Future OneFamily Fund hikers Cantor Amy Daniels, top left, and Felice Schneier, right, on a Temple Sha’arey Shalom trip to Israel in 2006 with Marge Saide, center, and Schneier’s daughter Julie.
Photo courtesy Felice Schneier
On two feet
To support Cantor Amy Daniels and/or Felice Schneier send a check made out to OneFamily Fund to either woman c/o Temple Sha’arey Shalom, 78 South Springfield Avenue, Springfield, NJ 07081.
August 14, 2008
Cantor Amy Daniels is breaking in her hiking shoes, working out, and looking for local day treks.
In November, she’ll hit the trail in Israel on a hike that will have her covering 61 kilometers (37 miles) over five days.
She won’t be alone — Felice Schneier, a congregant at Daniels’ synagogue, Temple Sha’arey Shalom in Springfield, will join her.
Both will participate in OneFamily Fund’s inaugural Sea to Sea OneFamily Hike, which begins at the Mediterranean Sea and ends at the Sea of Galilee. Schneier and Daniels are among 32 people registered for the Nov. 2-6 event.
In addition to registration costs, participants are required to raise $2,500 on behalf of OneFamily Fund, which provides assistance to victims of terror in Israel.
Daniels, cantor at Sha’arey Shalom since 1988, is also its education director. She didn’t know much about the organization when an e-mail about the hike popped into her inbox late last spring.
Cantor Amy Daniels of Temple Sha’arey Shalom will participate in a hike in Israel to benefit victims of terror.
Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
“I was intrigued,” she said.
But she was also intimidated.
“Could I really do the hike?” she asked herself. A lifelong walker, she said, she is most comfortable walking “three to six miles on pavement.”
Donning hiking books to trek into the woods and climbing on varied terrain, however, seemed a different challenge altogether.
But then she read an article in New Jersey Jewish News about another member of the clergy, Rabbi Mark Cooper of Oheb Shalom Congregation in South Orange, who participated with his son last March in a similar hike sponsored by the Jewish environmental organization Hazon.
“That helped inspire me,” Daniels said. “It gave me the confidence that I could pull this off.”
Schneier, on the other hand, had no doubts.
“I am very active: I go to the gym, I play softball, I bowl, and I do my own gardening,” she said. “ I’m not necessarily a hiker, but I’m not afraid. I’m geared up and I’m ready to go.”
Both women have embraced the mission of OneFamily Fund, which offers financial assistance, therapy, and legal assistance to terror survivors and families of victims.
“People in Israel inhabit the land to protect it for all of us so we can have it, visit it, and enjoy its history,” said Schneier, who lives in Springfield. “They exist with the beauty of the land, but they also live with terror and often bear the brunt of it. This trip will help the people who protect the land for all of us.”
Daniels is undertaking the hike as part of a 10-week sabbatical that she will take over the course of the next three years. Much of that time she will spend in Israel.
The cantor has already raised $800 toward her goal, while Schneier is just beginning her effort. Neither is concerned about coming up with the funds. Daniels said she plans to incorporate her project into activities at the synagogue’s religious school through November. “I will encourage congregants and school kids to come up with their own fund-raisers related to walking,” she said.
Meanwhile, among the Sha’arey Shalom congregants, her effort has sparked interest not only in Israel but in fitness and the outdoors. “People are saying, ‘Why can’t we be proactive and encourage healthy habits?’ I’m hoping this will inspire a lot of things — but number one: a stronger connection with Israel.”
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