Jroots Journeys, a Jewish educational organization, is pivoting their line of work from guiding tours to help Ukrainian refugees receive a warm welcome and a Kosher Passover.
Some 500 backpacks, 10,000 toys, truckloads of food and shipments of medical supplies - these are just a few items on the list of Tzvi Sperber and his team at JRoots Journeys - which they are going to deliver to the refugees in their tireless efforts to ease the hardships of the Ukrainian people.
Founded in 2005 by Tzvi Sperber and Rabbi Naftali Schiff, JRoots is a Jewish educational organization which has led thousands of people on Jewish heritage trips in Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary, and Morocco.
Although his regular trips to Poland were under very different circumstances, Sperber knows the region pretty well.
Since the Russian invasion started in late February, Sperber and JRoots have been working day and night, along with other Israeli volunteers, to provide relief and raise funds for the people of Ukraine.
“We felt it was much more important to get them into a shopping mall and let them feel like human beings again,” Sperber says, referring to the deal they signed with Poland’s largest shoes company. “The weather was changing and now it’s hot there… these people have come along in their winter clothes.”
One of the volunteers on the JRoots ad-hoc delegation was Jeremy Lustman, of DLA Piper Tel Aviv, joined by his two friends. David Waxman, an investment banker and Hillel Schuster, of KPMG, also joined Sperber hoping to pitch in with whatever was needed; loading mattresses that came overnight from Germany headed towards Lviv, shopping for supplies to feed a 20-family refuge set-up in a local fire station, and helping guide and welcome refugees as they were crossing over the border.
Although him and his family live in Israel, Sperber spends a major part of his year in eastern Europe and since the war on Ukraine, he has been on the ground virtually full time, leveraging the organization’s knowledge and resources to help Ukrainians, by identifying as many potential accommodations as possible, converting them into temporary housing, including hotels, retail locations, local museums, civic and religious sites, and others, and outfitting them with whatever supplies are needed.
Lustman and his friends couldn’t sit at home and watch this humanitarian crisis on television. They felt like they had to do whatever they could to be on the ground, lend a hand, collect supplies and funds from their local community, and raise awareness to this situation and the wonderful work of this organization. Still, this visit to Poland was emotionally overwhelming for Lustman, who was "heartbroken by the circumstances and the dire need of an overwhelming number of people, but at the same time heart-warmed by the goodness and giving nature of so many who have truly stepped up and banded together to assist those in need”.
Lustman witnessed firsthand the agility and generosity of this organization and their community. JRoot Journeys repurposed almost all their resources, including drivers, catering halls, and warehouses used for heritage trip programs into temporary shelters, and equipping the temporary living spaces with beds, linens, kitchen appliances and washing machines for dozens of mothers and their children.
As the holiday is getting closer, JRoots also make sure to arrange a kosher kitchen for the Jewish community in Krakow and some 10,000 toys - presents for the children, who will celebrate their first Passover away from home.