A spice shop in Neve Eliyahu, where Rabbi Joel Soffin, religious leader emeritus of Temple Shalom in Succasunna, is planning to implement a system of microloans to help members of the local Ethiopian community.
Photo courtesy Michael S. Friedman
November 27, 2008
Rabbi Joel Soffin hopes micro-loans will transform the communities and lives of Ethiopian Jews in Israel — and he is willing to bet on it.
In 2010, if all goes according to plan, he will disburse $5,000 loans to five or six Ethiopian Israelis deemed most likely to succeed in business.
Soffin is partnering with two New Jersey synagogues, United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, and officials in Israel on a program to extend small incubator loans to residents of the Neve Eliyahu neighborhood in Rishon Letzion, where 700 Ethiopian families live.
The MetroWest community has had a partnership with Neve Eliyahu (previously known as Ramat Eliyahu) since 1978.
Soffin is trying to adapt successful micro-lending projects, pioneered by Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunnus in Bangladesh, that jumpstart small businesses in Third World countries. Soffin gained experience with a micro-credit partnership in Nogales, Mexico, that was sponsored by the Jewish Fund for Justice.
Soffin said he hopes some of the funds will come from congregants at Temple Shalom of Succasunna, where he is rabbi emeritus, and the Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, where he is social action rabbi-in-residence. The money, he said, will come from “American businessmen and businesswomen who find this to be intriguing. I’m sure we’ll have 10 sponsors.”
On the Israeli side, he is working with the mayor and municipality of Rishon Letzion, and the Ethiopian kes, or spiritual leader, of Neve Eliyahu, along with community organizations in the town.
If it seems odd to offer micro-loans, generally used to hasten development in Third World countries, to Israelis, Soffin doesn’t think so.
The Ethiopian community has the highest level of unemployment and the highest percentage of welfare recipients in Israel, at about 80 percent.
But providing small-scale loans in a country with a First World economy presents challenges.
Among these is the amount of money needed to start a business.
In Mexico, loans began at $200 and went up to $800; in Israel, Soffin said, he expects loans to be as high as $5,000 each.
Soffin has made several exploratory trips to Israel, most recently in September. He has held dozens of meetings with local organizations, politicians, and community leaders; he continually refines the original idea with input from each and expects to continue tweaking the details.
Model for others
The project, as currently conceived, will begin in January with the identification of 50 or 60 people with potential.
“These are people who have a spark; they may not be literate, but they will have a flair for business,” explained Soffin. “They will have some vision, some dream.” These might include hopeful entrepreneurs who want to open a hair salon, a tailor shop, a photography business, or a van service.
The first group will be pared down to 20 or 30, and next June, those remaining will begin six months of training. In January 2010, the first round of loans will be given to the five or six with the most potential to benefit from the loans.
For the project to work, Soffin said, he must hire trainers and administrators. He hopes grants will cover these, but he has committed his own Jewish Helping Hands/Yad Soffin Foundation to paying for whatever they do not.
“The long-term goal is to continue and be a model for others,” said Soffin.
The project is still in the planning stages, but it has generated excitement among those who work with the community at Neve Eliyahu, including Amir Shacham, UJC MetroWest director of Israel operations.
“I see this innovative initiative as a perfect next step in our accumulating efforts to help Neve Eliyahu and help the Ethiopian community integrate better in Israeli society,” he said.
Soffin has spent much of his career as a philanthropic entrepreneur. He got his start at Temple Shalom during the Soviet Jewry era, later helped resettle a Vietnamese boat family, and worked on projects assisting people in El Salvador, Argentina, and Ukraine.
Among his last projects at the synagogue before retiring was the Million Quarter Project to provide aid to Ethiopians in Gondar Province and Addis Ababa. He founded the Reform movement’s Adult Mitzvah Corps and, after his retirement from Temple Shalom in 2006, put together his Jewish Helping Hands/Yad Soffin Foundation.
Inviting congregants at Temple Shalom to support the effort, Soffin wrote in a recent communication with the community, “Eight hundred years ago, Maimonides created his ladder of tzedaka. The eighth and highest level is ‘to help another to become self-supporting by means of a loan.’”
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