Book_Project_2

What did we accomplish? What did we learn?
What is the current status of the project? What is the next step?

After months of collecting and weeks of packing, members of Tikvat Israel Congregation loaded a forty-foot container on Sunday morning, February 5, 2006. Men and women, teenagers and school children, joined together to work, to enjoy one another’s companionship and to take pride in what a determined community like ours was able to accomplish. Communal pride and a sense of accomplishment were among the many positive results of this project. We were recognized for our efforts. That evening’s Fox 5 news featured a short spot highlighting our efforts.

In the container were some 8000 pounds of books, including 830 humashim (Pentateuchs); 495 tanakhim (Jewish Bibles); and 150 siddurim (prayerbooks). We shipped approximately 50 computers (CPUs, monitors, and keyboards, plus miscellaneous peripherals). Numerous boxes of used clothing and used housewares were sent. Plus: 750 pounds of matzah, a handful of bikes and assorted miscellany.

It was nearly nine months from the time we shipped the container until it was cleared from Tin Can Island, the port near Lagos, and transported inland to a secure site in Enugu site. I shared my frustrations and anxieties with others who have shipped books to Africa: Why is it taking so long? Will there be anything left in the container? They reassured me and told that it can indeed take seven months go get a container out of port. I was told that this project overwhelmed my consignee, who had to wade through piles of forms and assorted paperwork, work his way through the intricacies of customs, leap over every obstacle that the bureaucratics threw in his path - and stay true to his intent to do everything above board, according to the exact letter of the law, so that no anti-semite would have the ammunition to impugn his integrity or that of the community he represented.

[Here are some pictures of the recipients enjoying the fruits of our labors.]

We learned a lot from the experience, one of the critical lessons being: choose your consignee wisely. We also learned that it does not necessarily take seven months to clear a container from port. The time it took the second consignee to clear the container was not a matter of months or even weeks - only a few days.

Dr. Christiana Okechukwu was the consignee for the second container, which was shipped in June 2007. Dr. Okechukwu is a professor of English at the Rockville Campus of Montgomery College. She also owns a home in Enugu, where she spends the better part of her summers. We collaborated on the second shipment. Tikvat Israel provided the funds; she provided the logistical know-how. The contents of the second container included not only Jewish books but also materials for the Inwelle Study and Resource Centre, which Dr. Okechukwu founded.

Dr. Okechukwu cleared the container and remained within budget while doing so. There was no residual debt from this endeavor. All items were delivered safely and stored securely in her compound in Enugu.

Again, we made the news. Click here to read the story. Click here to watch it.

A third shipment is being planned for sometime in the future. In the meantime, we are taking a break from collecting books. Two things happened at roughly the same time. As word has gotten out about our book project, we have received donations from throughout the Metropolitan Washington Area and indeed from all over the country: Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington. While we spent a lot of money collecting books for the first shipment - bidding feverishly on ebay; spending hundreds of dollars at bookcloseouts.com; scouring used book stores; bargain hunting at used book sales - we spent much less money on books for the second collection and virtually nothing for the books currently on our shelves. I never would have believed it but I’ve actually said “no, thank you” to those offering donations.

Why? We are awash with books, and we have lost a good deal of storage space. Late in 2007, Tikvat Israel Congregation and the Hebrew Day Institute entered into an agreement whereby the latter would rent classroom space from the former. The area used for book storage had to be vacated to accommodate this mutually-felicitous arrangement. In short, we cannot currently accept books until some of the books currently on our shelves find their way to new homes.

In the meantime,other recipients have been identified. Books have been given to tzedakah activist, poet and author Danny Siegel, for distribution to college students and others who want to broaden their knowledge about Judaism; to Rabbi Natan Levy of Bristol, England, a Jewish chaplain at the University of the West of England who is setting up a small library on Judaica for use by the students there; and to Sonya Loya, founder and director of the Bat-Tziyon Hebrew Learning Center, located in Ruidoso, New Mexico. The scope of our project has broadened, but the mission remains the same: finding new homes for used Jewish books, and providing books on Judaism for those whose spiritual hunger exceeds their budgets.