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Coin by precious coin, grade school students in western Massachusetts raised more than $1,000 for the victims of last month’s earthquake in Haiti. The two-week effort, officially called Penny Wars by the Lubavitcher Yeshiva Academy in Longmeadow, saw competing classes fill jugs with pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in an attempt to beat opposing teams according to a complex series of rules.
“It was heartwarming to see even the toddlers bringing in their pennies and distributing them in their jars,” said Julie Betancourt, a teacher at the Chabad-Lubavitch run school.
Each of the elementary school grades, as well as the institution’s preschool and kindergarten, battled to see who could amass the most pennies. Middle school students participated, as well, serving as coaches and scorekeepers.
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By Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer - The Jewish Week
Given the range of duties undertaken by the typical wife of a Chabad emissary — from teaching Hebrew school to hosting communal holiday meals — leaving her community behind for even a few days is a difficult task. But for two emissaries who joined 4,000 of their sisters here for a convention last week, leaving their homes in the sunny Caribbean was particularly challenging.
When the Jan. 12 earthquake shattered Haiti, Rochi Zarchi of Puerto Rico and Michal Pelman of the Dominican Republic —along with their husbands Shimon and Mendel — immediately sprung into action to assist with the disaster relief effort. Day after day, Zarchi and Pelman prepared kosher food bundles and supply packages to ship to victims and rescue workers in Haiti.
“We’re not on site, especially because every island is its own island. [Haiti] is not a bridge away or a boat ride away,” Zarchi said. “But we did coordinate many different forms of support and food for everyone, as well as kosher provisions for the Jewish relief and Israel division. Seeing what’s been going on there, it’s unbelievable what a disaster can do.”
The Chabad Haiti Relief Fund, under the joint auspices of Chabad Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic and of Puerto Rico, received grants from both the American Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Coalition Disaster Relief that paid for convoys of kosher food, water and medical supplies shipped to Haiti. Zarchi said that she and her husband prepared their contributions and sent them over to the Pelmans in the Dominican Republic, who in turn took care of getting everything to the final destination in Haiti.
Despite the islands’ relatively close proximity, San Juan, Puerto Rico, is still more than 400 miles away from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with an ocean and the Dominican Republic in between.
“It’s frustrating because, of course, you’re limited,” Zarchi said. “But we’re putting in a substantial amount of effort, and my kids feel so proud because their parents are involved. They see all the different Haiti relief funds, and they feel like they’re spearheading an effort.”
For Pelman, the aid effort was a bit closer to home, and her husband was actually able to travel twice to Haiti along with several of their convoys. But Zarchi and Pelman agree that even from a distance, they as women can bring a special sensitivity to disaster situations, infusing their participation with emotions different from the goal-oriented determination exhibited by their husbands.
“As a mom, as a woman, you probably see the tears of the suffering of the children, sending provisions of the children are so important, so they should have what to eat and what to wear,” Zarchi said. “It’s an intuition of a mother and a natural thing of a woman to feel the pain and that’s really what keeps you going.”
And while Chabad’s meetings, workshops and social gatherings in New York last week did not all revolve around the crisis in Haiti, Zarchi said that she and Pelman certainly benefited from the weekend and will bring a refined set of skills back to the Caribbean, strengthening their resolve to handle the ongoing disaster.
“We have women literally from all over the world. There were support and workshops from all different topics, and we have to apply everything to where we’re going back to,” Zarchi said. “In many different ways it’s almost crucial — you can’t miss out on it, you’re going to miss a heartbeat if you miss out on it.”
“When we leave, anytime during the year, you have to leave whatever you’re doing on a conveyor belt. We don’t leave for a vacation or break,” she added. “We were constantly in touch.”
The support from both Zarchi and Pelman’s Chabad houses will continue to heal Haiti, until aid is no longer needed.
“As long as support is necessary we’re there for the people,” Zarchi said. “That’s why we’re out here — to help people.” |
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Trucks stocked with emergency supplies and dispatched by Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic crossed the border into Haiti Friday morning, travelling as part of a convoy of disaster relief coordinated by Fundación Sur Futuro, a Haiti-based aid organization, and protected by United Nations security forces.
The dispatch was made possible by grants from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, which identified the Chabad Haiti Relief Fund as a project on the ground with the capability to quickly transfer badly-needed food, water and medicine to earthquake victims in the neighboring capital of Port-au-Prince.
“The shipments made it across the border,” reported Rabbi Shimon Pelman, who is based in S. Domingo and made two trips into Haiti in the days after the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed an estimated 200,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. “Now, we are working on procuring bandages, I.V. equipment and antibiotics for hospitals in the disaster zone.”
Rabbi Shimon Pelman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic, supervises the loading of emergency supplies onto trucks bound for the devastated Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. (Photo: Joe Shalmoni)
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Survivors in Port-au-Prince await the arrival of a truck dispatched by Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic and stocked with supplies just days after the Haitian earthquake struck. (Photo: Marc Asnin/Chabad.org)
By Joshua Runyan
As heavy machinery takes the place of sniffer dogs at crumbled hotels and public buildings across the ruined Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, Jewish communal efforts are picking up the pace in delivering aid to the hundreds of thousands of people left sick, starving and homeless after this month’s devastating earthquake.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief each allotted grants to the Chabad Haiti Relief Fund to underwrite convoys of food, water and medical supplies from Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic.
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Rabbi Shimon Pelman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic, counsels a Haitian woman who lost her husband in the Jan. 12 earthquake.
By Joshua Runyan
Award-winning photojournalist Marc Asnin had just gotten to sleep in the early morning hours of Jan. 20 when he felt a deep rumble through his body leading to a crescendo of shaking that sent weary Haitians – survivors of last week’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake – running through the Israeli field hospital in Port-au-Prince that served as his home for several days.
While it registered 6.1 on the Richter scale, the aftershock, says the New York native, encapsulated the trauma and fear endured by the thousands who were spared death only to live through the nightmare of disease and starvation.
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Earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, receive food aid from a truck dispatched by Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic. (Photo: Marc Asnin/Chabad.org)
By Joshua Runyan
An early morning 6.1-magnitude aftershock rumbled through the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince Wednesday, sending people fleeing into the streets as rescue crews continued their last-ditch efforts to find signs of life beneath the ruined city’s towers of rubble.
If perhaps momentarily deterred by the shaking, relief missions continued apace through the morning with aid workers distributing food and water to increasingly desperate residents, Israeli military doctors treating the sick and injured at a field hospital, and a rabbi from the neighboring capital of S. Domingo dispatching supplies and non-perishable foods by the truck full.
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An emergency responder and Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical student carry a Haitian survivor between treatment areas at a field hospital in Port-au-Prince.
By Joshua Runyan
As thousands of earthquake survivors poured out of Port-au-Prince and relief workers focused their attentions on speeding up food delivery, shoring up distribution stations and continuing apace the grim task of body recovery, a team from a Dominican Republic Jewish center convoyed into Haiti on Monday to hand out food and water to desperate locals and assist efforts at a field hospital.
The hospital, located at a soccer field in the Haitian capital by a unit from the Israel Defense Force’s Home Front Command, has reported a string of good news since opening on Saturday. A total of 200 earthquake victims have been treated, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 39 of whom underwent life-saving surgeries. Although the IDF listed five deaths, a labor-and-delivery tent at the hospital saw the births of three babies, including one tiny newborn whose mother named him Israel.
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Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo observes the loading of a cargo plane with food aid destined to Haiti. (Photo: El Palacio de López)
By Joshua Runyan
With the situation on the ground in Haiti improving ever so slightly, relief shipments continued apace, filling all 100 landing slots at Port-au-Prince’s small airport and sending a steady stream of trucks across the devastated nation’s border with the Dominican Republic.
Among the United Nations convoys were unmarked white trucks dispatched by Rabbi Shimon Pelman, the S. Domingo-based director ofChabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic. Stocked with non-perishable food, water and medical supplies, they joined the hundreds of thousands of pounds of materials headed into the worst of the destruction days after a Jan. 12 earthquake left the Haitian capital in shambles.
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Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Shimon Pelman counsels earthquake survivors in a United Nations tent in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Photo: Marc Asnin/Chabad.org)
By Joshua Runyan
In the wake of anarchy, violence and looting taking rein in isolated pockets across the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, calls poured in from all corners for a Dominican Republic rabbi, whose web of contacts among local governments, foreign missions and American suppliers gave him a unique ability to push shipments through.
From S. Domingo, just hours, and a world away, from the destruction on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi ShimonPelman said that troops, doctors and diplomats from Israel, Mexico, South Africa and France, had all requested help in obtaining food and medical supplies. If they went hungry, they stressed, no one could be helped.
Adding to the strain was the breakdown of order in Port-au-Prince, where an impoverished populace was cracking under the strain of a lack of food, water and medicine. Less than five days after the Jan. 12 earthquake sent hospitals, hotels and government agencies crumbling to the ground, a stench of death hung low over densely populated neighborhoods and shantytowns. Predictions from several sources indicated that casualties could eventually top 200,000 lives lost.
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Rabbi Shimon Pelman, left, confers with officials after crossing the border into Haiti on Friday.
By Joshua Runyan
ith aid workers in place and more resources flowing into the devastated nation of Haiti, efforts at reviving its decimated populace kicked into high gear Friday and Saturday.
While rescue teams fought against the clock to free those trapped beneath piles of rubble in the capital of Port-au-Prince, medical personnel opened field hospitals to treat the wounded and foreign volunteers handed out food, water and water purification tablets.
Among the hundreds of volunteers and disaster relief professionals who have streamed into the country was Rabbi Shimon Pelman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic. Arriving by jeep with a police delegation from the neighboring nation and an accompanying United Nations convoy, Pelman distributed truckloads of produce amassed by members of the 300 family-strong Jewish community in S. Domingo.
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Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Shimon Pelman arrives on the ground in Haiti and assesses the situation with the locals and how best they could be assisted.
By Joshua Runyan
A Dominican Republic Jewish center has assumed a supporting role in the Haitian relief efforts undertaken by a host of aid organizations and countries in the wake of the country’s worst earthquake in more than 200 years.
Rabbi Shimon Pelman, director of the S. Domingo-based Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic, sped towards the country’s border with Haiti Friday morning in a jeep with a local police chief and commander. The trio came bearing equipment for rescue personnel, as well as kosher food for Jewish aid workers who had contacted the Chabad House throughout the day.
“Right now, we’re going to assist the tremendous efforts of aid workers,” he said by cell phone, five minutes from the border. “Jewish staff from several different agencies around the world are in need of food and other supplies. We will also make personal contact with the small Israeli community in Haiti, all of whom are okay.”
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A few members of the Jewish community in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic donated four large truckloads of produce to be distributed to the
Haiti citizens.
With very limited food supply in Haiti, we expect this shipment to benefit hundreds of residents. |
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Rabbi Shimon Pelman of Chabad in the Dominican Republic, is currently en route to Haiti. He will be assisting in the relief efforts there as well as assess how Chabad can be most effective in assisting those efforts.
We wish Rabbi Pelman and all other relief workers good luck and may G-d bless you! |
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With relief efforts in full swing, Chabad of Puerto Rico has organized rabbinical students to come to the area to assist in the relief efforts.
The rabbinical students will be based out of the Chabad House in the Dominican Republic, less than 160 miles away from Haiti, where they will support the teams of relief workers en route to Haiti. |
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