New York – As the Ice Bucket Challenge continues its viral march through social media platforms, members of the Jewish community have joined wholeheartedly in the effort designed to raise money for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a degenerative neurological disorder that currently has no cure.
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Participants in the challenge are filmed dousing themselves with ice water while nominating others to either follow suit within the next 24 hours or make a donation to ALS research.
Origins of the challenge are unclear, with numerous sources cited for the onset of what has become a pop culture phenomenon. While President Obama reportedly chose to make a donation in lieu of taking the challenge, numerous others have risen to the occasion including former president George W. Bush, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and Kermit the Frog.
Below video: Wedding of Chaya Dinerman and Mendy Kreiman the site mass Ice Bucket Challenge.
According to a report in The New York Times, the Washington based non-profit ALS Association raised over $41.8 million in recent weeks, with more than 739,000 new donors contributing to ALS research, over 1.2 million Facebook Ice Bucket Challenge videos and more than 2.2 million mentions on Twitter.
Approximately 30,000 people in the United States suffer from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, with life expectancy ranging from two to five years from the time of diagnosis.
“While the monetary contributions are so absolutely incredible, and we’ll be able to really make a considerable difference in moving the mission of the ALS Association forward, the real fortunate part of the Ice Bucket Challenge is the amount of awareness if has raised for the ALS cause in general,” said Carrie Munk, a spokesperson for the ALS Association.
It comes as no surprise that the Jewish community has embraced the opportunity to help those stricken with ALS. Videos of bearded rabbis, women in tichels and entire families joining together to take the challenge have been popping up everywhere, with one video from Israel showing a young man rushing to finish his challenge as air raid sirens start to wail as he prepares to dump water on his own head.
The Wednesday night wedding of Chaya Dinerman and Mendy Kreiman in San Diego was the site of one mass Ice Bucket Challenge, with numerous donations rolling in for the Hurwitz Family Fund, benefitting the family of ALS sufferer, Rabbi Yitzi Hurwitz.
“It was spontaneous,” Rabbi David Smoller. “Someone said let’s get ten rabbis to do the ice challenge. Ten of us took buckets of ice cold water and dumped it over our heads and many people in the audience sponsored money at that moment. The caterer, Morris Derry, was the one who brought us the water and the buckets and he did it with us, too.”
Rabbi Hurwitz, a father of seven and the Chabad shaliach to Temecula, California, was diagnosed with ALS last winter. A group of five Chabad rabbis, including Rabbi Shmuel Fogelman, administer the Hurwitz Family Fund.
“He deteriorated very quickly so we set up a fund to take the responsibility for supporting them,” explained Rabbi Fogelman.
Rabbi Hurwitz, who can no longer speak, communicates only with his right hand, using an iPhone to text friends and family and to continue posting weekly divrei Torah on his blog, yitzihurwitz.blogspot.com.
“His spirit is amazing,” said Rabbi Folgeman. “He is an incredible human in a strangely difficult situation.”
According to Rabbi Fogelman, the Hurwitz family has been enjoying the Ice Bucket Challenges.
“It is very uplifting to them and makes them feel good,” said Rabbi Fogelman. “It means that people know about them are thinking about them. People should know that doing the challenges is meaningful to those who are dealing with this condition.”
Singer Benny Friedman did an Ice Bucket Challenge in Hurwitz’s honor.
“When we know people who are affected by this terrible illness and we feel powerless to do anything to fight it, this is a little tiny way to say to these holy people, we love you, we are thinking of you, and we are ready to embarrass ourselves to prove it,” said Friedman.
An Israeli army base was the location of Lipa Schmeltzer’s Ice Bucket Challenge.
“I think it is a wonderful thing that we Jews can get involved in something that is a national issue, not just something that affects us,” said Schmeltzer.
Video below: Lipa Schmeltzer’s Ice Bucket Challenge.
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While so many Ice Bucket Challenges video seem to be nearly identical, Rabbi Moshe Bleich, director of Wellsley-Weston Chabad House in Massachusetts, was clad in a black hat, tallis and a bekeshe as a front end loader drenched him with ice water while he blew the shofar.
“As the rabbi in a secular Jewish community, I try to connect people to yiddishkeit in everything that I do,” said Rabbi Bleich. “Obviously I am trying to raise money for ALS and this was a good opportunity to bring yiddishkeit to this cause.”
Rabbi Bleich said that he while he was nominated numerous times for the challenge, it wasn’t particularly high on his list of priorities.
“Then it occurred to me that my colleague Yitzi Hurwitz has ALS and this is a real thing,” observed Rabbi Bleich. “This was someone my age, 40 years old, with a family. Let me do whatever I can to raise money for this monstrosity of a disease.”
Below video: Rabbi Moshe Bleich, director of Wellsley-Weston Chabad House in Massachusetts take the Ice Bucket Challenge.
The popularity of the Ice Bucket Challenge has been an interesting phenomenon according to Sruly Meyer, a small business marketing consultant who specializes in social media.
“In my opinion this is one of the best social media campaigns in years,” said Meyer. “It’s the perfect storm of what makes something go viral. It’s easy to do, it’s fun, it goes across all social demographics and has a built in pyramid style nomination which makes it spread like fire. Of course it also has the most important thing of all: it’s for a good cause.”
Atara Marzouk of Long Island, whose mother, grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin all had ALS, praised the Ice Bucket Challenge for bringing awareness to a disease that is relatively unknown because it affects a fairly small number of people.
“The fact is that this is making people stop and think about ALS and what it is and it is making people donate money at a time when funding is getting cut across the board.” said Mrs. Marzouk.
Mrs. Marzouk noted another interesting aspect of the Ice Bucket Challenge.
“When someone has ALS, their mind is fully functional, but they are frozen. They can’t move but they are fully aware of everything that is happening. That split second when the water comes down, that oh my G-d moment when everything is frozen, whether people realize it or not, that is what people with ALS live with, except for them, it isn’t just a split second, it is the rest of their lives.”
Online:
https://hurwitzfamilyfund.com/
How about the vilna gaon ice bucket challenge? Learn all night with your feet in ice water or pay 100 to your favorite kollel! Or the ice-cold Litvak challenge, learn for a year like an ice-cold Litvak or donate to support a kollel yungerman!
While its a noble cause people defintly have too much time on their hands!
Isn’t this being m’vahzeh a Talis? He could have done it without it.
Chill out sissel, its a joke…