On winter break, many college students look forward to catching up on sleep.
But a group of Jewish students at U.C. Berkeley gave that up in exchange for hard, physical labor.
Nine undergraduates affiliated with Berkeley Hillel traveled to Gulfport, Miss., this month to help rebuild homes devastated by Hurricane Katrina in nearby Biloxi.
And Berkeley graduate student Joelle Jaffe went with a Union for Reform Judaism-organized trip, helping to rebuild homes of Jewish families in New Orleans.
Jaffe, originally from New Jersey, went on the trip to film it, as her friend’s father led it. But she didn’t film the entire time. While she shot nine hours of footage, she couldn’t be in the region and not pitch in a hand as well.
The group with which she traveled, Tzevet Mitzvot, has gone on other building trips before, and within the group are those with construction expertise, including an electrical contractor.
“They taught us everything and directed us,” Jaffe said. The group worked on four homes — cutting, measuring and installing drywall and spackling.
“At first we walked into a house which had beams everywhere, and by the time we finished, we could see rooms again,” she said. “That was a big deal to these families who were struggling to figure out what they were going to do.”
Though Jaffe said she hadn’t stepped foot inside a synagogue in years, what she saw at the Orthodox synagogue in New Orleans still haunts her.
The memorial plaques on the walls had all been washed away; a bucket was left nearby where someone had tried to rescue some of them. And mold was growing everywhere.
“This synagogue reminded me so much of the one I grew up in,” she said, “and it hit me so hard.”
The reaction from the others who visited the devastated area was similar.
Tami Abdollah, a senior who went with the Hillel trip, said as she flew into Mississippi, she could see a lot of homes with blue spots on the roofs. Being from California, her initial thought was that she was looking at solar panels.
“At first, I thought about how environmentally smart they are to do something like that, but then I learned that they were [Federal Emergency Management Agency] tarps,” she said. “They were on all the roofs that were destroyed by the hurricane.”
Abdollah said that as soon as the hurricane hit, she thought immediately how she would like to go to New Orleans to help, but she realized she would just be in the way.
So when she heard about the January Hillel trip, she responded immediately.
The need is no less urgent now, she found out.
“It’s already been four months and even with some clean-up and taking away debris, this is what it looked like now,” she said. “It’s still completely ravaged in some places, and the debris is everywhere.”
The nine Hillel students were part of a larger group of Hillel activists from colleges around the country. They worked together with the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Gulfport in an interfaith effort, and their home base was the church.
They worked from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., stripping the remainder of the roofs, and then laying down the felt and the shingles.
“None of us had any experience with this before,” said Lena Silver, a U.C. Berkeley sophomore. “The first roof took us two and a half days, and the second took us a day and a half, so that was inspiring.”
Silver said she was touched that the majority of the builders supervising their efforts were retired construction workers who had driven there following the hurricane.
“They are some of the more angelic people you’ll meet,” she said.
All those who went said they felt a great deal of gratitude from locals for their efforts.
“This is an eight to 10-year rebuilding process and more than 80 percent of the people there are volunteers,” said Silver. “So everyone needs to step up in an incredible way.”