For more than 20 years, our community has shared its warmth with our struggling neighbors, offering 10 homeless men a roof, a bed and a meal every night. We remain the only NYC synagogue with an open shelter 365 nights a year. What an achievement we can be proud of! (We always need volunteers to help staff the shelter, and if you would like to take an early evening set-up shift, from 7-9, or an overnight shift, 9p-6a, please contact our shelter coordinator Charlie Davidson at 914.260.4159 or email or ac_shelter@yahoo.com.

Now, I invite you to join me in another step in our community's work with those struggling to leave the streets and build healthy, safe, satisfying lives.

The Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing (IAHH) has asked our community to host a branch of its "Education Outreach Program," a series of life skills classes for folks on their ways out of homelessness. This series of classes focuses on helping people who have been on the streets -- sometimes for decades -- gain personal stability. Participants -- who will already be living in transitional housing -- learn to put their experiences into words and tell their stories. They learn to manage their time and money more wisely. They reflect on making stable personal relationships and clarifying their values. They learn better nutrition and personal healthcare. They have access to a social worker.

We are calling this program Panim el Panim, or Face-to-Face - and that is what we hope it will be: An opportunity for the participants and the mentors and teachers to share their lives. We will host these classes two evenings a week at AC from April 1 through mid-June.

These life skills classes have a great track record: Catholic Charities and St. Francis Xavier of Chelsea have been running them for years. Ansche Chesed will be the first non-Catholic host in New York City. Our program will be headed up by one of our most tireless community workers, Mary Feinberg, and Dennis Barton. Dennis himself is testimony to the program's power: after nearly 20 years on the street as a drug addict, his own path to stability came through life skills classes at Catholic Charities. (Some of you met Dennis last year when he spoke to AC's kids at a Family Social Action Committee program on homelessness.) He now works for Planned Parenthood and serves as a board member at IAHH and as a deacon in his church.

How can you become involved?

Here are three things you can do:

1. BECOME A MENTOR: the program works by assigning a mentor to each participant. Mentors meet their partners at AC six evenings during the 12-week course, and should also attend the program's graduation at the end. You don't need to be a certain age or profession or an expert in anything to be a good mentor. All you need to do is be a good, supportive and reliable listener. You'll develop a relationship with a person who is achieving something extraordinary -- breaking a horrible cycle of suffering -- and you'll help him or her along the road. Would you give of your time and personal experience?

2. SPONSOR A STUDENT: Each of the 15 participants in the program will receive a $360 subsidy, with 25% given out in small payments as the program goes on and 75% paid at the end, in recognition for completing the program. Would you like to sponsor a student with a $360 contribution? Or half a stipend at $180?

3. COOK A MEAL: Each evening, the participants get a meal. We will solicit some donations from local kosher merchants. We would also like to provide the participants with some home cooking. It can be lasagna, soup & salad, anything dairy or pareve and kosher. Would you consider cooking a meal for these folks?

Some of our neighbors in local churches will also contribute in these ways - so participating is a great way to strengthen interfaith ties in the neighborhood. If you would like to be involved, please email me at rjk@AnscheChesed.org.

At this time of year, we remind ourselves: You are duty-bound to regard yourself as if you personally were a slave in Egypt, and you personally experienced God's liberation. The participants in our program are on their way out of their own very real Egypts. Please help them make the journey.

       -- Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky

Adar, 5768

This month marked the 20th anniversary of the Yahrzeit of Ari Ullendorff Gorfinkle. It also marked the 20th anniversary of Chevrat Menachem Aveilim as we know it in this community. Chevrat Menachem Aveilim, the group to comfort mourners, was created to help Ansche Chesed make appropriate funeral plans. With the death of Ari the mandate of the Chevre entirely changed.

Ari was a 17-month-old baby. At that age, some kids primarily relate to their families. Ari was a baby of large personality who had strong relationships with many adults and kids at Ansche Chesed.

So when Ari suddenly became ill, went into a coma and then died all within a couple of days, it was terrible thing to get one's brain around. The thought of Ari being alone in the funeral home was simply too awful.

I was then working at Ansche Chesed. It seemed to me that rather than leaving Ari by himself at Riverside Funeral Home, that the tradition of doing shmira -- of "guarding," or sitting with the body between the time of death and the funeral -- would permit those who knew and loved Ari to do something to come to terms with their own grief. Ari's parents, Doris and Ken, allowed us to do shmirah.

Because the idea of sitting with a dead body seemed terribly frightening to us at that point, and no one had ever done shmira before, we did it in pairs. What we as a community learned that day was that often wordless traditions around death and mourning are so very helpful -- both to the mourners and to the community around them.

During the last 20 years, what we as a community do in the face of death has evolved. We now have a Chevra Kadisha that washes and prepares the body for burial with care . Now, enough people have done shmira and are comfortable with it that usually people do it on their own.The wonders of email has made coordinating help for a shiva vastly easier than it was in the days of having to make hundreds of telephone calls. At some point it was decided that every member of Ansche Chesed was a member of the Chevre. This is probably the only active Ansche Chesed committee that hasn't had a meeting in 15 years.

As more of us have faced death in our own families, and have been comforted by the community, the pool of willing and eager volunteers grows. So many of us assume that one is obligated to help, regardless if one is friendly with the mourners or not. Usually, as soon I send out a death announcement people begin offering to cook, do shmira or attend a minyan.

We are a community that is wonderfully diverse. Often the difference between how one was brought up and how one currently observes comes into sharp contrast around the time of death. I love how the flexibility built into the Chevra allows what we provide for each Shiva to be appropriate for each particular family. What we as a community provide varies depending on what each family needs.There is no one-size-fits-all in terms of what we do.

The real reason that this works is that so many of you are willing to help. Participating in the mitzvot around death does not require great knowledge or great piety. The mitzvot around death mostly require you to simply show up. The folks who do shmira or taharah (washing the body) know that the mourners will not know that they have done this mitzvah. There is no public glory in participating. Yet, members of Ansche Chesed keep voting with their feet. People give up time with their kids, rearrange work schedules, miss sleep, all to help someone that they may not know at all. This is truly profound.

This fall, my mother-in-law died. For the first time  I really understood just how powerful the actions that all of us have been doing for all of these years really are. Eating food that was made with love or purchased with love, seeing the efforts that people made to simply show up was intensely powerful.

Ari Ullendorff Gorfinkle's death was a devastating one for him and for those who knew him. We as a community have learned through his death that while doing for others does not take away the pain of death, it does help support the aveilim ( mourners) so that they can rejoin the world of the living.

 Ari Ullendorff Gorfinkle - Y'hi Zichro Baruch - may his memory be a blessing.

To the Members of Ansche Chesed:

I am pleased to introduce myself as the DOROT Social Worker who will be working with your congregation under an UJA-Federation Partners in Caring grant that seeks to create elder- friendly communities in local synagogues. As a Licensed Masters in Social Work specializing in older persons and their families, I look forward to meeting with you and building upon Ansche Chesed's wonderful traditions and programs.  Please do not hesitate to contact me by phone (212-769-2850) or e-mail (Kweinberger@dorotusa.org) if you have any questions about this initiative, are interested in volunteering, would welcome a home visit, or want to learn more about DOROT services and programs. You can also find information about DOROT and its work online at www.dorotusa.org.

With warmest regards,

Katie Weinberger, LMSW

Mishloach Manot Madness for 4th-7th Graders
Sunday, March 16, 12:30 p.m.
Students in grades 4 to 7 will prepare packages and deliver them to The Jewish Home and Hospital.  For more information, contact Sarah Waxman at
212.865.0600 ext. 207 or HebrewSchool@AnscheChesed.org

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Purim Evening Services for Families
Thursday, March 20, 6:30 p.m.
Featuring an age-appropriate retelling of the Purim story and Purim songs with Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn & Rabbi Lauren Kurland. Followed by a Megillah reading in the Sanctuary, with a costume parade for the children. Open to all.

GENERAL DONATIONS  
Fred Bogin in memory of Yocheved Muffs' brother Lester Phillip Herschlag
Babara Cline in memory of Yocheved Muffs' brother Lester Phillip Herschlag
Mindy Fischer in honor of Barrie and Jerry Raik's birthday, Ellen Tucker and Alan Rosenstein, Josh Hanft and Claudia Chernov, Sharon Strassfeld, and Paul, Roberta and Shoshana Shapiro
Edgar and Olive Freud
Steve Grant in memory of Seth Palmer
Stephen Gross in honor of the Bat Mitzvah of Shoshana Shapiro
Barry Holtz and Bethamie Horowitz in memory of Yocheved Muff's brother, Lester Herschlag
Marjorie Hort in memory of Yocheved Muffs' brother, Lester Phillip Herschlag, David Kronfeld's morther Ida Kronfeld, and Adam Teitelbaum's mother, Stefania Teitelbaum
Marlene and Fred Levinson in honor of Rabbi Marion Shulevitz's 75th Birthday
Andrew Braiterman and Ronne Mandelker in memory of Sharri Posen's husband, Richard Posen
Paula Milla-Kreutzer in memory of Richard Posen
Honey Rose in memory of Chasida Bat Leah Frances Rose
Sol Rosenkranz in memory of his sister-in-law Felicia Cooper
William and Marion Shulevitz in memory of Yocheved Muffs' brother, Lester Phillip Herschlag
Gary Dreiblatt and Nancy Sinkoff in honor of the B'not Mitzvah of Shoshana Shapiro and Anna Peterman
Peter Ozsvath and Elisheva Sperber
Nahum and Maron Waxman in memory of Sharri Posen's husband, Richard Posen
Jerry and Donna Weiss in honor of Rabbi Marion Shulevitz's 75th Birthday

YAHRZEIT  DONATIONS
Oscar Awner in memory of his wife, Ruth Awner
Bonnie Beck in memory of her father, Irving Beck
Beatrice Blanco in memory of her father, Max Greenberg
Carolyn Cohen in memory of her father, Saul Cohen
Ruth Gelfand in memory of her uncle, Solomon Landsman
Beryl Goldberg in memory of her mother, Rose Goldberg
Marilyn P Goldberg in memory of her uncle, Philip (Frankie) Goldberg
Marilyn Gordon in memory of her mother, Ida Gordon
Carole Gothelf in memory of her aunt, Eleanor Harrow
Sophia Gutherz in memory of her mother, Genia Gutherz
Navah Harlow in memory of her mother, Pauline Chasman
Paula Milla-Kreutzer in memory of her father, Emillo Milla
Richard Mark in memory of his father, Sandor Mark, and step-father, Fred Friendly
Irene Melup in memory of her sister, Zula Melup
Martin Miller in memory of his mother, Fay Miller
Ronald A Morris in memory of his brother, Joel J. Morris
Fred Rosenberg-Wilmoth in memory of his mother, Zelda Shapiro Wilmoth
Sol Rosenkranz in memory of his father-in-law,Sam Cooper
Leah Cahan Schaefer in memory of her brother, Haskel Cahan
Talia Schenkel in memory of her aunt, Rae Beck
Lillian Segal in memory of her mother, Etty Weinberg
William and Marion Shulevitz in memory of William's mother, Rose Shulevitz, and Marion's aunt, Sarah Cohen Levinson
Lorin Silverman in memory of his sister, Joan Silverman
Sharon Strassfeld in memory of her mother, Ruth Nulman
Marlene Stulbach in memory of her father, William Stulbach
Hannah L Tannenbaum in memory of her husband, Oscar Tannenbaum
Eli, Raya and Dalia Terry in memory of Beth Levine
Ralph Wolf in memory of his father, Gerald Wolf

RABBI'S FUND  
Michael Brochstein
Mindy Fischer
Hanoo Azer George
Abraham Konopko in memory of his daughter, Peninah Musha Konopko
Paula Milla-Kreutzer in memory of her father, Emilio Milla
Sharri Posen
Harvey and Helen Schrier

PRAYERBOOK FUND  
Bernice Boltax in memory of Seth Palmer; with admiration and love for Karen Palmer; in memory of her father, Frank Boltax; in memory of Fay Steuer-Luskin; in memory of her aunt and uncle, Celia and Harry Boltax; in memory of her grandparents, Sarah and Harry Unger and Hudel and Mordechai Boltax; in honor of cousins she recently met on a trip to St. Petersburg, and in memory of relatives buried there.
Leah Cahan Schaefer in memory of her friend, Diane Shalet Strong
Renee Hausman in honor of her grandchildren, Eliana, Angelica, Yehuda and Miriam
Esther and Walter Hautzig in loving memory of Ezra Jack Keats
Ernest and Heidi Kahn in memory of Ernest's grandmother, Amalie Levy and Heidi's mother, Kate Vorchheimer
Rosanne and Guy Lander and Family in memory of Sophie Seidlin
Anne Mintz in loving memory of her father, Kalman Mintz
Fred Rosenberg-Wilmoth in honor of his mother Zelda "Zee" Shapiro Wilmoth
David and Linda Shriner-Cahn in memory of Ari Ullendorff-Gorfinkle and Yocheved Muffs' brother, Lester Herschlag

KIDDUSH FUND  
Ronne Mandelker and Andrew Braiterman
Elaine Chapnik in memory of her mother, Ray Chapnik
Mary and Paul Feinberg in honor of the birthdays of Rabbi Marion Shulevitz and Jerry Raik
Alexandra C Friedman
Renee Hausman in honor of the hosts of the Sanctuary Minyan Home Hospitality Dinners: Anne Mintz, Linda and Jack Messing, Tamara and Martin Green, Rivka Widerman and Michael Meric, Ronelle and Gary Kallman, Celia Reiss and David Israel
Bonita Leeds
Joseph and Bonnie Schinagle in honor of Marion Shulevitz

PURIM DONATIONS  
Herta Shriner -- Happy Purim to all my friends

SHELTER FUND  
Iris Marsha Fass in memory of her parents Chaim and Bluma Fass
Sam and Fran Schiff in memory of Sam's parents, Henry and Lina Schiff, Irving Katz and Buddy Holly
Benyamin Cirlin

Condolences to the following members and their families:
Yocheved Muffs on the death of her brother, Lester Phillip Herschlag.
Roberta Koenigsberg on the death of her mother, Rae Koenigsberg.
Chaim Steinberger on the death of his father, Martin Steinberger.

Mazal Tov to:
February's B'nai Mitzvah and their families:
Nicole Davis
Sophie Davis
Toby Ellentuck

Lisa Greenberg and Brian Tesar on the birth of their daughter.
Melissa Schwartzberg and David Jones on the birth of their son, Isaiah.

Brook and Peter Bock on their marriage.

Todah Rabbah to February's Shelter Volunteers:
(Names in bold indicate AC members)
Irwin Abraham, Marla Alhadeff, Judith Atkinson, Rob Blum, Naomi Cohen,
Geoffrey Claussen, Pat Corrigan, Yonina Creditor, Carol Cutler, Elizabeth Denlinger,
Matthew Feigin, John Fraser, Elliot Fruchter, Avi Green, Marilyn Gunner, Ari Hart,
JTS Students, Kehilat Hadar, Joy Karagu, Kathy Kendall, KOE Minyan, Sarah Jacobs,
Tatyana Leifman, Reuben Levavi, Alex Levine, Jocelyn Maskow, Linda Messing,
Mike and Susan Patterson, Jennifer Raider, Andrea Schoor, Fred Schneider and Marcia Talmage Schneider, Dan Schwarzbaum, David Tabatsky, Michael Wise.
And many thanks to Charlie Davidson, Shelter Coordinator, Michael Bloome, Assistant Coordinator, and Josh Abrams, Volunteer Coordinator.