Mitzvahs Follow This Family
Lydia and Norman Schloss leap to help other Jews in Israel and Atlanta.
Chana Shapiro is an educator, writer, editor and illustrator whose work has appeared in journals, newspapers and magazines. She is a regular contributor to the AJT.
Lydia and Norman Schloss were in Israel on Oct. 7 with their daughter Tzippy’s two oldest boys, Gavi and Momo, who were spending their gap year studying at Israeli yeshivas. Gavi had already started yeshiva but Momo wasn’t starting his program until after Sukkot.
On the morning of Oct. 7, Norman was at synagogue services, when Lydia heard sirens and woke Momo to hurry with her into their Jerusalem apartment’s mamad (safe room). The lights were off, and the window and shutters had to remain tightly shut during the siren. Lydia and her grandson sat in pitch black for the requisite 10 minutes after the siren stopped. Norman rushed from shul when the worshippers had been told to return home to shelter. No one knew what was going on.
Later that night, they learned many of the horrific details that had occurred. Communities in Israel immediately started to organize to help in any way possible, initially with a lot of disorganization, but slowly, toward the end of October, things came together. Norman and Lydia helped pack toiletry bags, blankets, first aid kits, and tie tzizit for the soldiers.
On a WhatsApp group for English-speaking volunteers, Lydia saw a post for Challot 4 Chayalim (chayalim is Hebrew for “soldiers”), asking for challah rolls, packed two per bag. That was how she got her start with Challot 4 Chayalim: she initially baked 200 challah rolls, and Momo helped pack them.
Momo’s program’s start was delayed, but when it finally started at the beginning of November, Lydia was able to get a flight home to Atlanta.
Back in Atlanta, Lydia followed various WhatsApp groups and found Bubbies R Baking. Each week, women in Jerusalem were baking cakes, cookies, and challot and getting them to soldiers on different bases. This baking group was part of a larger group called Hamal Hamatok, which now has six drop-off locations in Jerusalem and 30 branches throughout Israel. Lydia knew that a regular baking commitment was something she could handle because she was used to baking in large quantities, having done a lot of catering, working in camp kitchens, and co-owning The Spicy Peach.
The Schlosses planned to return to Israel in January, and if the war was still going on, she would actively join the baking group. She ordered supplies online to be delivered to their Jerusalem apartment upon her arrival in order to start baking immediately, recruiting her Israeli grandchildren to help with packing and decorating cards that were delivered with the baked goods. (The Schloss’ son, Zev, and his family moved to Israel several years ago.)
From Israel, there has been an ongoing request that challah bakers around the world ask G-d for the safe return of the hostages. Lydia acceded and kept hostage Hersch Polin-Goldberg, in particular, in her thoughts while kneading her challah dough. The family are friends of Zev and Abby Schloss.
Incredibly, by early Thursday afternoon, three full carloads of baked goods were driven from Jerusalem to a distribution center in Ramat Gan. Volunteers, using a warehouse after hours, organized the baked goods into categories – dairy, parve, gluten free, nut free– then packed them in boxes, and other volunteers delivered all the baked goods to different bases Friday morning. It was quite a production and continued every week.
Lydia notes, “I would never have thought that receiving these baked goods would make the soldiers so happy. I received numerous messages and calls from soldiers thanking me for these treats. My Hebrew is pretty good, so I was able to understand the messages. Eating a challah and cookies on Shabbat while sitting in your tank, they said, gives them a taste of home.”
Lydia scheduled her week around baking. On Sunday or Monday, she shopped (the baking wasn’t subsidized), baked cakes and cookies on Tuesday, baked 50 challot on Wednesday, and delivered everything to the Jerusalem collection center on Thursday afternoon. Lydia had to adjust some of her tried-and-true American recipes, because the sugar in Israel is coarser, especially the brown sugar. There were weeks where she had a hard time finding the right bread flour, and she finally ordered it directly from one of the manufacturers.
The Schlosses left Israel in February and returned to Atlanta in May. They had hoped that the war would be over by then, but as long as Israeli soldiers were engaged, Lydia kept baking.
When the Schlosses returned to Atlanta in November, there was a tremendous need and request for apartments in Israel for displaced families from the south. Requests were made for basic furniture and linens to furnish empty apartments where the families were temporarily housed.
Lydia elaborates, “Families from the south literally left their homes with nothing. I gave away pillows and linen. Our Jerusalem apartment is in a new complex of seven buildings in the Bakka neighborhood. Some of the apartments are owned by people like us, who don’t live there full time, and we planned to return to it in January.”
Lydia adds, “When we got back to the States, I read a message on the WhatsApp group from a neighbor in our Israel apartment complex requesting the use of an apartment for a former student of hers from Bar Ilan University, with two little boys, and a husband in the army reserves. The family lived in Sderot, which was unsafe, and the family had to leave. I called the neighbor, who told me about the strictly kosher, shomer Shabbat young family. We could accommodate them because we observed the same mitzvot.
“I contacted her, and my Israeli son took her to see the apartment. She was so grateful. She had lived in several places already, moving each time with her boys. She had just gotten them (ages 5 and 3) into school and pre-school in our area and had to leave the apartment where she was staying but wanted to remain in the neighborhood. We have since become friends. She has called me many times and has sent pictures of her boys in our apartment.”
“Their apartment in Sderot did not have a safe room, and they had to get to the basement shelter when a siren went off. In Sderot, they have only 15 seconds to get to a shelter, whereas in Jerusalem we have 90 seconds. She arranged another place to stay for the weeks when we returned to our Israel apartment. We had Shabbat dinner together, and she and her husband came to visit when he was off. It was so nice to make this connection. They finally returned to Sderot for good on Pesach.”
Another mitzvah presented itself to the Schlosses. The Sderot husband is a teacher, and the couple’s English is very good. The family mentioned that they planned to do shilichut (outreach) for a couple of years, to work with Jews in the diaspora. They applied to the World Zionist Organization and were offered a few options, including Dublin, Ireland.
For many years, Lydia’s husband, Norman, has been doing kosher supervision in Ireland for the production of Coca-Cola concentrate for Israel, which is sent to the bottling plant in B’nei Brak. He told all his contacts about the Sderot family, who ended up accepting the Ireland assignment.
Lydia notes, “When they told us that they accepted the position in Ireland and they would be leaving in mid-August, we offered the family to stay again in our Jerusalem apartment because their Sderot lease is up at the end of July.”
Coincidences and mitzvah opportunities seem to follow the Schlosses. An Atlanta neighbor asked if an Israeli friend of hers and her family of five planning to visit Atlanta could stay with the Schlosses for a few days. The request was quickly answered, “Of course.”
When the Israeli friend’s husband had been called back to the army, the family cancelled their Atlanta trip and stayed in Israel. A few weeks later, the Schloss’ neighbor called again, to ask if the James family, Rose Lubin’s Israel host family, could stay with them. Idan and Tamar and their children were from Kibbutz Saad and had to leave because of the war. The visiting Israeli kids made friends with children in the Atlanta neighborhood, and the family, which “hit it off” with the Schlosses, stayed with them for about six weeks, until their visas expired.
When Norm and Lydia went to Israel, they made a point to visit Idan’s mother and brother who manages the Shoresh vineyards and Judean Hills winery. The Schlosses were given a private tour and wine tasting, an act of affection from their ever-expanding group of Israeli friends.
The Schlosses, who go to Israel three times a year, plan to return to their Jerusalem apartment in September. Lydia muses, “I would love to take notes and pictures from Atlanta with me, when I leave Sept. 24. People can drop off notes or pictures for the soldiers at The Spicy Peach in Toco Hills.”
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