Day: May 22, 2018

I asked Hawah to sit still for this photo, to me, it captured both the refugee and Muslim experience in America. She is happy and full of the future. Saturday, she wanted to commit suicide.

When Mark  Twain toured America, he wrote that everyone he met was a refugee.  It wasn’t like England, he said, everyone in America came from somewhere else or fled from something else, it was the one thing that united the country.

That is not the case now, the refugees are just one other thing that divides the country. I am the grandson of refugees, and the refugees I am meeting come from a different culture, speak different languages, have different values and  histories.

But they are familiar to me, and I know they belong here and were fated to come here.

Most of the refugees I meet are Muslim (many are Asian and African), they almost all come from  troubled or “shithole” countries. Our politicians and media suggest what it means to be a Muslim, but I see something different every day. I am seeing a community that is generous and open to me, a Jew from another world.  And to one another.

I see a faith bound in tradition, family and love.

Unlike most religions, it really means something to be a Muslim.

The Muslims I am meeting have a strong sense of faith, they know and trust one another, they care for one another, they love one another, even strangers. I find great integrity in this faith, a sense of ethics and morality. I see all of the Muslims i am meeting happily fasting all day during Ramadan, even though they are tired and hungry, and some are sick.

There is nothing menacing or disturbing about them.

What do most of us ever give up every day for a month? If we get stuck in traffic, or a pet dies, it’s a tragedy. The Muslims I am meeting are the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, they know better than we do now what it means to be enslaved and persecuted.

I see the Muslims are passionate about community, it is alive for them.

There are so many things they could teach us, if we  were only able to learn and listen. I am learning and listening. I don’t think any human or human community or faith is perfect, or close. But they have not come here to harm us, they love freedom above all other things, or they would not be here at all.

They are refugees, much like all other refugees.

For many, the American Dream is far beyond reach, there are too many walls to climb in our rigged society. They are her for their children, they pray for a better life for them, and are prepared to sacrifice. I see this in the parents of the soccer team, far too busy working different jobs to come and see their sons.

Muslim landlords take other Muslims in without question when they need a place to stay, Muslim businesses let people buy on credit, strangers give food to strangers, the faith is  grounding platform for them. They are absolutely nothing like the image of Muslims exploited by our politicians and journalists to make money or gain power. A Muslim took Hawah in when she needed refuge without hesitation or cost.

Tonight, my friend Ali is breaking the Ramadan fast with his family, with whom he lives. We want to be together, he says of his mother, father, sister and nieces and nephews. Ali and I call one another brothers, and we laugh every day at the idea of the Muslim and the Jew, working to help the refugees and immigrants. It is, certainly, not common in the world.

I love Ali for his love and generosity of spirit, and for his passionate desire to do good and lead a meaningful life. He is a wonderful partner for me on this journey.

In fact the people I am meeting here are not terrorists, they are the victims of terrorists, they understand the poison of hatred as well as anyone. They are  gentle people, faithful and quick to smile, much like my grandparents were.

I am surprised by them, I didn’t really know what to expect. I have never felt fear or anger around them. And they have good reasons to be angry and suspicious and afraid.  They don’t complain or lament their lives.

They have remarkable endurance, patience and tolerance. They bend but do not break. They suffer but do not quit. They leave the worst horrors behind and look ahead. They cling to their values in the face of the worst brutality and disillusionment. They face hatred and contempt every day, it does not harden or turn them.

I was deeply moved by the vividness and power of Hannah Arendt’s timeless essay ‘We Refugees,” written after she fled the Nazi’s to get to America in the mid 1940’s. She went on to have a brilliant career as an author and moralist, but she never forgot the refugee experience.

Once you are a refugee, I think, you are always a refugee. It is in your head and soul.

I think of it often now.

“Our optimism,” she wrote, “is admirable, even if we say so ourselves. The story of our struggle has finally become known. We lost our home, which means the familiarity of daily life. We lost our occupation, which means the confidence that we are of some use in this word. We lost our language, which means the naturalness of reactions, the simplicity of gestures, the unaffected expression of feelings. We left our relatives in the Polish ghettos and our best friends have been killed in concentration camps, and that means the rupture of our private lives.

Nevertheless, as soon as we were saved, and most of us had to be saved, we started our new lives…”

It is a gift to help “save” people, so that they can start their new lives. I’m not sure I could have endured a fraction of what  Hawah and Omranaso have endured, they have lost everything of meaning in their lives.

Their purpose is simple. They are climbing up the ladder, they are starting their live  again, giving birth and  rebirth to their dreams. i am proud to know them.

(Please be cautioned that this story is hard to bear…)

We sat in a tiny  apartment with two couches and a beat-up old chair. It was dark and small, but to Hawah, it was a temporary paradise. She was different from the terrified and discouraged women I met last week in a Dunkin’ Donuts. She was happy, even  radiant.

“Today, I am happy,” she said, “I have hope again.”

Hawah, a refugee from the Libyan Civil War told us that she thought of killing herself Saturday as she sat in a crowded, dirty shelter afraid her children would be taken from her. They had violated the shelter curfew. Every morning Hawah went outside to look for bottles to cash in at the grocery store.

Omranaso did not have a happy face or ready smile, and for good  reason. She soon told us a horrific tale that was hard for Ali and I to even hear.

Hawah fled Libya  during the bloody civil war when the soldiers came to her house to seize her sons for Army duty. She had eight children then, only two are with her now, the others are scattered, shattered by the war her husband’s illness. She wants her family back.

Hawah said her life fell apart after her husband Hassan, a crane operator in Libya, also a new  refugee to America, had collapsed days after coming here and was rushed to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with spinal cancer.

He is in a coma, the doctors say he is not coming home.

We met these two women in a dark and cluttered apartment a few miles from the Albany’s towering state office buildings. They are friends, companions on a journey through a Hell most of us cannot even imagine.

After her husband fell ill,  Hawah was evicted from  her apartment because the city cut her  subsidy to pay for Hassan’s care, and she couldn’t cover the extra money. She was locked out of her apartment with all of her  belongs inside and her two children in school.

She never imagined caring for her family in America alone, she loves to cook and has a ready smile and warm heart. She is looking for work.

When she called him and begged for help, Ali rushed over and took her and her two children out of the shelter and found her a place to stay for a few days. Today, we found a possible  apartment for her, paid the deposit and first months’ rent and will move her there on Thursday morning if she and the landlord are in agreement.

I am prepared to write her a check for $1,300  for a  deposit and as many months rent help as I can get, I’m hoping for one year.

She said she is happy for the first time in many months, we could see it on her face.

Omranaso is struggling in a very special and different way.

She has lost  her family, she is clearly traumatized by her experiences and struggling for some safety and peace. She told me she just wants a few months of safety and time to put her life together. I told her we could give her that.

Omranaso is a refugee from the horrific Syrian Civil War.

She was captured by the Syrian military, tortured for months, she lost her husband, saw her mother die and crawled through a cemetery to get to Turkey and nearly died on the way, and then to a camp where she spent four years.

We didn’t realize these two were close friends until today, when we arranged to meet both of them to help them put their lives together. I shake my heads at the idea that these two women are a danger to us, or that we should have turned them away, as we are turning so many others away.

They embody the heart and spirit of America to me, and I will work hard to help them.

Her story is the most wrenching and painful that I have yet heard from a refugee, although there are many like it. Ali could barely contain his tears as he translated her horror story.

These two women met in an English language class, they have become dear friends. They are lucky to have found one another, they understand one another in a way few people can. As Omranaso told her story, Hawah clasped her hand and held it, offering her courage.

Until seven years ago, Omranaso lived happily with her husband in Eastern Syria. He began to act strangely, leaving the house at odd times and disappearing for hours.

One night, he left and didn’t return, she went out looking for him and learned that he had run off to join the terrorists fighting the Syrian Army.

She  set out to find him, and ran into an ISIS checkpoint. She might have been killed for not covering her head, but someone recognized her, she was taken home, threatened with her life if she ever left the house again without a man, and told never to go outside under any circumstances without covering her head and face and body.

She never saw her husband again.

The militants said they would bring her food and care for her if she got sick. But women could never go outside alone, they said.

Weeks later, they came back to her house and said her husband was not coming back, they expected her to take several other husbands, ISIS warriors, women were expected to have more than one husband and meet their personal and other needs.

She knew what that meant, she wouldn’t say what they did to her.

She swore she would never submit to that life, she dressed as a man in her husband’s clothes and fled towards Turkey, where she hoped to find a way to get to America. She was captured at a checkpoint by the Syrian military, who knew what her husband had done – it was a small town –  and suspected her of being an enemy of the government.

She was taken to prison and tortured.

She told us some of the details of her torture, but I feel uncomfortable repeating them here, for her sake and your sake.

She did tell of us the day they found her mother and brought her to the jail to see her daughter hanging naked from the ceiling – she sobbed while telling us this – and being tortured in the cruelest of ways, and they said they would do the same to her mother if she didn’t confess.

She  said she had nothing to confess.

She is an extraordinarily brave and determined woman, she was determined to somehow make her way to freedom or die trying. And she said she had learned there were worse fates than death.

Her mother and her friends – they were waiting outside the jail – brought their gold jewelry and  gave it to the soldiers, who took the bribe and later freed Omranaso.

After she was released, she set out to find her mother – her entire family had been killed in the conflict, including her sister and brothers – and when she got to her home, she found her mother was also dead. She didn’t want to talk about it. She went to the cemetery to bury her mother, and since the cemetery was close to the Turkish border, she decided to go alone to find a crossing.

She made it to Turkey and through the border, but she had not eaten in days and was nearly frozen.

She collapsed in the woods and was found by some farmers, they took her to the hospital. The Turkish government was kind to her, they arranged for her medical treatment and contacted a human rights group which took her to a United Nations camp, where she lived for four years.

She came to America a year ago, she is living in a crowded one room apartment with three people, and she is afraid of them, they are not  Arabic and she does not speak English.  They are rough with her and she desperately wants a place of her own.

We found her a job working for minimum wage in a women’s clothing store sorting and folding clothes. The owner is a friend of Ali’s. She is looking for a studio or one room apartment, we are contacting Muslim and other landlords in the city.

Ali says a one-room apartment would cost between $500 and $600 dollars, and the county social services will pay $300 or $400 a month.

We are planning to make up the difference for between six months and a year, it should be doable and then, between her job and her subsidy, she will be on her own. We are measured and bonded in this work, Ali and I have discussed it a thousand times, we do what we can when we can, but the refugees must make their own way in America, they know and accept this.

We – the Army Of Good –  also paid off $415 in debts she owed to lenders while she looked for work and  struggled to survive. She hated owing people money.

It is very difficult for the refugees to find jobs at first in America, few of them speak any English or have cars, so the jobs the can take are limited and low paying, at least at first. The federal government seems to take no responsibility at all for the refugees, many seem to be very alone.

Ali knows several people who know Omranaso and testify to her honesty and drive.

Her face is filled with pain and sadness, her trauma so visible. She could not tell this story without breaking down and weeping several times. She had a brother and a nephew, the boy died in the camps. She is all alone here, I had been told she had a son, but she doesn’t.

Again, we will help her get on her feet, and for relatively little money. Then we will move on. There is a woman from Afghanistan  who we are told needs some help, we are meeting with her next week.  We hope to have an apartment for Omranaso this week.

I was touched by the closeness of these two women as they clung to one another on the sofa, both had experienced awful trauma and suffering, their love for one another was a balm to the human spirit. The only time Omranaso smiled was when she looked at Hawah.

Last week, someone from Syria wrote Omranaso and said her sister might be alive. She knows there is no chance of bringing her to America right now, even if that is true. But she hopes it is true.

I thank them both for telling me their stories, and as we left,  Hawah invited me and Ali and Maria and Saad to dinner at her new apartment and Omranaso took my hand, and touched her heart, and said “thank you, Jon.” She walked away down the street, she said she didn’t need a ride.

I’m looking forward to that dinner.

There are just five items left on the Amazon Mansion Wish List. The Army Of Good is becoming a legend in many places, including my own head. Thanks to you, they will have an award-winning garden, and some garden parties as well. In case you need it, the Mansion address is 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

The Bumper Stickers are Coming Friday.

Among other things, the Internet has radically altered the way people donate to causes they believe in. The Army of Good is at the fore of this revolution, inspired by new digital non-profit organizations like Kickstarter and Gofund me.

Traditionally, people gave money to non profits directly, and they decided how to distribute the funds. The Internet and social media made it possible for people to donate directly to people in need, the donor gets to decide who gets the money and what for. The money is transmitted instantly, or in a few weeks.

They call these new donor sites crowdsourcing, and so far, they have raised an estimated $5.5 billion for various causes, crowdsourcing donations are expected to reach $300 billion globally by 2025. You are part of a radical new movement for helping people. it is the anti-corporate way.

Overwhelming, people want to choose their own beneficiaries, they want to know where their money goes.

As I have learned, traditional non-profits operate differently. They want all of the money to go directly to needy people or entrepeneurs, and they decide over time where it goes. Movies are being made from crowdsourcing money, ( I got help buying a camera when I needed it on Kickstarter).

I started the idea of the Army Of Good from crowdsourcing platforms. I wanted to help refugees and the Mansion residents, I wanted to create a way through direct donations and online wish lists for people to decide who they wanted to help, and then see photographs and stories of the people they were helping.

Over, the Army Of Good raised more than $40,000 for RISSE, the refugee and immigrant center in Albany through direct and indirect donations and the RISSE Amazon Wish List.

Some RISSE officials were unhappy with my approach, they wanted all of the to come to RISSE directly, so they could decide how to dispense.

I balked at this.

When people send me money, I am responsible for seeing it goes exactly where they want it go, and quickly, without any bureaucratic or time-consuming process.

I still work with RISSE and fundraise for them, but mostly, I have veered off to find needy refugees and immigrants myself, and then document where the goes on the blog. I transfer the funds very quickly, there are no bureaucratic delays. Many of the refugees are in dire need of help, and much of it is help that they need right now.

I consider this my contract with the people who donate. You trust me with your money, I am pre-naturally obsessed with seeing that it go quickly to the right place.

Just about every gift or recipient is photographed, I want people to see what they have done. And it documents my work. Every donation is kept in a separate account which is checked and cross-checked every month by a bookkeeper and a CPA from New York City.

I am not really comfortable with the traditional non-profit way, people need to see where their money is going.

At the Mansion Assisted Care Facility, they get the idea of the Army Of Good, they have been wonderful to work with, and as we get to know the residents, they now have many friends out in the world to help them, they are no longer alone.

There is no interference of any kind, and wonderful support from Morgan Jones, the Mansion Director. Other than those caused by the labyrinth of state and federal regulations, I can really get to know people and help them when they need it. And right away, not in three months.  I don’t raise funds for the Mansion directly, I raise funds for specific residents and their needs.

They fully support my work and the way I am going it, we have raised well over $100,000 for the Mansion residents and the environment they live in – clothes, shoes, hats,  picnic facilities, games and art supplies, a van, reading programs, boat rides, outings, air conditioners, books, parties, fans, reclining lift chairs, garden flowers, soil and bulbs.

The Army Of Good is the perfect embodiment of this fund-raising revolution. People choose the projects and people who touch them, donate small amounts directly to me, and the money goes out almost immediately. They get to see the people they are helping and the things they have purchased for them.

So it’s fitting to have ordered some “Army Of Good” bumper stickers.  This is our celebration of the work we are doing, an affirmation.

They will be here on Friday, they cost $10 apiece, and if you want to pre-order one, you can send cash or a check to  The Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I can’t take any e-mail or Paypal orders for the stickers.

We are not seeking to make a profit on the Bumper Stickers, if there is any overage it will go into the Gus Fund. They are high quality and laminated, 10″ by 3.”

Once they are here, Maria will offer them for sale on her new and hot etsy page. The cost is $10, we will pay the shipping, at least in the U.S.

So thanks, I have a lot of pre-orders and more are coming in daily to my post office box from all over the country.

I eagerly await the day I look up while driving and see one on a car.