Mishloach Manot Baskets: Shining a light on Marcia Kohler

BY MADELYN HERB

This past year has taught us all about the importance of community and connection. Emails, text messages and phone calls have kept us in touch with far flung loved ones for years, but all of a sudden they became a vital tool as we had to keep 2 meters between ourselves and the rest of the world. We’ve made the most of virtual holidays, drive through celebrations and distanced gatherings. But overcoming distance to create a sense of togetherness is an area of expertise for Halifax’s Marcia Kohler. I had the pleasure of speaking with Kohler by phone to learn more about her community work.

After returning from a trip to Israel with the AJC and the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project (JWRP) in 2017, Marcia Kohler was giving a presentation about Purim to her group and began thinking of the tradition of giving during the holiday. When we spoke, she noted that people have always been involved in shalach manos here in Halifax, and recalls thinking, “it would be a good way to bring all individuals of the Halifax Jewish community together regardless of whether they belonged to a synagogue, or which synagogue they belonged to”.

Her now university-aged children were teens at the time and involved with the Jewish Outreach Leadership Training (JOLT) program; she thought that this community project could help weave the generations together. Extending the invitation to participate to the children of the Hebrew schools and their families, Marcia brought together volunteers spanning a wide age range to create something special, not just for the seniors, but for the volunteers themselves.

“It’s so important that the generations are connected, and the senior generation is not forgotten, right? It’s so incredibly important for these younger kids to meet these seniors”, says Kohler. Especially without a Jewish community centre here in Halifax, it can be hard to find ways to be connected if you’re not a member of one of our synagogues. “The seniors just love the children” and this project has given the groups more opportunities to cross paths.

Kohler shared that the members of the JWRP trip sourced a variety of kosher snacks for the mishloach manot baskets, and thanks to the generosity of the Beth Israel Synagogue, the involvement of the Beth Israel Synagogue sisterhood, and the benefit of some “phenomenal, phenomenal bakers”, the baskets usually include homemade hamantaschen.

While last year they were able to bake, assemble and deliver the 144 mishloach manot baskets as planned, as with so many aspects of life, COVID-19 took a toll on their 2021 plans. With respect to public health protocols, Kohler says, “we technically couldn’t be in the synagogue kitchen as a group” and instead the group sourced prepackaged Kosher hamantaschen.

Another change was that, due to the virus, JOLT group activities were put on hold, so the teens didn’t take quite as big role as usual, but thanks to the help of several of the women of the JWRP trip, as well as members of the community mahjong group, the baskets were still able to be delivered. Given our current reality, this project now more than ever seems to carry greater importance. “This year is different” she says, “because its been so long and nobody really expected that we’d still be in this situation all these months later, and that social connection is just a bit of a perk, and hopefully we’re soon going to see the light at the end of the tunnel”.

In talking about her future plans for the mishloach manot drive, Kohler says she’ll continue to organize the project, and keep up with the connection with the JOLT program. Going forward, she hopes to find a way to include yet another demographic in her volunteer base—university students! Looking to find a way to connect with local Hillel groups, she hopes that for both local and non-local students alike, this project could be something that integrates them in to our community a little better. She also says that they’re always looking for more bakers and welcomes any interested volunteers.

If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that for many of us, isolation is not a sustainable state. We have redefined what it means to be together, reinvented holiday traditions, and reevaluated the things that matter most. We have done all this in an effort to reestablish our sense of community when safety protocols have made it more difficult.

It’s with this in mind that the importance of this project becomes even more apparent. There are members of our community who have been living in some degree of isolation long before COVID-19 sent us all inside. Marcia Kohler has found a way to not only bring the joy of Purim straight to the door of these senior community members but has opened up an opportunity for all the generations to come together to make it possible.

Madelyn Herb is an educator from New York City, and a recent Halifax transplant. She enjoys knitting, gardening, and cooking her way through Jewish culture.