Helpthisjew.com Successfully Matches Jews with Urgent Financial Needs with “Angel” Donors

A relatively new vehicle for assisting Jews with emergent or urgent financial needs is already providing assistance to Jewish families who the founders say “would otherwise fall between the cracks.” Founded in 2010, HelpthisJew.com posts pleas for help by needy Jews in the hope of matching them with gracious donors “who step in to help solve the problem.” Yanky Mayer, one of the founders of this new effort to help Jews in crisis, says that he and the other volunteers who conceived of this concept are “extremely encouraged at how many cases are already solved and how many donors have stepped-in to adopt an urgent cause.”

Mayer, along with community activists Lipa Rosenberg and Shmuli Mandel, said that in the short time that HelpthisJew.com has been in existence they have received many pleas for help from Jews who suffer from the travails of facing an emergent need with nowhere to turn. They include Jews who may be too embarrassed to ask for help; Jews whose need is so urgent that they are in desperate need of an “angel” of hope;  Jews who simply need a friend to come to their rescue; Jews who deserve a chance to get back on their feet and put their lives together.

Says Mayer: “In an age of instant communications, the “angel” these Jews so desperately seek is only a click away. All they want is a chance to deal with an unexpected calamity that often threatens the very fabric of their quality of life, strength of their family unit, and overall condition of their health and well-being.” He added: “We are gratified by the early response to Helpthisjew.com from diverse sources. Donors have stepped up to the plate to provide relief for the cases posted on the site.”

The cases posted by HelpthisJew.com cover a wide spectrum of needs. For a cancer patient, there was a need to pay for transportation for outpatient treatment. For the father of a large family, there was the prospect of not being able to cover the cost of invitations for his son’s bar mitzvah.

The eve of Rosh Hashanah was, according to one Jew preparing for the holiday, very tough, “probably the toughest of my life, with no money and the entire family distraught at the bleak prospects of a Yom Tov of nothing.” In thanking HelpthisJew.com, he adds: “Every night, for the past week, I had to convince my wife not to leave me and that things would get better. I cried that Tuesday morning and I begged Hashem to please save me from having absolutely nothing. Every child in my family has reason to have a big smile on their face, including my wife and me.”

Menachem Lubinsky, a Board member and former President and Chairman of the Board of the New York Metropolitan Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty, said that established Jewish social service organizations “are often ill-equipped to deal with needs that are not part of their service model but are nevertheless critical for an individual and his family.” He said that frequently the need arises so quickly and is so unique that only a donor with a good heart can save the day, which is what HelpthisJew.com is all about.

Avraham Kahn, a community activist who is mobilizing broad community support for this innovative and desperately needed organization, sees HelpthisJew.com as a vehicle for uniting Jews of all backgrounds. “How gratifying is it to witness a Jew from Kansas City who instantly responds to the urgent needs of a Jew in New Jersey.” He called this type of Jewish solidarity as being in the “best spirit of the lofty values of our heritage and tradition.” Kahn said that technology offers any Jew the instant gratification of coming to the rescue of a Jew in dire need of help. “With one click, the donor can fulfill the words of our Sages ‘He who saves one Jew is as if he saved an entire world.'”

{Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}