c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Working for the American Jewish Committee’s hurricane emergency relief fund, my task was to visit hurricane-ravaged New Orleans and parts of Alabama to recommend reconstruction projects.

Like millions of other concerned people, AJC’s members and supporters have been most generous in their contributions.

Despite the high spirits and undeniable courage of the people I met in the Gulf region, it was a painful and poignant trip because the destruction, especially in New Orleans, was much worse than I anticipated.

In Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, the Gates of Prayer synagogue and the St. Clement of Rome Roman Catholic Church stand side by side. Katrina badly damaged both edifices.

Rabbi Robert Loewy and the Rev. Ralph Carroll are close colleagues and they aim to rebuild their congregational structures, but it will be a daunting task.

On a humid Sunday morning, I visited New Orleans. While the thousands of television images of Katrina’s wrath were distressing, I was not prepared for the massive destruction of so many homes and businesses.

Roofs of homes were ripped off, water-soaked cars were stacked against trees and water lines were visible on hundreds of buildings. Being in New Orleans provided a 360-degree personal view of a city under curfew in some districts and still without electric power, safe drinking water and functioning traffic lights.

Katrina’s massive hit was not limited to flooded homes of African-Americans in the now famous 9th ward. I saw hundreds of stunned white homeowners returning to the city to visit their hurricane-ravaged houses. Many shocked families, including toddlers, wandered aimlessly in front of their shattered homes.

I spent three hours at Dillard, the Methodist-sponsored black university in New Orleans that is currently closed. Marc Barnes, a university official, and two reconstruction experts who had worked in New York City at Ground Zero after Sept. 11, 2001, escorted me around the lovely campus as we viewed the damage.

It was heartbreaking. The library, basketball court, student union, book store, classrooms, dorms, labs, faculty offices and administrative facilities were severely water damaged, creating potential for toxic mold in almost every building.

Fortunately, extensive cleanup is under way, so 3,100 Dillard students can return to classes in January.

There is a Jewish connection to Dillard. In the 1920s, Sears executive Julius Rosenwald contributed to the university and many other black colleges. Indeed, Dillard’s main building is Rosenwald Hall, and the university has a black-Jewish relations program.

I save the worst for the last: Beth Israel, the only Orthodox synagogue in New Orleans.

Congregational president Jackie Gotherd, the first woman to be elected to that position, and her son, Edward, the immediate past president, took me to their destroyed building. Small fish still swim in foul-smelling pools within the sanctuary.

It was the only time I wore a face mask and heavy boots. The mold, germs, stench, mud and filth were everywhere. The library, sanctuary, chapel, rabbi’s study, school rooms, historic photos, copies of the Bible and the Talmud, prayer shawls and mikveh (the ritual pool) were ruined.

All seven of Beth Israel’s sacred Torah scrolls were also destroyed and required a religious burial. Although the Gotherds predict there is no way to rebuild or repair their beloved synagogue, I hope they are wrong.

MO/JL END RNS

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is distinguished visiting professor at Saint Leo University.)

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