by uriel heilman
jta
jerusalem | On a quiet, little-known street in one of Jerusalem’s poorer neighborhoods, the line on Fridays begins to form as early as 6 a.m. outside the home of Bracha Kapach.
They come from all over Jerusalem, particularly now, at Passover time: men down on their luck, elderly women with meager pensions, street kids living from fix to fix, mothers with too many mouths to feed.
Kapach treats them all the same. She hands them food or clothing or cash, wishes them a good Pesach or Shabbat shalom and sends them on their way.
This is how Kapach, a diminutive Yemenite octogenarian known all over Israel for her good works, has become a lifeline for some of Jerusalem’s neediest, delivering hope in the form of food packages and small kindnesses.
Kapach says it’s not charity; it’s her responsibility. “How can a person sit at the Pesach table and not have helped someone else for the holiday?” Kapach says. “If I help God’s children, He’ll help me.”
From her modest living room in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Nahlaot, Kapach runs a busy operation that regularly provides food, clothing and a variety of assistance to some 1,400 indigent families in Jerusalem every year to the tune of about $180,000 annually.
Before Passover she shifts from challahs to matzah and provides food packages containing meat, oil, wine, sugar, instant coffee, dates, tea and nuts. When she can, she gives some of the needier cases a little extra cash.
Kapach doesn’t just offer handouts on her doorstep. She manages a used clothing center, runs a summer day camp for needy youths, organizes bar mitzvahs for orphans and throws together weddings for couples who cannot afford them.
In one recent case, Kapach made sure a destitute couple had a wedding complete with flowers, candles, volunteer musicians and a sit-down dinner using leftover hotel food, homemade fill-ins and rolls contributed by a local bakery.
Kapach seems uniquely able to make do with whatever she can scrape together.
But the last year has been difficult, she says. In the wake of last summer’s war in Lebanon, many of Kapach’s regular donors redirected their money to Israel’s north rather than to her charity, leaving her short of cash.
The weeks before Passover found Kapach wringing her hands with worry.
“We haven’t paid off our debts from last year, and now Pesach is coming,” she says. “It frustrates me that I give less. They come and I send them away. What can I do? God have mercy on me.”
Fiscal challenges have forced her organization, Segulat Naomi, to borrow money from supporters and banks, sending her into debt and reducing the number of needy she can assist.
“This holiday we’ll only distribute 4,000 Pesach packages, not our usual 6,000, because we don’t have enough money,” she says. “I hope God sends me some donors so I can repay some loans. I’m very ashamed about it.”
Kapach’s energy appears boundless. Asked her age, she demurs.
“I’m an old woman” is all she will say.
Born in Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa to a prestigious Jewish family, Kapach married her first cousin at age 11 and had her first child at 14. She had two more children before she made aliyah with her husband in 1943.
Kapach’s late husband, Rabbi Yosef Kapach, was a scholar and equally extraordinary. The rabbi’s research and commentary on Maimonides won him the venerated Israel Prize in 1969. His wife’s charitable work won her the prize three decades later, in 1999.
The Kapachs remain the only married couple ever to have both won the Israel Prize.
Kapach says she doesn’t deserve the credit for the dozens of prizes and plaques that adorn her kitchen wall. “It’s all on the merit of God — He helps and He gives,” she says. “My work expanded so nicely. It’s all from God.”
Seven years after her husband’s death at the age of 82, Kapach is still going strong. But she says her work is just a fraction of what’s needed.
”Jerusalem is one of the hardest places in the country. It’s poorer than anywhere else,” she says. “There are so many here that I just can’t help. The state of poverty has gotten worse. You know how many people come just to ask for bread and milk? It’s very grave.”
Even as her organization’s debts grow, Kapach says she’ll carry on, that there’s simply no other way. ”We continue to give,” she says, “and whatever will be, will be.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California