Toronto synagogue´s shelter praised

TORONTO, Feb. 25 (JTA) — Born six years ago amid a flurry of heated community meetings and debates, a synagogue´s weekly effort to feed and provide overnight shelter to the needy is now praised as one of the top programs here. Every Thursday evening throughout the winter, about 100 people come to the Holy Blossom Temple for dinner, and as many as 45 sleep over on foam mats in the synagogue´s social hall. The Temple´s participation in the Out of the Cold coalition usually begins in early November and concludes two weeks before Passover — which is fitting, given that feeding the hungry is one of the holiday´s themes. When it began participating in 1996 — the coalition itself was formed in 1987 — the temple was the first Jewish coalition member in Toronto. Today, there are more than 50 religious groups in the coalition addressing the growing problems of homelessness, poverty, mental illness and social alienation. “Even the homeless guests themselves rate it as better than any other program,” says Freda Ariella Muscovitch, the program´s founder and first chair, who has since helped to set up similar operations at other institutions, including several synagogues. Organizers introduced local patrols and other security precautions to ease fundamental safety concerns. The city´s largest reform congregation, Holy Blossom is located in a relatively affluent residential area in Toronto. Organizers point out that the program has received almost no serious complaints since it began and that some previously worried neighbors have become dedicated volunteers. Primarily through word of mouth, the program has become vastly popular with two distinct “client” groups: those needing a meal and a place to sleep, and those wanting an opportunity to perform charitable deeds. To those who know the program, it is no surprise that volunteers outnumber the guests. The volunteer roster contains more than 500 names, and at least 130 people are usually active in any given week. Many say that Out of the Cold helps them as much as it does the street population it was meant to serve. “It´s an opportunity to give back in a very meaningful way,” says Larry Babins, a former chair of the program. “The Torah says the reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah itself,” notes Rabbi Gunther Plaut, Holy Blossom´s senior religious leader. “That´s what it´s all about. That´s what gives people a great kick — to be able to do something positive.” The guests begin to arrive late Thursday afternoon, most by bus or on foot. They gather in a patio-alcove by a side entrance and partake of hot chocolate and homemade muffins until the doors open about 6:30 p.m. Soon after being admitted, they settle around banquet tables in the social hall and are given name badges. Many return week after week. Dinner usually consists of salad and soup; a main course of beef, chicken, salmon or shepherd´s pie, with potatoes and vegetables; and dessert, fruit, coffee, tea and juice. Except for donated items, most of the food is prepared from scratch in the synagogue´s kitchen. A platoon of some 25 or 30 people serves the food. During the meal, a senior volunteer publicly reviews the house rules: no drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, no abusive language, no fights. One or two professional security guards are on hand to handle unruly behavior. As a pianist or guitarist plays popular favorites, guests may browse for needed items in a clothing room, or consult with a nurse or social worker. For more extensive needs, they are given a contact number for an appropriate social agency. “We try to provide the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter in a manner that respects our guests´ dignity, self-respect and sense of worth, but we recognize that we´re not social workers,” Babins says. “We have to be careful about what we try to offer. We´re not competent or capable of offering any social services or psychological support.” After dinner, the room is cleaned and cleared, and donuts and coffee urns appear. People read magazines, play bingo or crazy eights, or unwind with an art class. Those who leave are given a bus token and a packed lunch. Those staying overnight set up their mats on the floor; they will receive a cooked breakfast in the morning. Plaut often joins a table for the weekly meal. Like many volunteers, he says he gets a lot out of the experience. “I get to know the lives, the background, the worries and the hopes of people I might otherwise never meet,” he says. Like many, he says he is grateful for the opportunity to perform tzedakah, or charitable deeds, through Out of the Cold. “Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and giving shelter to those who are in need — these are basic commands of Judaism,” he says. Like invisible angels, many volunteers work entirely behind the scenes. Some come to scrub pots, then go home. Some teen-agers take on tasks that would amaze their parents, says the co-chair of the program, Abe Neufeld. “It´s a pleasure seeing these young people doing jobs, like washing down tables or mopping floors, that they would never do at home,” he says. So many teenagers volunteer as servers, often with one of their parents, that they work in three- or four- week rotations. Along with issues of safety and hygiene, the servers are briefed on the importance Judaism places on acts of charity. Although persons younger than 14 are not permitted to come into contact with guests, many become volunteers in order to perform shifts of community service for high school or to meet tzedakah requirements for Bar or Bat Mitzvah certification. Many set the tables beforehand or help in the kitchen. Although not all volunteers are Jewish, the program was conceived as a “Jewish response to homelessness,” founder Muscovitch recalls. “As Reform Jews we are very responsive to the community, and we focus on tzedakah. But it´s not just for Jewish people, it´s for everyone.” Six years ago, Muscovitch and the other founders were challenged to explain why the synagogue should host such a program “when all the homeless people were downtown.” At one tempestuous meeting, “a woman, one of our staunch supporters, stood up and said, ‘Haven´t you seen the homeless people under the bridge at Bathurst and Glen Cedar? Or outside the bank at Eglinton and Bathurst?´ ” she recalls. “That caused a tremendous shift in many of our neighbors and congregants, because they realized that it wasn´t just a downtown problem,” she says. Since then, at least three more Toronto synagogues have started smaller Out of the Cold programs. Two are located in the northern part of the city and pick up guests by van at the Finch subway station. Besides neighborhood concerns, the founding committee at Holy Blossom came up with workable solutions for a myriad of worries from the temple board and from representatives and parents of the nursery and Hebrew day schools that operate on the premises. As a result, they agreed to make sure that guests never arrive before 4:30 p.m. and fully vacate the premises by 7 a.m. so that the paths of night and day visitors never cross. As a safeguard, a security crew patrols the building and surrounding streets during program hours. Organizers express pride that Out of the Cold has become a paragon of such programs, frequently receiving visitors from church and synagogue groups who want to observe and learn from it. “A lot of people see how well our program runs at Holy Blossom and say, ‘Well, you´ve got the perfect set-up,´ ” Muscovitch says. “I tell them, ‘No, it wasn´t always like this. We had to make it the perfect set-up.´ ” “It almost feels like what Herzl said,” she says. “‘If you will it, it isn´t a dream.´ “