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A Swift Response to Harvey

by Alia Ramer

Devastated synagogue by Hurricane Harvey flooding During the last days of August 2017, Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 51 inches of rain on Houston, Texas in 24 hours. That is more water in one day than the average annual rainfall of 49 inches the region usually receives. Of the 40,000 Jewish residents in Houston, about 80 percent of them live within a two-mile radius. More than 2,000 Jewish homes flooded, and eight major institutional facilities in the Jewish community sustained catastrophic damage. The scope of issues facing the Houston Jewish community is enormous.

When Hurricane Harvey hit, our Federation, along with Federations across North America and even the government of Israel, sprang into action in partnership with The Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, raising $20 million in disaster relief. Our Federation immediately opened an emergency designated fund and our community was generous, providing $257,000 of that $20 million.

Maxine Schwartz, of Westfield, a past president of Women’s Philanthropy and a lifetime Women’s Philanthropy Board member, along with Jessica Mehlman, Federation’s chief planning officer, went on a 24-hour fact-finding mission to Houston in February. Their mission was to assess the damage and report back to the lay leaders and professionals in Greater MetroWest. They both said that being in Houston and hearing directly from those affected was a reminder of the resilience of Jewish life. Families are faced with difficult choices as they rebuild. How do they afford Jewish day school? JCC fees? Synagogue dues? The needs are ongoing and include the ability to afford to live a Jewish life in Houston.

The JCC served as a distribution center because the local Lowes was floodedMaxine, who recently co-chaired The BIGGIVE, a community-wide day of giving featuring Challah Bake Jr., recalled a story she heard about an elderly rabbi of one of Houston’s largest synagogues. “He is in his nineties. All his books, things he has collected over his career, his writings, his life’s work, everything was gone in one storm. Multiply that by 2,000 Jewish families or more.” She said she also met a woman who had a two-month-old baby, and the young couple was trying to decide whether to stay or not. “They just don’t know what to do. They dreamed of sending their kids to day school and expanding their house, and now what?” Razing and rebuilding their home would cost more than $200,000. They don’t know if they should do it or just move to a different neighborhood.

Day schools, synagogues, and the JCC were completely flooded. The indoor tennis courts, which were not affected, became a day care center and held school classes for about six weeks. Immediately after the hurricane, Houston’s Federation gave each family affected $1,000 cash, “which is critical when all of the ATMs and banks are flooded,” said Maxine. “The Federation also gave money to each rabbi’s discretionary fund for them to hand out as they saw fit. The scope was enormous: One in every 13 Jewish families was affected. A woman I spoke to was grateful for the help from her community. She told me her neighbor is not Jewish and has nobody to help her.”

Jessica noted that, “Rebuilding comes at a steep cost, and for some people it will be less expensive to take a loss and start over in a different neighborhood. The Federation anticipates that people will be moving to other areas of Houston at a faster rate. The challenge for the organized Jewish community is what MetroWest faced 20 years ago: how to create community and offer ongoing services in a much wider catchment area with families not as connected as past generations.” Although funds from Greater MetroWest may go toward helping find solutions, “Our lay leadership made a decision not to earmark the funds for any one purpose. We want the professionals and volunteers there to be able to be nimble and not tie their hands in any direction.”

Maxine said, “When we went back to the Greater MetroWest Board of Trustees after our 24 hours in Houston and asked for money, they gave it to us from our emergency reserve. This is an emergency. But they were able to access those funds — that safety net — so quickly because thousands of people had given gifts before there was an emergency.” Maxine added, “After going to Houston, I know that our Federation and national Federation and other Federations would help us if anything ever happened to our community. Because the Federation was there before the storm, the Federation was able to be there for people after the storm.”