Vlashi, like all his relatives, is Muslim. However, it was his Jewish wife, Renee Laub Vlashi, who turned to the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles when she was suddenly confronted with the prospect of putting up 28 relatives — with one or two dozen more to come. He is a waiter, and she is a puppeteer and college student.
The couple and their 20-month-old daughter live in a modest, three-bedroom house in the city’s San Fernando Valley. They made room in their own home for his parents and three siblings. The federation’s Valley Alliance pledged to find homes nearby for the rest of the Vlashi clan.
When the request went out — mainly through synagogues and federation agencies — for money, clothing, household appliances and host families for the refugees, the response was electric.
“People have been incredible in opening up their homes,” said Miriam Prum Hess, the federation’s associate planning director.
Typical was the family of Bobbie and Steven Black and their four children, who decided on a few hours notice to make room in their five-bedroom home for a Kosovo family of five, consisting of a mother, son and three daughters.
The son, 17-year old Besnik “Nick” Vlashi, spoke in halting English of his home village partially burned and plundered by the Serbian militia at the beginning of the NATO airstrikes. He said his family took refuge with relatives and in camps in neighboring Macedonia before they were airlifted to New York and continued on to Los Angeles.
His father stayed behind in Macedonia “to protect the homeland,” Besnik Vlashi said.
Asked by reporters why she took in the refugees, Black, a music teacher, said quietly, “It was the right thing to do.”
Her 17-year-old daughter, Katie Black, added, “We talked about the Holocaust at home and wondered how we might help someone else if the opportunity arose.”
The refugees who arrived in Los Angeles were among the first group to be assisted by the Jewish community under the auspices of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. In addition to those being housed in Los Angeles, 30 remained in the New York area and five went to New Jersey.
In the next few weeks, refugees also are expected to resettle in San Francisco’s East and West Bay areas under the auspices of Jewish family and children’s services.