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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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