I have very sharp memories from my childhood of sitting around my family’s dining room table on Shabbat eve. I remember my parents and brothers, my grandparents and my elderly cousin Froike, who never married and always contended that, “It is better in Herzilya.” Everything was better there, he insisted.
But equally sharp are the evenings my family spent with a family of Russian Jews who had just immigrated. They brought us gifts of matrushka dolls. They wore amber jewelry and had a distinctive odor that is still familiar after 30 years.
Perhaps most striking was that our family’s relationship with them was dictated purely by what I now understand to be the notion of klal Yisrael, the sense that Jews are part of one large family.
That family, with whom we lost touch after we moved to Utah, was the mirror of my family, also immigrants from the Former Soviet Union. Beyond our cultural differences, there was a tie that bound us one to the other.
That idea is one root of American Jews’ great history of volunteerism. To see proof of that commitment to helping others, one need not go further than the Jewish Community Pantry on Thursday mornings, where volunteers distribute food to people in need; or the Jewish Home and Care Center, where volunteers visit with residents and stave off the loneliness that can become a dreaded and consistent companion.
Volunteers work throughout the city in the various programs of Jewish Family Services, in preschools, agencies, synagogues and other organizations. They serve Jews and non-Jews alike.
But while the need remains high, communities throughout the country are facing a shortage of volunteers. Lifestyle, it seems, is the prime culprit.
“Volunteering has changed so much, from when all of us grew up and we knew about it,” said Susie Gruenberg, director of volunteer services at JFS.
“Primarily the biggest [factor] is that women have gone to the workplace. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, when a lot of mothers were home, they had more time available to add to the richness of our community with volunteer time.”
Now, however, and I speak from experience, time is at a premium and those in families with two working parents are less eager to make time commitments outside the home.
Such families are looking for different types of opportunities. “A term that’s being used is ‘episodic volunteering,’” Gruenberg said. Those “episodes” have a beginning, middle and end, and differ from the model of continuing visits or weekly shopping trips, etc.
People are also interested in volunteering occasionally rather than entering into a relationship that demands longer commitments, Gruenberg said. JFS and other community agencies and organizations are responding to that need.
JFS’ highest priority now is “friendly visitors,” people to go into clients’ homes in one-on-one matched relationships.
The idea is “to be there for somebody who’s isolated, feeling alone and add some real richness, interest and quality to someone’s life. Once a week, even every other week,” she said.
Those visits can include companionship; excursions to a movie or coffee shop; help going to medical appointments, grocery shopping or errands; and more.
Frank, a man with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis who lives at home, contacted me to share his need for volunteer help through JFS.
“[I] rely heavily on the help of kind volunteers to assist me with such tasks as writing checks, general filing and possibly some simple computer work,” he wrote. “You have no idea how much this gift of time would be appreciated.”
If you are interested in making these kinds of priceless contributions to klal Yisrael, opportunities abound throughout our community. Contact your synagogue or other Jewish organizations and agencies for more information.
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