new orleans | The Jewish community of New Orleans wants you.
And to get you to move here, they are offering a menu of tasty incentives.
These include housing and business loans, moving grants, day school scholarships, free or reduced membership at synagogues and Jewish organizations, and a job hunting network.
The aim is to attract 1,000 individuals and families to a Jewish community that lost about 30 percent of its members.
When Katrina struck in late August 2005, the nearly 10,000 Jews in the community suffered damages to 80 percent of their homes, 70 percent of their businesses and several key community institutions.
Since then, the Jewish communal infrastructure has largely been sustained by more than $20 million in donations from United Jewish Communities, the umbrella of the North American federation system, and the national religious movements, along with donations from hundreds of individual synagogues, federations and donors. The incentives program is funded mostly by outside philanthropists.
Michael Weil, a strategic planner drawn from Israel to head the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, says the challenge is immense but the community is determined to look ahead. “We have the opportunity now to make past dreams and new dreams of a vibrant Jewish New Orleans come true,” he says.
Early evidence suggests the Jewish community is rising to the challenge. The federation’s current campaign, the first since Katrina, is on track to raise more than $2.6 million, compared to $2.8 million raised in the last pre-Katrina campaign.
The federation has hired a grant writer and an Israeli public relations firm to do marketing on a pro bono basis, branding New Orleans as a “pioneering, exciting, and fun community,” in Weil’s words.
To guide the federation in its planning efforts, Louisiana State University sociologist Rick Weil last fall surveyed both current residents and those who had relocated elsewhere. He soon will be conducting a full-scale demographic study.
His results were surprisingly favorable, indicating that those who are back are likely to stay and that only 15 percent of those who have left are unlikely to return.
“The Jewish community is showing a huge amount of toughness,” the professor says. “