation and dropped it down just a bit off center.  The house fell into the basement where Betty and Jack usually took shelter in storms.

Jack told me that they did not descend to the basement for this storm but instead they stayed in the hall.  He said that “the Lord had put him in the right place.”  Had they been in the basement the full weight of the house would have come down on them.

On most nights since the storm Betty falls asleep quickly, but wakes up in the middle of the night.  Her thoughts, she says, are the culprit.  Betty keeps on thinking about returning home.  The home they have lived in for 18 years is gone, she is now staying at Jeff’s house.  And all she wants is to go home.  Today she was home, but not sleeping in her own bed, as she had prayed for, but sitting on a chair pulled from the rubble that had seen better days.  The upholstery was stained and tattered, ripped and frayed, it had been through the storm.  This was as close to sleeping in her own bed as she would ever come again.  The matress from her bed was now the bridge to get over the front end of her car, which was now supporting the backside of the house.  We climbed onto the mattress and entered the open space that was once her bedroom.

We told Jack, 82 and Betty, 75 to take a rest and let us do some of the heavy lifting.

We asked Jeff (Jack said that he was the boss) how we could help.  Jeff told us to look for furniture that was in good shape and for any personal items that they could to keep.  Betty asked for only one thing: “Find my son,” she begged.  Her son (not Jeff) died at the age of 19.  He was killed in a fire in his college home at Auburn University.  Betty never told me her missing sons name nor how long ago he died only that his framed photograph was her sole remaining picture of him.  The photo, which hung on her wall and kept vigilant watch over her home for so many years, was gone.  We searched the collapsed basement, where the water stilled flowed through broken pipes, as well as under the bed bridge.  We peered into closets, through shattered doors, and we sifted through the endless rubble that coated the floor of Betty and Jack’s fractured home.

I searched with urgency  pushed on by the desperation in Betty’s eyes.  I was determined not to let Betty and Jack loose their child for a second time.  After an hour or so of inspecting an infinite mass of broken glass, splintered wood, and shattered metal it was time for us to move on.  I was spent, my energy waning, so we told Betty, Jack and Jeff that we were leaving.

It was in that moment that I realized what Betty was really saying when she described her longing to be back home.  Betty was pining for those years when the family, even in its brokenness with the death of her son, was intact.   She yearned for a time when making it home meant that you were safe, when she could reach back through the fabric of time and kiss her long dead son good night through her tears.   I asked her if she ever thought that she could ever make another home.  Betty looked sadly at the pile and said “we thought we would live here till we died.”  ”I’m glad that you didn’t” I said.  She looked once more to the  pile not quite agreeing with me.  And said “well me too I guess.”

Betty taught me something,  home was her husband, her love, her memories and the smell of her cooking permeating the hall.  Home was her refuge and and her safety net and it was her children.  ALL of them, even the son once lost and now lost again. For her, without her entire family there was no home.

So Betty, Jack and Jeff sent us off with an inordinate amount of thanks and the embracing southern hugs we have come to expect, for the work we had done.  One last time I peered into Betty’s eyes hoping to see hope peeking through the lattice only to find that the same desperation lingered in her soul as she stood from her chair and returned to the search for her long missing son and the long road home.

5/4/2011

At first glance Pleasant Grove is bathed in brokenness.

I pulled a Christmas stocking from the debris of a home this morning and just cried. Christmas for the families affected will never be the same again. I thought that if this Christmas stocking was used during the next holiday season it would be a glaring reminder of the storm, and if they chose not to use it, but leave it in a box tucked away in their newly built basement or relatives home that survived the Tornado, the empty space on the mantle would be a reminder of the family heirlooms lost, or worse yet, the family that was lost.

I know that it seems odd, a rebbetzin fixated on a stocking, but it made me think about the seder plate from my grandfather and my favorite serving plate from my grandmother, without these item on my table for chagim and shabbatot those holidays just wouldn’t feel the same, the passed down artifacts of our life are ongoing reminders of our history and future, the people of Pleasant Grove are embarking on a new future without these mementos.

Those who are affected by the storm don’t have the luxury of concentrating on lost memories. They are focusing on creating normalcy in abnormal situations, homes with no stoves and refrigerators, story times by flashlight in strange places.

I met a woman today who runs the general “store” in the First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove. They organized the donations that were sent by KI congregants and many others into sections: grocery, baby, food, cleaning supplies, etc.  Daily hundreds of survivors come through there picking up goods, and they are often back the next day. For many here contemplating a future beyond the next meal is a colossal task one to which they feel completely unmatched.

Driving through Pleasant Grove I saw homes that were decimated, strewn across the now indistinguishable neighborhood. Often on top of the rubble stood one or two rooms, the innermost closet or bathroom.

I heard from two people who survived – barely.

Betty, survived in a closet, which she fell on her way to the bathroom, the tempest knocked her down and brought a huge book shelf down on top of her. Badly bruised and knocked unconscious she was lifted from the rubble after the storm.

Betty’s son said that for the first few days Betty couldn’t sleep.  She trembled through the night reliving and reliving the horrors of the storm.  Today she would not speaks of the storm.  The only thing she will say? “I’m so lucky, others have it much worse”.

I met Suzie, a cheerful older woman, while sifting through the pile of rubble which was once her home.  Suzie related her amazing tale of survival.  She took cover in her bathtub with a mattress on top of her.  As the storm swept her neighborhood,  Suzie’s home was lifted up and torn into pieces, and with it the bathtub. She along was hurled nearly 50 feet.

With a broken arm and badly bruised face Suzie lifted the boards that was resting on her chest, and navigated barefooted over the cracked rubble live downed power lines and glass from broken windows.  Through the dark glasses she wore to hide her bruises, cuts and stiches, Suzie looked at me, and assured me that she was so fortunate, so many others have it so much worse.

Only 15 miles away is my home, it has running water, air conditioning, blankets pillows, stoves and I feel almost guilty over my luck, the safety of my family.

As we slowly rolled out of Pleasant Grove I couldn’t help rethinking my first impression.  It was clear that the homes were broken but the people were whole.

Today I was in Pleasant grove.

I stood and saw the ruins of people’s lives, the remnants of homes and lifetimes of memories.  In this place I encountered many who are in need.  I spoke to a little boy, 9 years old, who promised me, even through the tears, that he was not afraid during the storm.  I met a police officer who, though his own home was damaged, stood for hours helping his neighbors.  I met a pastor who  refused to stop his efforts even for sleep and meals.  I met people who cried and people who refused to let the pain show.  Over and over again I heard the same refrain: “this is just too big”.  The scope of the tragedy dwarfs even the immense capacity of an individual to cope.

I was not the strongest man in Pleasant Grove today, nor was I the man most capable of rebuilding; I was neither the wisest nor the bravest.  Despite this I had the privilege to sit with others in their time of pain.  We sat together and cried.  And together our capacity for confronting this tragedy expanded.

Over the next few days and maybe weeks we will be returning to Pleasant Grove.  I would like to invite a small number of you to join me each day.  There will be a bit of schlepping and a bit of sifting through rubble piles, the most important job though is to listen and comfort, we will pray with the survivors and we dwell with them in their moment of pain, we may even cry with them. We will assure them that we care for them and offer to help them in any way we can.  You don’t need to be skilled to hold a person’s hand and you don’t need to brilliant to hand someone a bottle of water you just need to be you, please join us. The spots are very limited for these visits as we do not wish to overwhelm the people we are going to help.  RSVP using this form.  Please, no one under the age of eighteen!

 Additionally, Rabbi Avi Weiss who was with us a few months ago for a Shabbaton will be joining our efforts.  Rav Avi spent time in Argentina after an attack on the Jewish community there, he spent days and days at ground zero on 9-11 and he visited those hurt in the Carmel forest fires and terrorist attacks in Israel.  Rav Avi is honored to join us in our efforts.  Tomorrow evening all are invited for an evening of prayer, discussion and preparation for these trips.  The evening will include dinner at the shul.  The suggested donation is $36 but there is no formal charge to attend.

 On Wednesday morning, I along with Rabbi Weiss and possibly other area rabbis will lead small groups to Pleasant Grove.

Rabbi Eytan Yammer