A few days after Simchat Torah, Tamar Green of Highland Park and Naomi Caplan of Edison came up with a low cost way for community members to visibly show their support for Israel in its war with Hamas.

The two women purchased blue and white tablecloths at the dollar store and cut them into strips, creating blue and white ribbons that they and their neighbors could tie to the trees or railings outside their homes. Working solely by word of mouth, the idea quickly took off. As of October 29, they’d enlisted “well over 100” homes and businesses in Highland Park and Edison to display the ribbons.

Initially, the two women would show up at the home of someone seeking a ribbon and put them up themselves, but as the requests started to grow, they shifted to making the ribbons available in boxes on their front porches. Yet Green said: “If anyone needs help affixing the ribbons, we are happy to provide white glove service and tie the ribbons around trees for them!”

The initiative continues to grow, with requests now coming from East Brunswick as well. To accommodate the increasing attention to and involvement in the project, the two women are exploring involving local shuls and businesses to host boxes of ribbons, and they are creating a website (with the help of Green’s daughter Dina Himmel in Rehovot) to assist in promotion.

Harry Glazer is the Middlesex community editor for The Jewish Link. He can be reached at [email protected]