New Jersey Jewish News
MetroWest Feature
Bar mitzva boy brokers sports tickets for developmentally disabled adults
Last year, Jeffrey Baum and his family attended a New
York Knicks game, where they ran into a few residents of JESPY House, the MetroWest organization that helps adults with learning and developmental disabilities lead lives as independent as possible.
The JESPY clients “were having a real good time,” recalled Jeffrey. “So now whenever my dad has extra tickets, he donates them to JESPY.”
The gesture “really touched my heart because my first cousin has the same kind of problems,” said Jeffrey, who is preparing for his bar mitzva in September at Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange. The family lives in Short Hills.
His father’s munificence gave Jeffrey an idea for his mitzva project. Knowing season ticket holders can’t always get to all their games, he developed a Web site that would invite people to donate extra tickets for New York/New Jersey area sporting events to JESPY House, giving its clients a rare and thrilling opportunity to go to games.
The site began operation the first week of April. According to Wayne Branch, recreation supervisor at JESPY, the first donations came in April 17. Good for the April 19 Knicks-Nets game at Continental Airlines Arena in the Meadowlands, they were “face value, $150 apiece,” Branch said.
When NJJN informed Jeffrey and his mother, Andrea Baum, that the first tickets had been offered, the news came as a happy surprise.
“Oh, we did? Wow. Oh, my God,” Jeffrey said in response.
“That’s great!” said Andrea Baum.
Jeffrey plays tennis for his school, the Pingry School in Martinsville, and second base in the Short Hills town baseball league. He’s also active in theater, has appeared in radio commercials, and sang the national anthem at a New Jersey Jackals baseball game last year.
Even though computer science isn’t among his interests, Jeffrey built the Web site with the help of his father, David, publisher and editor-in-chief of Golf Odyssey, a newsletter for golf travelers. Also helping was Shelley Hartz, a technology teacher at Pingry, where Jeffrey is in the seventh grade.
To promote the project, Jeffrey sent a letter to friends and family as well members of the synagogue’s mitzva committee, who in turn have distributed it in ever-expanding e-mail circles, said Andrea Baum. This past Sunday, Jeffrey distributed flyers announcing the site to parents picking up their kids from religious school at the temple.
In the e-mail letter, Jeffrey explained his reasons for creating the project and the work of JESPY on behalf of its 160 clients. The family was familiar with the agency even before Jeffrey initiated the project: Five years ago, as members of B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, the family visited JESPY as part of a Mitzva Day event cochaired by Andrea.
“JESPY House operates on two principles,” Jeffrey wrote. “The first is that learning disabilities are merely obstacles, not barriers. The second is that with help and support, learning-disabled people can and do lead productive and enjoyable lives.”
“Our hope is that people hear about this,” Andrea Baum told NJ Jewish News. “We thought this would be a great way to help people for whom going to a sporting event is a huge deal and makes such a bright spot in their lives.”
Jeffrey said he sees the project continuing after the bar mitzva. “We’ll keep it going,” he said.
The parsha for his bar mitzva service is Ki Tetze, which includes laws commanding neighbors to address the needs of neighbors.
“I think it’s extraordinary that a person would have that type of compassion to think about someone else in doing a project,” said Branch, who’s worked at JESPY for 10 years. “He could have done a ton of other ideas, and he chose to help those who are less fortunate. I think that’s great.”
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