tzvah Hero
PHOTO BY DAN IEL L IPPITT
JULIE WIENER STAFF WRITER
t age 14, Jeffrey Lazar was honored as a
"mitzvah hero" by The Jewish News. The
summer before entering ninth grade, while
classmates were attending camp or play-
ing sports, Mr. T a zar organized a back yard
A carnival raising over $6,000 for muscu-
lar dystrophy research.
Seven years later, the 22-year-old is still
a "mitzvah hero," working as a part-time
coordinator for the National Council of
Synagogue Youth's chesed (community
service) program and chapter fund-rais-
ing. And as a ba'al teshuva (newly Or-
thodox Jew), fulfilling mitzvot has taken
on an even deeper meaning for
him.
Throughout high school,
Mr. Lazar baby-sat chil-
dren with special
needs and fre-
quently went
into Detroit to
help the home-
less. "I was going
down into the
Cass Corridor at
all hours of the
morning, feeding
people in the
streets," he said.
"I was literally just
walking the streets,
going into different
places to see if there
were people who need-
ed food."
Jeff Lazar
At age 15,
now...
he won a na-
tional Giraffe
Award and was
one of 30 youth
selected by
Ben and Jerry's ice cream company to travel
all-expenses paid to the former Soviet Union
to speak to kids there about volunteerism.
At the same time he was reaching out to
people in need, Mr. T czar's own childhood and
adolescence had its share of hardships. While
Mr. Lazar was growing up, his father, Al, suf-
fered from several heart attacks, a blood clot
and severe intestinal problems. When Mr.
Lazar was 12, his mother, Sema, was diag-
nosed with ovarian and thyroid cancer. She
is currently in remission.
The pressures created by these
illnesses made for "a stressful
home," says Mr. Lazar.
Many youth from stressful
homes turn to destructive behav-
ior, but Mr. Lazar turned to chesed.
"People are always like, 'Why do
you do all the charity work?' " he
said. "Everyone always wanted to
say, 'It's because he has a great
heart.and his father's sick and he
cares.' I can't tell you why I do it. I
love being able to help people and
just to know that I've made a dif-
ference and they're going to go away
with a smile."
Growing up in Oak Park, Mr.
Lazar was brought up Conserva-
tive but was exposed to Orthodoxy
through his neighbors. As a teen-
ager, he grew interested in becom-
ing more religiously observant, but
worried the change would upset his
parents. "I really couldn't make the
transition from wanting to [become and then...
more observant] and thinking about
it to actually going through with it," he said.
Ironically, the person who ultimately
pushed him to become more religious was a
Christian. One night at a gas station in South-
field, 18-year-old Mr. Lazar got into a con-
versation with an African-American cashier
who was knowledgeable about Judaism. "I
was floored by this guy," said Mr. Lazar. "He
knew all these Jewish words. He started
pulling out Bibles and was asking me sim-
ple questions about the Chumash, about the
Torah ... I couldn't answer, and it was em-
barrassing."
The cashier then lectured Mr. Lazar
about assimilation and intermarriage.
"I said, 'If you like [Judaism] so
much, why don't you convert?"
recalled Mr. Lazar. "But he said,
`If God wanted me Jewish, He'd
have done that on the first day,
.W,,t not the second day. You were born
\.t,,` a Jew and you don't even care."
At the urging of the cashier,
Mr. Lazar started learning more
about Judaism, studying through
Machon L'Torah and with indi-
viduals in the community. Two
years later, he was studying at
Ohr Somayach, a yeshiva in
Jerusalem.
Despite Mr. Lazar's worries, he says his
family has been supportive of his increased
observance. His mother now keeps a kosher
kitchen and tries to observe Shabbat. "They
take a lot of things on for themselves," he said.
"In the time I've been home from Israel [my
mother] has missed Shabbos only a couple of
times, and she gets very upset when she miss-
es it."
As coordinator of NCSY's chesed program,
Mr. Lazar takes teen-agers to volunteer at
agencies throughout the community, such as
Menorah House and Yad Ezra. He also as-
sists teen-agers who are looking for an indi-
vidual volunteer placement.
"It's important that kids understand they
have a moral and social obligation to the com-
munity ... also, for a person to do chesed. It
gives them such a sense of achievement," said
Mr. Lazar. "I had a kid last week say to me,
`Why don't we do more stuff like Yad Ezra,
because I actually feel like I've accomplished
something when I'm there."
According to NSCY's regional director Rab-
bi Tzali Freedman, Mr. Lazar is a source of
inspiration to the youth-group members. "His
unbelievably good heart inspires other kids
to be more giving," said Rabbi Freedman,
adding that while NCSY has always had so-
cial action programs, it was Mr. Lazar's idea
to create the weekly chesed program.
A graduate of Berkley High School, Mr.
Lazar is studying business administration in
a program run jointly by Oakland Commu-
nity College and Walsh College. He's hop-
ing to supplement the business degree wit'
a degree in fund raising, possibly launching
a career within the Jewish community.
"The ultimate job to me would be a pro-
fessional volunteer," he said. "I want to be
able to work in a place where I make a dif-
ference."