Englewood–As Project Ezrah commemorates its bar mitzvah year, the Bergen County-based chesed organization is celebrated for having built itself into a community institution, for helping so many of our neighbors through and out of financial insecurity, instability, or job loss.
However, like many bar mitzvah years, it has been a year rife with change and transition. The Project Ezrah Annual Dinner, to be held December 13 at Congregation Keter Torah, will reflect some key transitions the organization has experienced over the last year since the death of founder and executive director Rabbi Yossie Stern, z’l. The dinner will also introduce Robert Hoenig, who joined the organization as executive director after the High Holidays.
“Project Ezrah is going from what was, and we’re going into a new future. We have a new director with fresh eyes, but we are bringing everything we have learned with us,” said Susan Alpert, the organization’s longtime director of development. “We are re-assessing what needs to be made stronger, what is strong right now, and what has to be tweaked. But the values are the same.”
While the evening’s dinner will begin with a tribute to Rabbi Stern and the lessons of his inspiring life of chesed, the organization is setting aside the “traditional annual dinner honoree route” for this year, because there are too many people to thank and too many people’s contributions to acknowledge. Instead, there will be two groups honored: First, hakarat hatov (gratitude) will be given to the community’s rabbeim, who have acted as true partners with Project Ezrah over the last year, and in many ways helped bridge the gap left by the loss of Rabbi Stern.
“They have been instrumental; they have stood behind us and beside us. They are our lifeline in so many ways. They have already helped me immeasurably,” said Robert Hoenig, a former hospital administrator who took the helm of Project Ezrah as a longtime community member and supporter of its programs. He explained that the rabbeim partner with Project Ezrah in several important ways; by bringing them clients who need assistance, and also by helping to vet candidates who come from other sources, and preventing duplication of efforts, as every person who is helped by Project Ezrah has their past years’ worth of bills analyzed to see where and how they can be helped.
The rabbeim also assist in crisis situations and are counted on to help treat all community members with sensitivity and respect, which remains a cornerstone of Project Ezrah’s philosophy. “Everyone’s name is sacred to us. We don’t allow our client list to be publicized. And we treat people with dignity,” said Hoenig.
The second group to be honored at the dinner will be “neighbors who have extended a helping hand.”
“At annual dinners, the ones honored are usually the ones who give the most. People, however, do chesed in many non-monetary ways,” said Hoenig. “So in this way, at our dinner, we are also honoring those who ‘give the most.’ It might not be in monetary value, but it’s valuable to us,” he said. For example: “The soup that a person brings to their neighbor each week. We want to honor that person,” he said.
Therefore, the dinner will be interactive in a sense. When filling out the reply form for the dinner, community members are asked to express hakarat hatov to one or more rabbeim, or to nominate a neighbor who has been of particular service to the community. Anyone who has been honored by another will be called personally by a Project Ezrah representative and asked for permission beforehand to confirm their name can be recognized and published in the evening’s scroll of honor.
Project Ezrah is dependent on donations: Proceeds from the annual dinner sustain Project Ezrah client families for the entire coming year, and it pays for much-needed expansion projects.
Hoenig shared that he is in the process of visiting as many communities as he can around Bergen County, speaking from the pulpit on Shabbat about Project Ezrah and its message, and asking for the community’s support. While he has already visited several shuls in Teaneck, he will be visiting Englewood, Bergenfield, and Fair Lawn in coming weeks, and hopes to reach every community.
To register and attend the dinner, or to express hakarat hatov to a rabbi or honor a neighbor, please visit http://www.ezrah.org/dinner.
By Elizabeth Kratz
