Giving with joy at Girls Town

The younger girls live there, sometimes from as young as age four, but usually from seven until the age of 10 or 11.

By BATSHEVA POMERANTZ
The dining room at Bayit Lepletot-Girls Town Jerusalem orphanage between Geula and the city center (photo credit: DEVINE DESIGNS)
The dining room at Bayit Lepletot-Girls Town Jerusalem orphanage between Geula and the city center
(photo credit: DEVINE DESIGNS)
 My grandmother, Fraidel Sauber, was the perfect example of helping others in each and every way possible,” recalls Henny Shor of Jerusalem.
“She was active in the community in Borough Park, Brooklyn, working in the mikve, and would visit the sick and help people she met through my grandfather’s work as a kashrut supervisor in a hospital.”
Inspired by her grandmother, Shor is involved in a myriad of projects highlighting the importance of home and family.
Among them is the Fraidel Sauber Kallah Fund for brides from the Bayit Lepletot-Girls Town orphanage in Jerusalem, directed by Rabbi Avraham Y. Stern.
Shor, born in Brooklyn, is the daughter of Rabbi Moshe and Rebbetzin Syma Snow of the Young Israel of Borough Park. She came to Israel in 2004, as a single woman at age 32, worked for Mishpacha magazine, and studied at Neve Yerushalayim. In her hopes and tears to find a husband, her teacher Rebbetzin Tzipora Heller encouraged her.
“She said it simply, ‘It’s a zechut (merit) for one who makes a wedding for someone else that Hashem [God] will make their wedding.’ She referred me to Bayit Lepletot-Girls Town Jerusalem. They told me that it costs $5,000 to sponsor a wedding.
Wondering how I’d raise that money, Rebbetzin Heller told me that Hashem is above time, and as soon as I started the mitzva, the zechut would be for me. I emailed friends all over, and every amount donated, small or large, was saved for this.”
Shor started raising money in 2005.
By the time she was nearly 37, and stood under the huppa with her husband, Rabbi Sam Shor, in 2008, she had raised the money to sponsor five weddings! Today she is collecting funds for the 10th wedding.
Shor met her husband through various people, spanning two continents and hessed activities, including a condolence call, caring for a very sick friend and her family and sponsoring weddings. The Shors got married in the United States, and came to Israel during their first year of marriage.
Rabbi Shor is the director of programs at the OU Israel Center. The Shors’ daughter, Aliza Meira, is named for her great-grandmother Fraidel (which means “joyous”).
Drawing from her insights as a single, she conducts groups for single women, which meet for six weeks. She encourages women to explore empowerment in their dating and embrace the “now” in their lives. She calls the group “Blink of an Eye,” based on a positive saying from the Midrash regarding redemption.
Bayit Lepletot-Girls Town Jerusalem was founded in 1949 by a Holocaust survivor, the late Rabbi Naftali Rosenfeld, who saw the desperate need for a home for the stranded and orphaned children from the Holocaust – some the sole survivors of their families and towns. The orphanage began in a small basement apartment with seven girls. In 1951, Rabbi Samuel I. Stern joined the institution, passionately working on its development, also through connections in the US, until he died in 2012.
The two campuses in the center of town and on Sorotzkin Street (near Romema) have some 500 girls from all over Israel and abroad, including the US, Iran, Yemen and Russia. In many cases, their families are not functional. One or sometimes both parents are unable to care for their children. Some parents are ill, abusive, or below the poverty line. The orphanage provides the girls with all that is needed in a home – on the physical and emotional levels. In addition to food and clothing, the girls feel the warm attention, and receive an education and enrichment. Some of the girls have special needs.
The complex in the center of town has two buildings.“The original Bayit Lepletot building, started by Rabbi Rosenfeld, was once the Berman’s Bakery [now in Givat Shaul],” says Ratzi Hochman, who has worked for many years at the BL-GTJ office. “Known as the Small Building, its design is the choice of a Belgian donor.” The elegant design gives an aura of tranquility and a feeling of home, with a room for games and a dining area.
The younger girls live there, sometimes from as young as age four, but usually from seven until the age of 10 or 11.
The nearby larger Bayit Lepletot building has a large dining room, kitchen and three floors of apartments. The older girls study in the neighborhood, and the younger ones go to the Girls Town campus on Sorotzkin Street. Girls Town was built in 1969 with the help of the US government. In addition to living quarters, Girls Town has a school and vocational center. At the end of high school, the girls receive career counseling and enter fields like computer programming, business management and fashion design.
“Both campuses have a staff of dedicated counselors and house mothers who see to the girls’ needs when they return from school,” notes Hochman. “They also have various therapies to help them emotionally, whether it’s art, music, animal therapy and professional counseling.”
Shor has raised funds to sponsor the girls. The Robert Shor Summer Camp Fund, named for her late father-in-law, sends the girls to summer camp. “This is the only chance these girls have to benefit from a total change of surroundings,” says Hochman.
When the time comes for the young women who grew up in BL-GTJ to get married, they are helped both with the wedding plans, and with emotional preparation to build a healthy marriage and family.
“The girls also learn homemaking and communication skills, since they didn’t see this at home,” says Shor.
BL-GTJ provides wedding gowns, a trousseau, linens, pots and pans, and sometimes furniture. It organizes the weddings at reasonably-priced halls and locates affordable services such as photographers and a band.
Shor has been to three of the weddings that she sponsored.
“I was truly moved at these weddings.
While not lavish, they are respectable and happy. It’s so exciting to dance with the bride and her 35 ‘sisters’!” Shor is hopeful that she will reach her goal of the 10th wedding, and continue to help more brides transition into healthy and loving marriages.
When the women become mothers, they do not have family to go to for support. BLGTJ founded the Mother and Baby Convalescent Home in 1971 in Bayit Vegan. It moved to Telz Stone in 1985. Originally intended for graduates of Bayit Lepletot-Girls Town Jerusalem, today it is open to the general public – with a long waiting list!
www.bl-girlstown.org/index.php