The Very Beginning

JCURE Cares. They really do.

My aunt, Ayala Avroya, has always been the fun figure in my life. She was the one that would stop by with her five kids and a pizza that was literally the size of an S.U.V's roof, command me off my laptop, and force me to participate in a crazy evening I was sure to enjoy. An evening jam-packed with little cousins, big pizzas (naturally), and medium-sized panic attacks.

As an orthodox Jew, she has five kids. I know. Five! As the niece of an orthodox Jew, I am asked, every so often, whether or not it's strange to have such a deeply religious person related to me especially because I'm about as secular as a person can be. It's inspired more than one debate. You see, for some reason, people seem to assume that being an orthodox woman means you are weak-willed -- a slave, really, to your husbands desires. Maybe some are. But the community I know? Well....have you ever heard of JCURE?

It stands for Jewish Communities United: Resources and Enrichment. My aunt, along with another orthodox woman named Nili Segal, started it after spotting a problem in their community and realizing that they alone could not solve it. You see, my aunt is not a wealthy person, but when she started noticing the number of people in her own community that were living out on the streets, she decided to do what she could to help. Desperate people, thrown out of their homes days ago or years ago, would call her because no other organization had room. No one had the resources. So she fielded their calls, though related in no way to the organizations that were meant to help, and at the same time she educated herself as to the extent of the problem and the systems in place to rectify it. That's when she found just how large the gap is, and after spending her time and her scarce money to help those individuals find help elsewhere, she decided it was time to do something about it.

So the idea of JCURE was conceived. But they will not just put a Band-Aid on the problem. No, they will take these people in at their weakest moment and provide them with temporary housing as long as they make use of JCURE's resources and work actively to build themselves back up. Hence, JCURE's goal: To help others help themselves.

Instantly, her whole community was on board (or at least it seemed instant to me), contributing their own particular skills to create something wonderful.

I, being the niece, was pulled in early on as one of the few completely secular additions as well as a significant youth connection, seeing that I am still in high school and technically still a "youth." And so I had the great privilege of attending a meeting one Wednesday night. There were multiple PhD's in attendance, one of them a rabbi with a history of community service successes. Another man in attendance was named Fred Stock, the CEO of the Jewish Community Services of South Florida. Earlier in the day, at a meeting I had not attended, he had agreed to contribute $20,000 to the founding of JCURE, but only if we can match it.

I was overwhelmed to say the least. Me, a junior in high school, was getting the privilege of interacting as an equal with professional businessmen, doctorate-holding psychologists, social workers, and the leaders of actual charity organizations. Even more overwhelming was the number of women there and the power they exuded. We had all ages and all ranges of the religion. The common thread was only the Jewish value of charity running through their souls and pushing them to do something. I remember thinking at some point, what a remarkable thing I was witnessing. I was not participating in a fundraiser for the long-existing Cancer Club at school, contributing for the service hour requirement that my school imposed. I was participating in the creation of something. In the birth of something bigger than myself.

The meeting ended up running for three hours. So roughly 3 T.V shows in my time. It seemed much longer, but not because of boredom. It was out of the effort I put into remembering every detail.

The room was dark. The lights were bright, but through the windows you could see that night had already descended. And the walls were beige, giving the room that dark, but cozy feel that you get when sitting around a campfire. There was a small tile dance floor behind us, the one indication that we were, in fact, in the party room we had been told to find. Meanwhile, the table at which we sat was harsh and business-like, though the people sitting around that table were kind and business-like. I was among our three youngest attendees. Another girl my age was seated next to me, and I took an immediate liking to her. She had the look of a bookworm, and her mother across from me looked like a lawyer despite the casual outfit she was wearing. The third youngest, named Danielle, is an orthodox. She has the spark of a hard-partying college kid, but she knew what she was talking about. Her career as a graphic designer has been a big help as JCURE has begun to build their internet presence and will continue to be. When we went around the table later, speaking about what brought us there, she told us a story about an old woman she used to know. The woman had been begging on the streets when Danielle first met her. When Danielle realized she was Jewish, a sister in this religion that is shared by less than 0.2% of the world, she began to shabbat food and holiday food to the homeless shelter where she stayed. It was a place where the alcoholics were allowed to drink and the druggies allowed to smoke. One day, the old woman vanished into the system when the shelter was bought out by the city because they wanted to clean up the area.

Even more powerful than that, the part of the meeting that affected me the most was when the girl next to me stood up. With a slight smile on her face, she told us of the way her family had moved here from Israel. As American citizens, they came here hoping to find better care for one of the children in the family, only to find themselves without a home. Alone in a foreign country but for the grandparent that was willing to lend them a room, they called the many South Florida organizations that exist, searching and praying for just the chance to build themselves a life. To find themselves a home. Eventually, they picked themselves back up, and they decided they had to prevent someone else from from suffering in the same way. Or suffering even worse. As this girl told the story about a situation that she had personally experience only three years ago, I was stunned by her strength. A girl my age had been forced to deal with not only the pressures of high school but also the pressure of having no home to do homework. To think, she had nowhere to truly call home. It was such a shock, such an unexpected admission from this smart and collected teenager, that I don't think I ever said anything to her at all.

Not a wow. Not a thanks-for-sharing. Not a word out of my mouth.

That was the beginning of my involvement in this organization: silence.

But that will not be how it ends.

(My very first meeting)