Student volunteers clear out flooded synagogue in New Orleans (attend, pray)

[jewscout]

Student volunteers clear out flooded synagogue in New Orleans

Standing on moldy and debris-covered floors, college students cleaning up a Jewish temple paused for a prayer service - the first at Beth Israel Synagogue since Hurricane Katrina flooded it with more than 10 feet of water three months ago.

The dozen or so students were among roughly 50 from colleges across the country who have come to New Orleans to spend their winter break helping with recovery efforts at the century-old synagogue, as well as at area homes and schools left damaged by the storm.

The students, wearing face masks and gloves, hauled out to the synagogue's front lawn books, furniture and holy items such as a shofar.

The items were sorted by what would be buried on Tuesday in Jewish burial grounds in another part of the city and what would be thrown out.

Beth Israel was the only New Orleans synagogue completely destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, said Jackie Gothard, the congregation's president. Roughly 150 families attended services there before the storm.

"We have to clean up, regroup our membership and plan for the future," she said Monday.

With only about a third of the area's pre-Katrina Jewish community of 13,000 back in the city, Gothard said consolidation and downsizing is possible.

"We just don't know what's going to happen," Gothard said. "We don't know for sure that we'll be able to keep this property."

The student volunteers came from more than two dozen states. In the synagogue's library, Jeff Kamen, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois, separated the thousands of books to be buried from those that will be thrown away. The room was covered with mold. Talking through his face mask, he said coming to New Orleans "sounded like a worthwhile way to spend my time."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

[michel]

Out of sorrow and destruction, people are motivated to do good works. That is the reason for which we are all here.