GREENFIELD — In their discussions during Passover last month, with its instructions of, “All who are hungry, let them come and eat. … And you should love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” some members of Temple Israel began thinking about how this community can help refugees from Syria and other flash points around the globe.
“We were talking about it, saying, ‘We need to do something,’” said Phyllis Nahman of Greenfield, describing the initiative led by member Ellen Kaufmann of Shelburne Falls. “We’re all refugees. We all come from immigrants and refugees. We should do something as a Jewish community, as human beings.”
Working with Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener and with Jewish Family Service of Springfield, Kaufmann has launched a collection of materials and donations for Syrian refugees in the Pioneer Valley, as well as refugees from other countries.
And she reached out to the Rev. Marguerite Sheehan of Trinity Church in Shelburne Falls, which had begun a similar drive for refugee-needed items after a talk there in March by the author of “Syria Remember Me.”
“She talked eloquently and passionately about the people, religions and culture of Syria,” Sheehan said of the presentation by author Deborah Harte Felmeth, who will speak again at Temple Israel at 7 p.m. Monday as a kickoff for the welcome-kit drive.
Already, the synagogue has reached out to the Interfaith Council of Franklin County, and Trinity Church, as well Charlemont Federated Church and Ashfield Congregational Church, looking into becoming partners in the collection of bedsheets, towels, pots and pans, bathroom rugs and other goods for three kinds of immigrant kits specifically for households, children and women with babies.
Although the flood of Syrian refugee represents what Jewish Family Service Chief Executive Officer Maxine Stein calls “probably the largest human refugee crisis the world has seen in many decades,” the number of refugees from Syria represents a small part of the overall number of refugees resettled by the agency’s “New American Program,” which last helped 235 people from around the world settle in the lower Pioneer Valley — 22 of them Syrians. They came from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Barundi, Eritria, Barundi, Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nepal, according to Stein, and resettled principally in Springfield, West Springfield and Westfield by Jewish Family Service, a component of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which in turn has been resettling immigrants since 1881.
“In this moment of figuring out who ‘the bad guys’ and ‘the good guys are,’ these are the precious beings running for their lives,” said the Rev. Kate Stevens, minister of Ashfield Congregaional Church. “I don’t know how we can not open our hearts, and our doors, and our pantries. It’s our country’s history. It’s who we are. We’re connected, and we reach out, as individuals.”
Felmeth moved from Vermont to Syria in 1991 to teach music at the Damascus Community School, married a Syrian and remained in the country until May 2012. She calls her book “my attempt to balance the onslaught of negative news and the tragedy of war with some of the cultural background, the wealth of history and the depth of generosity and dignity that the Syrian people have.”
In Syria, “lives have been turned upside down” by what’s clearly a proxy war, said Felmeth who estimates that 18 million people still carry on daily life and where apricot trees and walnut trees are in bloom.
“I fell in love with the country, the culture, the language, the people, the food … It’s an extremely tolerant, multicultural, poly-religious culture, with a mix of Kurdish, Armenian, Turkmen, Circassian, and ancient streams of Aramaean and Arabian-Bedouin (peoples). … And the hospitality of the culture is renowned.”
The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Felmeth is asked constantly asked “What can we do to help?”
In addition to educating ourselves enough to be able to greet the refugees here in their own language and to let them know we know something about their rich culture, she said, we can respond the same way we would to a friend in need of healing, by trying to imagine them as vibrant and whole.
“Syria has a 9,000-year history of human habitation. Let their future be as long and glorious as their past has been. Instead of always feeding on what’s being destroyed, think of what might blossom into peace.”
Locally, people can help the broader, nonsectarian refugee resettlement effort by donating pots and pans, shower curtains and rings, new queen-size sheets, mixing bowls, new bath towels, bath mats, silverware, serving spoons, as well as queen and twin-size comforters to Temple Israel from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
They also can check with one of the participating churches, or make make a monetary contribution payable to Temple Israel with “Refugee Resettlement” on the memo line.
The June 6 date selected by Felmeth and Temple Israel for the program, after checking many other possibilities, turns out, coincidentally, to be the first day of the Muslim holiday Ramadan.
“Perfect,” she said. “To be in a Jewish temple in America on the first day of Ramadan! Always let the universe do your scheduling for you.”
On the Web: http://syria-remember-me.com
www.jfswm.org/healing-world