Jewish communities, like others across the state, are taking steps to meet their own needs. In Dallas, one of the region’s two Jewish retirement homes in the region lost its main power and security generator, forcing staff to quickly relocate residents to the other senior center in the area. ; fortunately it had free space, just opened.
Two emergency response units led by Orthodox Jews, Hatzalah of Dallas and the newly formed Texas Chaverim, both founded by a local resident, Baruch Shawel, sent patrols to help residents with dead vehicle batteries, medical emergencies and other problems. .
“It’s been pretty wild here,” said Hannah Lebovits, a professor at the University of Texas-Arlington who lives in an Orthodox community north of Dallas, about continued blackouts, which accompany other issues like heat loss and pressure of water. “Fortunately in the Jewish community, we often quickly create our own mutual aid systems.”
Still, Lebovits said, “It shouldn’t be Chaverim doing this. It should be the city of Dallas knocking on my door and controlling me. ”
In Houston, too, Jewish leaders rely on the coordination foundations established long before the unusual cold failure. Traumatized by the Jewish response to the devastating floods of Hurricane Harvey, the Greater Houston Jewish Federation had convened the 2020 Jewish Response and Action Network, even before the pandemic.
“After Harvey, each shul made his own answer. They made their own food. It wasn’t coordinated, “said Jackie Fisherman, network director and director of government affairs for the Houston federation.” We thought there had to be a better way. “