Love of Lending

WISEMON, TAMAR

Love of Lending TAMAR WISEMON w HEN MOSHE RlTTERman moved into his home in Lakewood, N.J., he found a collection of work tools in a corner of the garage, discarded by the previous owners. Among...

...It is not garden tools or freezer space that this gemach peddles...
...many operate by word of mouth, and are virtually unknown outside their communities...
...There are hundreds in Jerusalem, and at least 133 in the Boro Park- Flatbush section of Brooklyn alone...
...Hosting a family celebration...
...Yad Sara was started in the 1970s by a young haredi mathematics teacher, Uri Lupolianski (now senior deputy mayor of Jerusalem), who spent a significant part of his monthly salary to purchase a vaporizer for his child—then loaned it to others...
...Though most people in the United States have medical coverage, claims cannot always be processed or items delivered quickly enough...
...It's also the term given to societies in Orthodox communities that perform the specific kindness of lending money—or, increasingly, services or household items, free of charge and free of interest...
...Take a look at your community and assess its needs...
...I settled on maternity wear because gowns for special occasions, such as a family wedding, can easily run to $500," she says...
...The oldest gemach in continued existence is probably the Shaarei Chesed Free Loan Fund in Jerusalem, established in 1869...
...There's also a discussion group (geocities.com/jewishgroups/ lGemach.html) to tackle such questions such as where to borrow a blood pressure monitor for a pregnant woman in Jerusalem (a respondent listed eight gemachs including Yad Sara), and where to send a wedding dress in New York...
...The gemach seeks to spread smiles and good spirits all around the world...
...Besides volunteers, there are a few newsletters and directories that will also help to get rhe word out...
...Be organized...
...However, interest-free loans to Jews endured—evolving over time from emergency business or medical-assistance funds to include equipment gemachs and, much more recently, loans to defray the cost of fertility treatments or adoption...
...It is something much more simple, more vital, in a way...
...There is no shortage of volunteers to set up and run gemachs...
...IFLA applicants have to have jobs and, in most cases, two guarantors...
...It was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for Outstanding Nonprofit Organizations in 1996, but its size and accountability to donors necessitates a certain measure of the bureaucracy that most gemachs try to avoid...
...Let your limitations be your guide...
...Among them was a post-digger— a mechanical contraption for excavating deep, neat holes—which Ritterman used to set up a swing set in his garden...
...The very idea of not charging interest is a particularly Jewish one, rooted in the Biblical statement, "When you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, do not act toward him as a creditor, exact no interest from him" (Exodus 22:24...
...co.il/orgs/telegemach/index.ht m) may be the most ambitious...
...The Jerusalem Haredi Directory boasts 70 pages of gemachs, and the Los Angeles Web-based LAJewishGuide.Com has an online Chesed Network, listing solicitations and donations by individuals and groups...
...Are there a lot of young brides with babies, or elderly residents who need medical supplies...
...When they give it back," he says, "we ask if it was a boy or a girl...
...Most gemachs don't spend a cent on advertising...
...an artist can loan paintings to brighten homes or businesses...
...It currentiy has $15 million in outstanding loans, ranging from $700 to $15,000 —mostly to new Russian and Ethiopian immigrants buying homes or starting businesses...
...Maimonides, the 12th- and 13th-century sage, taught in his Mishna Torah (code of Jewish law) that the highest form of charity is to help a needy individual with a gift, a loan, a partnership, or a job, so that he is no longer dependent on others...
...Medical gemachs are a staple in many neighborhoods, loaning wheelchairs, vaporizers, and walking aids...
...Yad Sara, the largest free-loan organization of medical equipment in the world, has 6,000 volunteers from all sectors of society, staffing 85 branches in Israel...
...The Prestwich Smile Gemach takes seriously the Talmudic dictum: "It is a very great mitzvah always to be happy...
...But thousands are finding their way onto the Internet—the perfect medium for cheap advertising and maximum exposure...
...THE CONCEPT OF gemachs dates back to the Middle Ages...
...Ritterman is vaguely reminiscent of Dagwood Bumstead, a cartoon character whose lawnmower is always disappearing, and ending up in somebody else's garage...
...Sometimes, in the case of a twisted ankle, for instance, the claims process may take longer than recovery, but a gemach can provide the crutches immediately...
...There are no reliable statistics on the number of gemachs in existence...
...Gemach" is an acronym for gemilut chasadim, kind deeds, described in Pirke Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) as one of the foundations of the world (along with Torah study and prayer...
...Love of Lending TAMAR WISEMON w HEN MOSHE RlTTERman moved into his home in Lakewood, N.J., he found a collection of work tools in a corner of the garage, discarded by the previous owners...
...All she asks is $36 to $50 plus dry-cleaning costs for a gently used dress that will only be worn six or eight times before being replaced...
...From electric breast pumps to freezer space, there are gemachs for everything under the sun...
...Just type the word "gemach" or "g'mach" into a search engine to find listings of free-loan services throughout the world...
...Boruch Abromoff of Boro Park, Brooklyn, recently found his niche with a Beeper Gemach, loaning out beepers mainly to women in their ninth month of pregnancy to enable them to contact their husbands at all times...
...Obtain signatures...
...For example, an optometrist may loan emergency glasses...
...com/Heaitland/Hills/6749/ intro.html...
...Chavi Wachs runs a Maternity Simcha Dress loan service from her basement in Boro Park...
...The Monsey, N.Y., Homepage provides phone numbers for gemachs offering everything from pillows and blankets to tefillin...
...Lupolianski's gemach grew, eventually becoming so large that he decided to concentrate on equipment and services that would allow patients to be treated at home...
...Many gemachs are proudly non-sectarian, says Avigdor Quinn, Jerusalem director of Ezer Mitzion, which specializes in ambulance transportation, equipment, and counseling...
...Dubbie Ungar, a day care provider with a medical gemach in Northeast Philadelphia, also stocks tape recorders, kids' tapes and videotapes to keep sick children entertained—items that, she feels, also help people psychologically by demonstrating that others care...
...Founded four years ago by Avraham Ellis, a Canadian immigrant now living on an isolated dairy farm in Moshav Yesodot, Telegemach does a little bit of everything: matches lenders with borrowers in Israel, hooks up motorists in Israel and the United Kingdom with passengers and travel companions, and more...
...Smiles, after all, may be free, but they don't come cheap...
...Before you knew it, there was a waiting list for my post-digger," Ritterman says with a laugh, "so I went out and bought another one, and then another, to keep up with the demand...
...But perhaps the most unusual gemach on the Web is the one founded in 1996 by Sharon and Alan Silver of Prestwich, England (geocities...
...Ellis started it as a contribution to his remote village in Israel, but his goal is to enlarge it and take it worldwide, "so that whether it be medical assistance, business opportunities or matchmaking, the Jew in need will have an address to turn to...
...Quinn says this is how it should be, citing the Shulchan Aruch, the 16th century Code of Jewish Law, which admonishes that organized Jewish charity "should be made available to non-Jews, too...
...Ironically, because many Jews were later forbidden to own land or enter professions in Europe, many came to earn their livings on the interest they charged gentiles as money-lenders—probably inspiring Shakespeare's creation of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1597), one of the most reviled Jewish characters of all time...
...And the Israel Free Loan Association, established a decade ago by Hebrew University Professor Eliezer Jaffe, is a "modern, national, non-political" entity with a board of Orthodox and non-Orthodox directors...
...His neighbor saw him at work, and asked to borrow it to repair a fence...
...Telegemach (shemayisrael...
...For instance, one woman who didn't have much time started a wedding dress gemach: Customers clean the dresses, so the gemach practically runs itself...
...The organization now supplies more than 400,000 items each year to Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Israel, saving the Israeli economy as much as $250 million a year in hospitalization and treatment costs, according to some estimates...
...The National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), a wing of the Orthodox Union of Philadelphia, solicits loans items on its Web site...
...This is not something Dagwood or his neighbors would understand—unless they were Orthodox Jews familiar with the concept of "gemachs...
...Gemachs run the gamut from multimilliondollar loan funds with public relations staffs to people with garden tools, like Ritterman...
...Items can be as modest as a pacifier (to be replaced, when you can, with a new one) or as generous as a car (no deposit, just refill the tank), reflecting the creativity of the fund founders...
...It also helped establish 108 gemachs in Russia and one in Shanghai (sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee...
...But the first distinctly American Jewish loan society was the Bachelors' Hebrew Benevolent Society, established in New York in 1847 by Eastern European immigrants to assist those who came after them...
...There's a gemach for baby equipment and children's wedding outfits in Silver Spring, Md., and a weddingdress gemach in Adanta...
...But to buy another and another, just to keep his neighbors supplied...
...Tips for Starting a Gemach • Give based on your personal talents, creativity, and professional skills...
...Even trustworthy borrowers can forget.—TW...
...You can borrow extra tables and chairs, fancy tablecloths and napkins, floral centerpieces, decorative serving plates, specialty baking tins, and even folding cots and portacribs for sleep-over guests...
...Put your plan down on paper so you have a clear, workable definition of your goals...

Vol. 26 • October 2001 • No. 5


 
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