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From David Gordon, Israel Affairs and Tzedek Program Associate, Hillel of Greater Toronto

This trip to New Orleans was my second trip in the span of one year. On my previous trip I worked on many houses that were demolished from the devastation of Katrina. Many of the houses that we worked in on this trip were heavily damaged by flooding, but I had an interesting experience working in one house. On Friday I entered a neighbourhood where many houses on the street were in a dilapated condition. I asked the contractor on the work site how much flooding did this area get. He then responded to me “nothing, the house your in has just been left alone.” The house was in such a dilapated condition that I thought its condition was due to the hurricane, but in reality it was years and years of disrepair. To give you an idea of the disrepair in the home, the elderly man that lived in had a faucet and no sink. The water from the faucet fell through a hole in his floor. The man had no heating in his house and his walls were full of homes. It is with this in mind where the importance of the trip reached even higher levels. It is so important to rebuild New Orleans after the devastation of Katrina, everyone deserves a home which provides the basic foundation to regain control of one’s life. Yet, through working on this one particular home not only we were helping New Orleans rebuild, we were also combating greater issues such as poverty and homelessness. Thus, our group made greater strides in our pursuit of repairing the world (Tikkun Olam) in an effort to pursue real social justice (Tsedek).