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20 Elul 5759 - September 1, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Focus on Gemach
by Sheindel Weinbach

The word gemach used to be synonymous with interest- free loans. While this aspect of gemilus chassodim is still very relevant in a country whose chareidi population is predominantly in kollel, and which cannot make ends meet even at the beginning (of the month), nevertheless, this word has focused on a newer connotation which has become much more prevalent in the past half dozen years: the clothing gemach. (So much so, that we will leave out the italics from now on and consider it as part of our language!)

Many an Israeli might point a finger at the Anglo-Saxon community for having raised the standard of living in Israel by coming with liftfuls of appliances which their ancestors knew not -- mixers, dryers, faxes, computers, to mention the obvious ones-- but it can also thank this sector for having popularized the clothing gemach and removed the stigma of buying used clothing.

How's that? Well, we were the ones who got all the CARE packages. It was we pioneers who, having left our parents on the other side of the ocean, were the recipients of clothing packages from relatives who CARED, and who preferred to pass on clothing across the ocean to those stalwarts who had had the guts to make aliya for the hope of a cleaner, better, purer life devoted to Torah study. Many parents could hardly afford the postage in those days, but continued to send clothing, and those at this end continued to benefit, and pass the extras across the board, to neighbors and friends with similarly blessedly-large families. At some point, the gemach clearing house was established in many neighborhoods.

The big breakthrough came some dozen of years ago when Yad Eliezer came into the picture. They had the foresight to acquire an import license for used clothing. Yes, Madam, not only do you need a license to import USED clothing, and not only do you have to PAY CUSTOM DUTIES for that clothing, but even if you are an up-and-coming clothing gemach who wants to wedge its way in and has contacts abroad who are willing to send clothing -- you are stuck without a license, since the Ministry of Welfare no longer issues such licenses! WIZO has one and so do some other organizations, but if you want in, you must avail yourself of the Yad Eliezer license, which must be renewed every few months when its quota has been filled.

How is it that a quota of eighty thousand TONS of clothing is filled every few months? Tremendous thanks goes to the marvelous workers all over the globe: the Ladies Relief Committee in Manchester, which packs beautiful clothing, excellent English quality, for distribution in chareidi communities from Tzefas up north to Tifrach and Netivot down south, with the bulk going to Jerusalem. Several times a year. Then there are the indefatigable women in Boro Park, who pack shoes and clothing for the Zichron Baila shipments, which come in many hundreds of egg cartonfuls, also several times a year. These also include other organizations which send along to fill up the two shipping containers that disgorge their bounty every few months on Rechov Sorotzkin for wider distribution, like the community in Riverdale or Scranton, and others climbing onto the ship bandwagon. There are communities which had organized their own shipments, like the Miami one, or the women in Toronto. Any other givers out there? Plenty of takers here, you can be sure! [For more information, write Weinbach at Panim Meirot, or FAX at 02-538- 7998.]

The world of the gemach is a fascinating one and has taken over every aspect of life in Eretz Yisroel. Everywhere you turn, from cradle to grave, there are helping hands stretched out to ease things for you, in a very organized manner. Every street has dozens, every apartment house, at least one or two. It is a fact of Israeli life. In one large family, they made a joke of it: "Ima, must everything we have two of be made into a gemach?" This was because when their hair clipper was being constantly borrowed by neighbors (another example of the American appliance-mentality which has caught on and saved people dozens of shekolim per month), they decided to buy another -- and then another -- and make a clipper gemach. In fact, it is listed in the Gemach directory. Unofficially, they had a folding table gemach, as well, since -- you guessed it -- they happened to own two.

Most gemachim are very official and run extremely efficiently. Some dissipate on their own and must be replenished periodically, like the pen-and-pencil gemachs which so many second-generation gemachnik children run in their classrooms and don't bother to keep track of. Then there is the unofficial tissue gemach. One considerate shul- goer noticed that there were some women who did not carry on Shabbos, and often got stuck with runny noses in the winter due to the weather, or in the summer due to the air conditioning. She brings a pile of tissues to shul and deposits them on a table, free for the taking. This way, no one has to feel obliged to anyone else since it is public property.

This last aspect might be one of the single drawbacks of the gemach phenomenon. It is the gemach mentality/reality. Since gemachs belong to one-and-all, some people have fewer compunctions about taking care of gemach property. They attribute any decrease in the value of the product they have borrowed to natural wear-and-tear for which they need not be responsible.

We would love to list the fascinating items and services available on a gemach basis, but will suffice with a few cradle and grave examples, and let you fill in the rest with your imagination. Who knows, you may innovate something, yourself. Always room for more chessed! So how about the pacifier gemach situated in the electric box right outside someone's front door. That's there so frantic parents can find a new pacifier, just like Baby needs, silicon or rubber, big or small, Chico or Whatever, to stuff into Baby's mouth at 2 a.m. so he won't keep the neighbors awake (to be replaced at your convenience with a new one, of course). Pamper gemachs, formula gemachs, seudas bris gemachs for needy families -- at cost price or even for free, nursing counseling gemach, bris cushion gemachs and so on. At the other end: megaphone gemachs to announce funerals, low- bench gemachs for those sitting shiva, supportive literature which includes halachic material for the mourners. Got the picture.

And back to my favorite: the clothing gemach. I like to think that more than any other, this type generates full circle chessed. How often do we volunteers at Beged Yad Leyad hear the gratitude expressed by those who DONATE clothing that they are happy to have a place to give it to. And how about the volunteers, themselves, who find tremendous fulfillment in the social aspect of doing for others. The little budding machsaniyot who snip off buttons from discarded garments for our button collection, re-pair (no, not repair) shoes from the bins or fill pin cushions so that we can keep our skirts hanging uniformly. The elderly women who do sit-down sorting of socks and who bag the buttons separately so that a customer can choose a five- or six-pack. And who offer their sage advice in anything from child rearing to shidduchim. And even our `special' volunteers who also want to be productive and help others.

To be continued...

 

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