Nepal's 'Jewish parents' still have work to do

When the earth shook that Saturday afternoon, Rabbi Chezki Lifshitz was in the synagogue, in the middle of a Torah reading, along with his 11-year-old son, Shmulik. His wife Chani was at home with the girls, Cheli, 13, and Rivki, 6, and their four-year-old son, Yitzhak. The couple's eldest, Zvika, 16, had returned to his yeshiva in Israel two days earlier after spending the Passover holiday with the family in Nepal.

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I'm sitting now with Chani in the courtyard of Chabad House in the center of Kathmandu not long after the devastating earthquake that left around 8,000 people dead and more than 17,000 injured.

Chezki pulls up on a motorbike and joins us, and his wife smiles at him lovingly and appears to relax somewhat. The couple – Chezi, 41, and Chani, 38 – established the Chabad center some 15 years ago, and it has served ever since as a magnet and home away from home for every Israeli traveler who comes to Nepal.

"Within two minutes of the earthquake, there wasn't room to move here," Chani recounts. "Every Israeli in the area of Kathmandu made straight for Chabad House. We laid out the injured on couches that we brought out from the house. I didn't know who to take care of first – Chezki, the children, the baby in my stomach, the Israelis who were screaming and crying. And you can't break – Chezki and I are like their dad and mom and everyone turns to us."

Chezki: "Although it was the Sabbath, the first thing we did was switch on the phone. We started to receive SOS messages from the satellite devices that we give to trekkers … We realized that they were in practically every region of Nepal and we started to compile lists of names. We received rescue requests, but helicopters couldn't be deployed at that stage. And then communication lines started to collapse."

Dozens of Israelis spent the night in the Chabad House courtyard. Chani, Chezki and the children slept on the stage, next to the synagogue.

"Everyone found a corner," Chani says. "We didn't have time to arrange sleeping bags. We took pillows and mattresses and linen from the house. Over the next day or two, we started to get organized. It was a big challenge to obtain food for all the people who were here. We used the reserves we had and we sent people out to look for a packet of rice here and a bag of flour there. It took several days before the shops were reopened. But we were able to feed everyone.

"At a rough estimate, we hosted about 800 people. Chabad House was packed to capacity 24 hours a day. Some needed psychological help to deal with trauma they experienced, and some required medical attention for injuries they sustained in the quake. All the Israelis pitched in to help. Together with us, they prepared hot meals around the clock for anyone and everyone who came to the house.

"We worked non-stop on all fronts – to locate the missing guys, to go out in helicopters to rescue people from the affected villages and trekking areas, to take care of food and accommodation for hundreds of people, and to help the hard-hit Nepalese people, too, with equipment, food, medicines and water. If I tell you that for two weeks and more we hardly slept, I wouldn't be exaggerating."

Help for everyone

Thanks to the close ties Chezki and Chani have fostered with the Nepalese, they have often helped to arrange helicopters for rescue missions high in the mountains. After the sole Israeli fatality from the earthquake, Or Asraf, was located in Nepal's Langtang region, Chezki was the one who arranged for a helicopter to evacuate the searchers and the body.

"I was with Or in the helicopter after it landed," the Chabad rabbi recalls. "I took him by ambulance to the hospital. I was alone with him all those hours and I prayed."

"We did it so that Or would find rest," Chani says, her eyes welling with tears. "Or was a kid with a baby face who would come in smiling and say: 'Shalom, Chani.' He'd sit here with his guitar and laugh with us. You get close to people, and suddenly a child comes back in a box."

After accounting for all the missing Israelis, Chezki moved on to locating other Jewish travelers and trekkers whose whereabouts remained unknown.

"There were 44 Westerners, and several Jews among them, who were still missing in the field," he recalls. "Accompanied by a guy from England by the name of Yehuda Rose, I flew by helicopter to Langtang, where most of the devastation occurred. The entire village was buried. We had already brought back a number of bodies from there by helicopter, so that they could be properly buried by their families."

And they don't make do with providing assistance to only Israelis and Jews. Every day, together with volunteers from Chabad House, Chani visits the improvised tent cities that have been set up by locals who have lost their homes to distribute food and water.

"It's so moving," she says. "We approach and everyone starts shouting: 'Chabad! Chabad!'"

The couple are now involved in another large aid project for the Nepalese: They are helping to raise funds that will go towards temporarily housing the residents of the tent cities in events halls and training them, with help of contractors from Israel, to rebuild their damaged or destroyed homes.

"It's a project I devised," Chani proudly says. "I came back from the refugee camps and said: 'Chezki, we can't leave these people outside.' We'll give each family a room, and only those men who really go out to work and build will be allowed into the project."

How long will you remain in Kathmandu?

"We will stay here for as long as we can and have things we can do," Chani says. "We manage to touch many souls. When you establish a Chabad House from scratch, it's a long-term endeavor. We can only pray that the terrible sadness that prevails here will pass, and for this place to know joy again."