MAYOR KOCH AND I ONCE BUILT A SHELTER

Mahat bi-tahat – “a needle in the behind.” In Hebrew, that's what we called Mayor Ed Koch. He could be charming and witty. But when he got a mahat bi-tahat, he could turn around and ruthlessly inflict it upon anyone who was deserving.

I once had an encounter with Ed Koch in which he played the mahat bi-tahat. It was Thanksgiving week, 1983, about the time that homelessness became an emergent issue. Even “nice people” who lost their jobs or were a paycheck from poverty, were going homeless. Cities and welfare organizations hurriedly arranged shelters, and churches opened their doors.

Speaking early that week, Mayor Koch praised the churches that had stepped up to address the issue. Not one to keep the mahat in his tahat, though, the Jewish Koch then leveled a broadside at the Jewish community. He gruffly announced that he had not heard of a synagogue anywhere that was taking in the homeless.

The Jews were incensed. How dare Koch criticize? How dare he hang out dirty laundry? No one, we said, needed to defend the record of Jewish compassion and benevolence. The Jewish world sliced Koch to shreds.

The issue did not escape us in Atlanta. I knew that by the next Sabbath I would have to say something from the pulpit. But when Sabbath came, I chickened out. Instead of raining down hellfire, I avoided the topic and delivered a lame sermon on an unmemorable topic. Then I sat down.

The end, I thought. But, no.

Later in the service, I ascended the pulpit to deliver the weekly announcements. On pure impulse, not really knowing what I was doing, I said something like this:

After the dust settles and people calm down, we will realize that Mayor Koch was right. We Jews are to be the most merciful of people, and we have fallen short. Now, anyone who is interested in starting a shelter, please talk to me during the reception.

To my utter amazement, as I walked down the aisle I was bombarded by parishioners who did not wait for the reception to engage me: “I'll help organize the shelter!” “I'll volunteer!” “I have blankets I can donate!” “I know someone who can give us a washer and dryer!” “I'll talk to the youth group!”

That was the Saturday of Thanksgiving, 1983. By January 10, we opened a shelter for 20 homeless women. We served supper and breakfast seven days a week, provided showers and a washer-dryer, a lounge, clean beds and linens, and friendship. Everything was done by volunteers. The nearby churches worked alongside us. We asked for no outside funding, but the Salvation Army presented us with $10,000.

Interesting. The next year, another synagogue started a shelter. As time passed, other synagogues around the country opened their doors. I don't know how many there are now, but I do know that our wacky congregation had the distinction of being the first.

I moved on to Charlotte in 1985, and we organized a shelter there. Meanwhile, 30 years later, the shelter in Atlanta still serves the sadly burgeoning homeless population. Now they also have a social worker, medical and dental care, job placement and literacy programs.

What a-ha's can we learn? First, the commitment to compassion is not absent, but simply a sleeping giant, in most congregations. Once awoken, the potentialities are limitless. Second, when a congregation serves an ideal, the whole congregation gets healthier. When we started sheltering the homeless, everything began to thrive. Attendance at services, participation in classes and events, membership, all shot up. Third, working compassionately restores ideals to people who think their ideals have been lost. More than once I heard someone say, “I feel the same idealism I used to feel back in the '60s, that I never imagined would return.” Fourth, and most importantly, it affirms to a cynical world that altruism is still alive. It reigns.

This is not about what a “visionary” Marc Wilson was. I was no more than an alarm clock. The altruism was asleep, not dead. Ed Koch deserves all the credit. He may not have been a visionary either, but he was a superior mahat bi-tahat, just where and when it was needed. My tahat still smarts, but at least he and I did a little good. God bless his memory.