A sign commemorating the flood of 1916 lies on the ground next to a flooded waterway near the Biltmore Village in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 28, 2024. (Sean Rayford\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The website of the city\u2019s Jewish community center displayed the same message on Monday that it had since Thursday: \u201cDue to roadway flooding and forecasted continued rain with a possibility of tornado warnings, ALL JCC programming, Aquatics included, will be closed tomorrow Friday, September 27. We hope everyone stays safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asheville\u2019s Jewish community includes a handful of congregations, a Jewish Community Center and a Chabad house; a handful of lay-led synagogues dot the surrounding area. The region\u2019s Jewish population has grown in recent years.<\/p>\n
While the synagogues are located some distance from the Swannanoa River, which swelled far beyond its banks during the storm, a current flood map on Monday suggested that at least one, Temple Beth Israel, remained within the boundaries of the flooding. The synagogue typically holds Tashlich, the Rosh Hashanah ceremony in which Jews away cast symbols of their sins, at a stream on its property.<\/p>\n
Local Jewish organizations, including Jewish Family Services of Western North Carolina and Chabad of Asheville, were mobilizing online in their efforts to provide food, water and other basic needs to the region\u2019s Jews. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are heartbroken for Western North Carolina and all those impacted by the devastation, but we will get through this together,\u201d JFS wrote on Facebook Sunday. \u201cPlease continue to stay safe.\u201d <\/p>\n
Chabad of Asheville posted photos of hot meals and water bottles its rabbi planned to deliver to Jews across the region, asking followers to share details about elderly family members to check up on.<\/p>\n
A few hundred Jewish college students also attend school in western North Carolina, most of them at the University of North Carolina-Asheville and Appalachian State University, in Boone. Those schools closed their campuses this week. <\/p>\n
A staffer at North Carolina Hillel who oversees Jewish life on those campuses in an advisory capacity told JTA those students \u201chad been looking forward to celebrating Rosh Hashanah in their communities,\u201d but were now pivoting to seeking out volunteer opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been inspiring to see students using our Hillel group chats to find places they can volunteer, share resources with one another, and offer each other support; our Hillel students are amazing and, like every Jewish community, shine when things look the darkest,\u201d Ginny Vellani, director of NC Hillel Link, wrote in an email Monday. <\/p>\n
Jewish communities from nearby and farther afield are stepping up to organize relief efforts. Temple Beth El in Charlotte, 120 miles east and largely unaffected by the storm beyond sporadic power outages, had begun to organize a fundraiser for Asheville\u2019s Jews. The temple\u2019s senior leadership was not yet able to share details about its concrete relief efforts Monday. <\/p>\n
Farther-flung Jewish groups have launched fundraisers for Helene relief, including the Greensboro Jewish Federation further to the east in North Carolina and the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, which has also grappled with catastrophic weather attributed to warming seas and worsening storms.<\/p>\n
The High Holidays have always fallen around peak hurricane season, which is growing longer and more volatile. Two years ago, small Jewish communities along Florida\u2019s west coast were battered by their own \u201cbiblical\u201d storm just before Rosh Hashanah. <\/p>\n
The affected Jewish communal leaders are also in touch with each other, with Tessler telling JTA she has spoken with Asheville\u2019s JFS \u2014 although \u201cwe just don\u2019t know enough at this point\u201d about the extent of the storm\u2019s impact on the city\u2019s Jewish community.<\/p>\n
Yet hopes of celebrating a sweet new year in the region haven\u2019t entirely dimmed. Vellani is planning to drive a truck full of supplies, including challah, honey cakes, apples and honey, to Boone on Tuesday. There, she says, students will hand out the holiday goods to Jewish community members using the area\u2019s synagogue, Temple of the High Country, as a distribution spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to bring holiday joy, even in the midst of this incredibly difficult time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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