A Helping Hand, Long Outstretched, from WJC to the Lower East Side

An effort that has supported Holocaust survivors for three decades has evolved to include Jewish residents who are “alone, frail, or have run out of resources.” et all who are hungry come and eat.” At Passover, these words call us to share holiday bounty with those who are less fortunate. At Westchester Jewish Center, the meaning of this phrase has long included a commitment to Jewish elders on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

More than 30 years ago, Janice Malett, as a recent transplant to Larchmont, brought Project Ezra to WJC. The project, she recalled, began in 1972, when “a couple of young zealots knocking on doors on the Lower East Side” discovered isolated, elderly Jews, mostly Holocaust survivors, and set about addressing their needs.

They named their project “Ezra” from the Hebrew word “to help.” The mission was straightforward: connect people to social services; help with appointments and paperwork; provide assistance, food, money, a human connection, as well as a place to go. Today, the organization’s offices and activity rooms occupy a suite in the Seward Park Cooperative on Grand Street, in the heart of what was once the largest Jewish neighborhood in the world.

For many years, Pesach food, collected and delivered by WJC volunteers, brought the holiday to this population. WJC’s Project Ezra luncheons transported clients to our Center for a festive annual “day in the country” with catered meal, live music, and gifts to take home. Nursery school children visited while Hebrew High Schoolers served.

Janice spoke of the joy of hosting this event, which fostered and honored a sense of Jewish peoplehood for the entire community. At one luncheon, committee member Meira Fleisch’s elderly parents, joining the party, were stunned to discover a friend from Europe, presumed lost at Auschwitz, among the Project Ezra guests.

After a hiatus necessitated by the pandemic, WJC hosted a small Project Ezra luncheon last fall. Meanwhile, WJC’s cash donations to Ezra help subsidize programming and purchases of food all through the year. Other synagogues, communities, and individuals throughout the Metropolitan New York region also provide in-kind gifts and services, and fund an annual budget of about $450,000. Project Ezra employs seven part-time staff members, including one remote worker in Minnesota, and is in the process of adding a social worker.

As an independent organization, taking no funding from government or UJA-Federation, the organization has forged a unique hands-on approach. “Other agencies help seniors, but with paperwork and bureaucracy. We can do things directly and fill needs as we see them,” explained Geraldine Murphy, Ezra’s vice president and administrator. If a client needs a new mattress, a bag of groceries, help making medical appointments or arranging a burial, Ezra’s staff gets it done. “We can accomplish things quickly,” she said.

That work had to change in the past three years. With COVID fears, credit accounts at the local kosher market have replaced food deliveries. Snack packages supplant the hot lunches once enjoyed. Fewer clients come to activities than in the past. Those who do are cautious and masked.

The Holocaust survivors who inspired WJC’s early efforts have, of course, gone to their final rest. Today, Project Ezra focuses more broadly on Jewish residents of the neighborhood who are alone, frail, or have run out of resources, and those who arrived in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “We helped Russians connect to their Jewish heritage,” said WJC member Sharon Silver, who sits on Project Ezra’s board.

Sharon has been involved with the organization for two decades. For her, “the Lower East Side is a special place” with which she feels a personal connection. So it is with many of us living very different lives in more prosperous Jewish worlds. Many of our parents, grandparents, or other forebearers knew those streets around Orchard, Rivington, and Delancey. Sharon’s reminder: “It is a value to cherish that history.”

About 80 aging Russian Jews now comprise at least a third of the organization’s client base. On a recent Wednesday morning, Sam Rybalov worked the phone at his desk in Project Ezra’s offices. As Russian Group Coordinator, he leads a Russianlanguage discussion hour, drives the organization’s van, and, like others on staff, checks in on clients with weekly phone calls and home visits.

COVID, he laments, put a crimp in things: “We used to go to museums, to Brooklyn for shopping, to more than ten synagogues for lunch. Maybe it will start again?”

Maia Fiedler is another important presence in the Grand Street rooms. A young German intern assigned to Project Ezra by Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP), she shares in the phone check-ins, makes home visits, takes walks with clients, and listens to their stories. She assists in the office and leads a chair exercise group.

ARSP, which sends helpers from Germany to Jewish organizations around the world, has been assigning young people here for one-year stints since 1984. “At first the survivors were uncomfortable,” Sharon Silver recalled. But close relationships were forged, and the program became “a big and wonderful part of Project Ezra.” Maia commented simply: “I love it here.”

In an activity room down the hall, five women gathered over piles of beads and jewelry findings for a twice-monthly class.

Like such nearby institutions as Kossar’s Bagels, Moishe’s Kosher Bakery, and Henry Street Settlement, these women have long histories here.

Anne is a lifelong resident of the Lower East Side. Louise, cheerily dressed in a red sweater with manicure to match, arrived in the neighborhood from Cuba at age five. Mona, who sources beads at local flea markets, has lived here for four decades. Israeli Shoshana came for a visit 30 years ago and stayed. They have children and grandchildren in the area, a disabled husband at home, or no family at all. One appreciates Ezra’s kosher snacks, one the weekly calls, another the excursions.

For Florence, stringing a green necklace, the jewelry classes are a lifeline. “If I couldn’t come here, I wouldn’t look forward to life,” she said. A friend chimes in: “There is nothing else like this place.”

The Haggadah’s exhortation, “let all who are hungry come and eat,” refers to more than food. There are many kinds of hunger–for human connection, learning, friendship, conversation, creative activity. This year, because of COVID concerns, WJC will not be collecting Pesach foods, packing boxes, and delivering them personally. But with our contributions, and by staying close to our past, we continue to help Project Ezra fulfill its mission and ours.

What’s cooking jeremy Blachman