By COLlive reporter
The Aliya Institute in Crown Heights has launched their building project to create a boarding home for young adults on the very same site one of their members has been brutally beaten.
The video of Ehud Halevy being awoken by two police officials and then getting pummeled has shocked and angered many and has rallied the community to protest and voice its concerns.
But for Rabbi Moshe Feiglin, head of Aliya, it was a deeper call to action.
“There are so many young adults, just like Ehud, that are in dire need of a home until they can get back on their feet,” he tells COLlive.com, noting that Aliya has been helping such individuals for a decade now, but isn’t equipped to handle the need fully.
“We don’t have the space or the facilities. That’s how you end up with a guy sleeping on a couch in a shul,” Feiglin said, announcing his plans to build a full service center called “Ehud’s Room.”
Complete with temporary housing facilities, security personnel and counseling and job placement professionals, it will be a place for the young men to find meaning and relativity within their Judaism, he says.
“These youngsters just need that little push; that little bit of extra help to get them going on a productive life path. We have countless cases of young men that have become successful members of our community because we were there when they needed us most.”
The goal is to purchase the next-door property on East New York Avenue to house the center, and the project is estimated to cost well over a million dollars, COLlive was told.
For phase one, Aliya is raising $36,000 provide seed money to effectively kick start an effective capital building campaign with architectural plans, advertising and more. The full-fledged building campaign will be phase two of the plan and outcome of phase one.
Rabbi Feiglin launched the campaign on popular social fundraising platform Indiegogo, and aims to raise the $36,000 within two months.
“We know Ehud’s story resonated with many people,’ he says. “We are sure the community will join us in ensuring no youngster is left in a similar situation again.”
To help make Ehud’s Room a reality, visit indiegogo.com/ehudsroom.
For more about Aliya Institute, visit aliyainstitute.com or call 347.342.9777
Thank you Rabbi Nuta Shemtov for farbrengeing with the boys, having them over at your shabbos table and the one on one that you give them really makes a big difference. You never know what a difference it can make with one smile, an arm around the shoulder or a good word. Keep up the good work.
G-d forbid that Aliya didn’t exist in our community.
Who possibly would there be for so many of our youth
that are looking for something outside our convential system.
To Dear Mr 1 & Mr 3 , are you actually going to help
or
are you just their to find things that you believe others need to improve.
Thank you Rabbi Feiglin for starting and running Aliyah and building it up throughout the years.Aliyah is a real asset that Crown Heights needs so please donate as much as you can!
If you read the article it said they need funding for security personnel which to me seams that they want real security rather than rely on their own volunteers.
If Ehud was in a bedroom he wouldn’t have been arrested
agreed
BORUCH HASHEM FOR ALIYA
COUNTLESS YOUNG MEN ARE SET FOR LIFE IN OUR COMMUNITY TODAY BECAUSE ALIYA WAS THERE FOR THEM IN THEIR MOST CRITICAL MOMENTS
It sounds like a beautiful project, but if I remember reading correctly it was a supposed Aliyah volunteer that called the police to begin with and then was seen in the surveillance walking away. I hope this particular young man does what he has to do to ‘make it up’ to Ehud, and Aliyah/Rabbi Feiglin do what they have to in order that no boy EVER think he is in a secure environment only to be woken and beaten.