OF 11Z E DA

That man deserves the highest honors who
does not ask for them, but performs worthy
deeds.

n the world of Tze-
dakah in this country
there are, essentially,
two categories. Big
Gelt and small gelt.
The Jewish Federa-
tions of North America
have a lock on the Big
Gelt, and, most would
argue, deservedly so.
They certainly have
the numbers to prove
their success, raising
(primarily among less
than three percent of the U.S. population)
close to $2 billion, or about one-third of all
the monies raised around the country by
the United Way. And according to most
Federation professionals around the coun-
try, except for the Mormons, Jews raise
more money per capita in this country than
any other identifiable group, and most of
it is done by Federation.
"Indeed," as Leonard Fein acknowledges,
"the community would fall apart without
Federation."
But the very success of the Federation
movement has brought about the growth
of smaller Jewish charities of late. "In a
sense, Federation has suffered from its own
success," says Fein, founder of Moment
magazine as well as a charity to feed the
homeless, called Mazon. "It has grown
very, very big and some people want to
contribute to small, touchable charities."
Enter Danny Siegel, a poet, writer and
lecturer from Rockville, Maryland who has
become, according to Fein, "American
Jewry's leading expert in micro-philan-
thropy."

Siegel's expertise over the last dozen
years or so has been to seek out, find and
help fund off-the-beaten-track grassroots
projects and individuals in Israel and the
U.S. whose work personifies the meaning
of tzedakah. From Hadassah Levi of Jeru-
salem, who cares for 40 children with
Down's Syndrome, to 15-year-old Trevor
Ferrell of Philadelphia, who serves meals
each night to the homeless in the City of
Brotherly Love, to Reuven Miller of
Baltimore who started a charity in Boston
to pay bills — anonymously — for the poor.

"Overall, there's been no more exciting
part of my life than my tzedakah work,"
says Siegel, a bearded bachelor of 43 who
speaks quickly and animatedly. "My job

is simply to get people to do some mitzvah
work."
Siegel's tzedakah work and obsession
began in 1975 when, on leaving for a trip
to Israel, he asked friends to give him some
money for charity to be distributed there.
(It is an old custom to ask for shaliach
mitzvah money on the eve of a journey,
based on the belief that no harm will come
to one traveling to perform a mitzvah.) He
wound up with $955, a hefty sum, and no
clear idea as to how to dole it out.
Upon arrival, he recalls, "I decided to
search out the people and places of my mis-
sion through my friends, by word-of-mouth
suggestions from whomever I knew or got
to know well enough to be touched by his
or her grasp of what I was trying to do."
He started with Life Line for the Old in
Jerusalem, where elderly people gather to
eat and take part in workshops, making
everything from toys and sweaters to Sab-
bath tablecloths. He met warm, caring
volunteers at various small projects, each
of whom was involved in worthwhile work
with children, the elderly, the infirm, and
the poor, including one woman who lent
out beautiful dresses to brides who could
not afford their own gowns.
When Siegel returned to the U.S., he sent
out a report to all who contributed, telling
them how he spent their mitzvah money
and providing details about the projects he
discovered.
And it has never stopped. Over the years,
Siegel has continued and expanded that
work, adding dozens of charities and hun-
dreds of contributors. He is proud that his
April, 1987 report on his Ziv Tzedakah
Fund, now a non-profit corporation, shows
that he gave away $82,606 the previous
year. In all, he and his friends and con-
tributors have given out more than
$400,000.
Last year the Fund donated more than
$33,000 to Yad Sara, a Jerusalem-based
group lending out medical supplies free of
charge to people who need them. Only ten
years old, it is now the largest volunteer
organization in Israel. Another $21,000
was given to Hadassah Levi's work with
children with Down's Syndrome. More
modest contributions were made to dozens
of other groups, including shelters for bat-
tered women in Jerusalem and Chicago;
projects providing food, shelter and
clothing for the homeless around the U.S.;
and a foundation involved in locating
Christians, now living in poverty, who
helped save Jews during the Holocaust.
Once dedicated exclusively to Jewish
groups, Siegel has in recent years expand-

GARY ROSENBLATT

Editor

ed- his charity to include some non-Jewish
groups as well. He estimates that about 10
to 15 percent of his funding is now non-
Jewish, though none of it is for overtly
Christian causes. "My criterion is simple,"
he explains, "if they are doing something
special that merits support, I try to help."

If you have done the mitzvah of tzedakah,
you will be privileged to be wealthy. And
if you are privileged to be wealthy, do the
mitzvah of tzedakah with your wealth.

Derech Eretz Zuta 4

Once considered a threat by the organ-
ized Jewish community, Siegel now spends
almost half of his time traveling around the
country, giving talks, seminars and week-
end retreats for synagogues, teachers,
Federations and Jewish Community Cen-
ters about the importance of tzedakah.
"Federations have come to realize that
Danny's message is the core: that giving
begets giving," notes Rabbi Ron Hoffberg
of Cranford, New Jersey, a longtime friend
of Siegel's. "Before there is charity there
must be a sense of responsibility, and that
is what Danny is trying to instill."
"Danny fulfills the role of the modern-
day maggid, the throwback to the Eastern
European preacher/story teller who went
from town to town and synagogue to syna-
gogue, preaching and teaching through his
stories," says Moshe Waldoks of Boston, a
friend of Siegel's who is involved in Jewish
cable television.
"Danny doesn't use the fire-and-brim-
stone approach," he adds, "but rather
stresses the things that we have in com-
mon as Jews. Anyone who has seen him in

"YOU CAN BE AN ORDINARY

PERSON AS WELL AS A

MITZVAH WORKER-HERO,"

SIEGEL TELLS BOTH ADULTS

AND YOUNGSTERS.

action, whether with kids or adults, knows
that he is a master teacher. By emphasiz-
ing the menshlichkeit within Yiddishkeit,
he reaffirms what Yiddishkeit is all about.
And he does it through texts, through the
words of the tradition?'
Typically, in a talk to a Jewish group in
Charleston, South Carolina last month,
Siegel spoke for about an hour, blending
tales of his modern-day mitzvah heroes

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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