By Michelle Cohen
The Evelyn Rubinstein JCC | Houston, TX

I first started going to JCC day camp when I was about three or four years old, and I continued until they ran out of camp for me after middle school. Bug juice and day camp spirit were deep in our hearts!

I returned as a CIT and then a counselor when I was in college, and even ended up being the counselor to one of my former counselor’s children. Like so many things at the JCC, camp just came full circle.

It’s hard to pick any one thing I loved best at camp—friends, camp songs, bus rides. It was all great. Shabbat was always a really special day at camp and I loved it when the groups came together for prayer and song.

Being involved in camp meant there was always a friendly face growing up in the Houston Jewish community. Everywhere I went—religious school, a new public school, BBYO, even college—there was a camp connection.

Growing up in the 1970s, my childhood was tied strongly to the JCC. In addition to camp, I was always in a club or class through the J. Because the JCC was such a fun place to be it made all those formative Jewish experiences very positive one. It helped lay a really strong foundation for us at a very young age.

The girls in this photo have continued to be involved in Jewish life. They have grown into strong women with strong Jewish ties—to their religion, their synagogue, to the JCC, to other Jewish organizations and to the community as a whole. I’m still friends with them today. Every year, my son and I go on a cruise with a camp buddy and her kids. And that’s another story that came full circle. When our kids were little, we reunited at the JCC pool!

Whether stationed in Guantanamo Bay or in Vietnam, retired Naval Cmdr. Harold Sacks helped organize seders on several occasions during his military service. The Jewish Welfare Board—now JCC Association of North America, and whose role is now continued in JWB Jewish Chaplains Council— provided the seder staples so that U.S. military personnel and their spouses could have a little taste of home for the holidays at Passover, Chanukah and Rosh Hashanah, something it continues to do to this day. For his role, Sacks received a commendation from the Commission on Chaplaincy.

By Harold H. Sacks

As a career naval officer I found myself the senior Jew present on many occasions. Even as a lowly lieutenant, junior grade aboard the cruise USS Des Moines, I organized a seder for 50 men in 1956 during an emergency sortie. The food and materials came from JWB and the seder was attended by the ship’s captain and by the commander of the Atlantic Fleet Battleship Force.

In 1957 while stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by Rabbi Aryeh Lev [director of the Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy of the National Jewish Welfare Board], of blessed memory, assisted me several times, providing for me, as lay leader of the congregation of 15 families, plus whatever men came ashore each Friday and for holidays from the visiting fleet. Through his work with Capt. Josh Goldberg we had a reservist rabbi to lead our services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

For each Passover in 1958 and 1959, JWB sent a huge crate of matzah, chicken, soup and gefilte fish, along with kippot (head coverings) and haggadot (haggadahs), and wine. Our seder was at the Marine Family Restaurant and was served by Cuban staff. At the end of each seder, after all had departed except me and my family, the Cuban waiters, wearing kippot while cleaning up, were singing “Had Gad Yo.”

In 1964, as a lieutenant commander on Gen. Westmoreland’s staff in Vietnam, I was instrumental, working with JWB in getting the first rabbi assigned to duty in Vietnam following the first known fatality of a Jewish serviceman. Lt. Col. Meir Engel was 54 years old and did a magnificent job for us, conducting services each Friday night (but spending the rest of the week out in the field with the men). I furnished the oneg with bagels my father-in-law mailed from New York, and canned salmon and cream cheese. Attendees included the British economic consul to Vietnam and his family and an Israeli, whose Vietnamese wife wore a prominent Magen David. Jewish troops came off helicopters with rifles and grenades.

Sadly, Rabbi Engel died of a sudden heart attack in December and was given full honors. I managed to get his gear back to his family.

But for Passover we had a new rabbi and held a huge seder for about 150. The photo of me, next to the rabbi (right), is from that event.

I had wonderful experiences setting up seders. No matter where I was stationed, JWB sent me what I needed.

Today, Harold Sacks is recuperating from and illness and hopes to be home for Passover. He says that just as he did in his Navy days, “I’ll do whatever task they ask me.” We wish him a refuah shlemah, or speedy recovery.

He also provided us with this recollection of Rabbi Meir Engel, who served in World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars:

At that time virtually all staff had advisory positions with the South Vietnamese military. Until 1964 roughly 80 percent of the troops were Buddhist and 20 percent Catholic; the officers were Catholic; the enlisted Buddhist. But the creation of a Buddhist Chaplain Corp had just been approved. The Buddhists rejected both the U.S. Catholic and Protestant chaplains as advisors, but accepted the rabbi. Thus, Lt.Col. Meir Engel became the United States Military Assistance Command advisor to the Buddhist Chaplain’s Corp of the South Vietnamese Army.

Josh Sherwin always knew he wanted to be a rabbi. He just never imagined it would take him to Afghanistan, where he’d officiate at a seder for one.

Josh Sherwin grew up with the rabbinate and the military in his blood. His father was a congregational rabbi, and one grandfather was a chaplain for three years in Casablanca, Morocco in the late 40s, while the other served in the Canadian Air Force in World War II. While he was in rabbinical school he heard a Navy chaplain speak and he knew that’s what he wanted to do. While stationed with the 2nd Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, he was deployed to Afghanistan. He was moving around several forward operating bases, when he landed at Camp Delaram.

“When I showed up, there was only one Jewish guy. He didn’t know anyone else,” Josh says. “Generally, you show up, they say, ‘There’s one Jewish guy,’ but you start talking and they say, well, ‘There’s Jones over there. And Smith over there. But in this case, they couldn’t find anyone but this one.”

Carlos Idaregga was the lone Jewish solider. “Doing a seder for one isn’t a big deal,” says Sherwin. “That’s kind of why I signed up.”

Idaregga was overwhelmed. Sherwin doesn’t think he would have done a seder on his own. But Idaregga was “really into it. The fact that thousands of miles from home, we could have a seder for the two of us was really amazing.”

But it wasn’t just meaningful for the solider.

“It was probably the most memorable seder I’ve been at and the most meaningful,” says Sherwin. “When you are talking about freedom from slavery and freedom to be who you are surrounded by a military presence in a hostile country – this guy’s commander gave him time to have this freedom; even when deployed, his country sent a rabbi to meet with him.

“For both of us, is was memorable and moving.”

Nafiya Naso was only two when she and her parents and brother fled their home in Khana Sor, a village in Northern Iraq. As the Iraqi people rose up against Saddam Hussein, her father was forced to serve in the Iraqi Army, where he had been shot twice. He survived, and escaped, and that night, with little warning, the family fled to Syria.

“It was a seven day journey walking, mostly hiding in the day and walking by night,” says Naso, who now lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. “I was almost left behind. My mother was eight months pregnant and my older brother could walk.”

But two-year-old Nafiya was rescued when the family saw a donkey nearby, enabling her to ride. They ended up in Hasakah, Syria in a refugee camp, where they lived for eight years.

During that time she attended a school run by Muslim extremists. Six days a week they memorized the Koran. Those who couldn’t learn the verses were tortured in front of all the school, she says.

“And we were taught so much hate toward all other communities,” she says. “Particularly a lot of hate toward Jews. They told us Jews were monsters. They lied about their history. They told us anyone who was not a Jew, the Jews would kill.”

It was an ugly lesson that stuck for a very long time. But not long enough that the kindness she and her family experienced at the Rady JCC couldn’t undo it.

How they got there from Hasakah to the Rady JCC began when UN officials came to the camp and informed the refugees that the United States, Australia and Canada would be accepting Yazidi refugees. Naso’s family chose Canada because there were some other Yazidis already there. A Mennonite Church sponsored them and they were resettled in Winnipeg.

But the neighborhood in downtown wasn’t great. Someone stole her mom’s carpet. Her dad’s van window was broken. They were offered Manitoba subsidized housing. The only problem? It was down the street from the Jewish Community Center.

“We were terrified. Should we have stayed downtown?” Naso asks. “It stemmed from all the hate taught in the camp. My parents wanted to say, ‘Thank you, but no thank you.”

But they also knew it wasn’t safe where they were living. So they moved. And for seven years, the family went out of their way—quite literally—to avoid the Rady JCC, until her parents began having medical issues, and the doctor suggested a diet change and exercise. A neighbor finally convinced her mother that the best place to find better health was right at the end of the block.

But we’re not Jewish!

Naso went the first time with her mother to the Rady JCC. “I’ll be honest, my knees were shaking and I was almost in tears,” she says.

They passed through the first set of glass doors. She saw the security guard beyond the second set and thought, “This is not a good sign.” But she forged on.

She introduced herself, babbling, “We’re from Iraq, we’re not Jewish but my parents want to get an application to see if they can go to the gym, if not, it’s ok, we’ll just go.

“He looked at me like I was crazy, ‘No, people from all backgrounds come here,’” Naso says.

“My parents were truly welcomed with open arms. After a few weeks, my siblings started going and it was one of the best things that happened to my parents since we moved here.”

Her parents’ health has improved. They made friends at the Rady Centre. Their English improved. And the Jewish community has welcomed them in a way Naso never expected. In 2014, more than 600,000 Yazidis were under attack by the Islamic State. They were facing genocide. Naso knew she had to speak out, given her history.

She was knocking on doors, trying to get someone, anyone to pay attention.

Finally her MP Joyce Bateman put her in touch with members of the Jewish community who might be interested. At first, it was a little awkward, but as they shared personal stories, it became clear the Jewish community wanted to help. “It was hard for Yazidis to understand why they would take this on, but they went through the same things, and so many of them had family who were Holocaust survivors,” she says.

What began as a grassroots effort to highlight the plight of the Yazidis has expanded to include 22 Jewish and Christian organizations, with the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg leading the effort. To date, they’ve raised more than $380,000 and are sponsoring seven Yazidi families, two of which came to Winnipeg in July. In all, Operation Ezra, as it’s now called, will bring over 15 Yazidi families.

“The word genocide is nothing new to the Jewish community, and unfortunately, they felt our pain,” Naso says. “I could tell when we were sharing our stories with them. They were nodding their heads and they understood my story in a way no one else had.”