For two weeks, Mindy and Medardo Agurcia along with their 12-year-old son Gabriel have been holed up in an Oakland apartment, totally dependent on the kindness of strangers.
As charter members of the New Orleans diaspora, they are one of thousands of evacuated Jewish families now spread out across the country.
But thanks to a coordinated effort on the part of multiple individuals and agencies in the Bay Area Jewish community, the Agurcias are making a fresh start in a new city.
Volunteers and staffers of Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay swung into action the moment they became aware of the Agurcias’ impending arrival.
Says Kathryn Winogura, volunteer coordinator for JFCS and an expert in refugee services, “Our executive director got a call from Mindy from a hotel room in Texas. She was calling to see what were our resources. He spoke with her, asked me to handle it. I called her to say hi, here we are, we’d be happy to help.”
The family had long talked about relocating to the Bay Area someday. They were drawn to the cultural climate of California, but never expected to make the move in this manner.
“I’m overwhelmed,” says Medardo Agurcia, a Honduran-born Catholic raising his son as a Jew. “I never thought that people would be so willing to give of themselves to help us out. We’re getting more help from regular citizens in this area than we are from the government.”
Betty Seelig could say the same. At 86, she may be New Orleans’ oldest Jewish evacuee to make it to the Bay Area. Seelig evacuated the Big Easy with only two days’ change of clothes. Like the Agurcias, she also has no idea if her house is still standing or whether a lifetime of memories has been drowned by the flood.
“I feel lost,” she says in a lilting Southern accent one part Scarlett O’Hara and two parts Miss Daisy. “I’d been in my house for 50 years. New Orleans was my home.”
Then she quickly corrects herself: “New Orleans is my home.”
Now staying at the Broadmoor senior housing complex in San Francisco, Seelig is also benefiting from a generous Bay Area Jewish community. Her rent is being paid by the S.F.-based JFCS, which is also setting her up with doctors, social programs and even free membership at Congregation Emanu-El so she can attend High Holy Day services.
Fortunately for Seelig, her son Ken Seelig is a longtime San Francisco resident, well equipped to help with his mother’s relocation.
He took his mother shopping at Talbots shortly after her arrival. She picked out a pink coat, but the woman just ahead of her in line, when learning Seelig was a New Orleans evacuee, paid for the coat herself.
“I never heard of such a thing,” says Seelig. “The woman gave me a hug. The saleswoman came around and gave me a hug.”
As healing as the good vibes may be, New Orleanians remain in shock over the dislocation.
“I knew it was going to be a monster,” says Mindy Agurcia of Katrina. “I’d been through a lot of hurricanes, but by Sunday morning [Aug. 28], it was so huge and heading directly for us. We started getting really nervous.”
The Agurcias piled into the car and drove north to Memphis, thinking they’d be back within a week.
That was the last they may see of New Orleans for a long time. Perhaps ever.
“I did a lot of crying,” says Mindy Agurcia. “I was panic-stricken about my animals, consumed with guilt about leaving them. I don’t know if my house was looted. We just don’t know.” She left behind a dog, three cats and a litter of kittens.
Mindy Rutkovitz Agurcia was born in Baltimore and raised in a Reform house hold. The sudden death of her father shortly before her bat mitzvah cut short her Jewish education. After college, she moved to New Orleans, where she worked as a street performer and clown, later serving as a tour guide in the city’s famed French Quarter.
Her husband worked in the restaurant industry, and only three months ago opened his own restaurant. “We achieved this goal,” he says. “We were independent, and all of a sudden there’s nothing. Going from place to place, not knowing where we’re going to wind up, who’s going to help us, where Gabe is going to go to school. It’s a terrible feeling.”
Fortunately, that last concern is resolved. Gabriel is the newest seventh-grader at El Cerrito’s Tehiyah Jewish day school. He started there this week, tuition free. Formerly a student at the Chabad-run Torah Academy in New Orleans, Gabriel is thrilled to be there. “It’s a great school,” he says. “The kids and teachers are nice, there’s a great sports program. The kids asked me what happened, and how I got out.”
Seelig lived in New Orleans her entire life, and was a lifelong member of the famed Tauro Synagogue, one of the oldest in North America. Her late husband, Joe, was a dentist, and together they raised their two children in a home rich with Jewish tradition. Seelig was active in Hadassah and the JCC, but also in New Orleans culture, working with a Mardi Gras crew.
The thought that her beloved city may never be the same fills her with sorrow.
“You think about it as little as possible,” she says. “We had everything: the symphony, the theater, not to mention Bourbon Street. There was always something.”
Her son plans to go back as soon as possible to survey the damage to the family home. The Agurcias hope to do the same.
Meanwhile, the Agurcias are looking for work, with Medardo hoping to someday relaunch his restaurant here. They’ve also been taking in the sights, touring Oakland’s Jack London Square and sampling Zachary’s Pizza. Medardo Agurcia says the couple putting them up has been very generous but he feels it’s time to move on. “I want to find me a place somewhere and plant roots,” he says.
Adds Winogura of JFCS, “Mindy and her family are pretty smart and resourceful. At this point, we will offer them short term pro bono mental health services.”
But there’s more. JFCS also gave the family a basket filled with goodies. “We went to three Judaica stores,” she says. “Beth El, Meshek and Afikomen all contributed beautiful items like a mezuzah, a honey pot, a Jewish calendar, a menorah, candle sticks, a tallis.”
No doubt the family appreciates the gesture and all the help the Jewish community has provided. But the magnitude of Katrina — and the unspeakable possibility that one of the world’s great cities may have died — weighs heavily on the evacuees.
“New Orleans is so beautiful,” says Seelig. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get back. Especially at my age, it’s hard to be uprooted.”