JOYCE COHEN
Jeffry Trepp makes friends easily. He talks to people in the synagogue, on the subway, on the sidewalk.
In fact, that is how Mr. Trepp found his new apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He encountered a woman putting trash out and stopped to help, mentioning that he was on his way to see his rabbi. She asked him to pass the word along that she had a half-furnished basement apartment for rent.
Well, he was interested. And that is where he currently lives, for $450 a month.
Mr. Trepp, 20, manages to pay his rent, but until recently he had feared he would end up on the street. He was hospitalized in September with a lung infection, lost his job and faced eviction from his previous apartment. He had no one to take him in.
Mr. Trepp was born in Little Rock, Ark. All he knows about his birth parents, he said, is that his mother was Puerto Rican and his father an Italian Jew. He was adopted as an infant by religious Jews and was converted to Judaism. The family lived first in Washington Heights and then in Far Rockaway, Queens.
Around age 13, shortly after his bar mitzvah, he began to rebel against his strict upbringing, and his parents distanced themselves. His mother “wanted me to learn Bible every single day,” he said. “I guess I wasn’t living up to her standards of Judaism.”
He admits he was difficult: hyperactive and impulsive. “I was flying off the wall,” he said. Medication did not help.
His parents sent him to a group home for religious youths, where, he said, he fell into drugs and delinquency. “I don’t feel I had an addiction,” he said. “It was a problem, not an addiction.”
His parents had Jewish authorities declare that he was no longer a Jew, he said, and he felt betrayed.
At age 16, he was sent by the group home to the campus of the Jewish Child Care Association in Westchester, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. There he met Ed Sperling, director of one of the residential treatment centers, who took him to Jewish services on weekends and holidays, and to daily minyan, or prayer services. He received schooling, counseling and culinary training. “Jeff wanted to go on a path back to Judaism,” Mr. Sperling said.
He was welcomed at the Mount Kisco Hebrew Congregation, where Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider arranged for his reaffirmation as a Jew. “He underwent a second conversion,” Rabbi Goldscheider said. “It is an affirmation that you are embracing all the laws of Judaism.”
Later, Mr. Trepp went to live on his own, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He worked at a variety of jobs, mostly at delicatessens, restaurants and supermarkets, and took some college courses.
But his health issues interfered. He was hospitalized in September with the lung infection and put on a respirator. When he was released, he had no job, no money and no MetroCard. He was facing eviction from his apartment and could not pay his phone or credit card bill. (He had been a little too enthusiastic about buying clothes, he said.)
He called Mr. Sperling, who arranged for him to receive $496 from the Jewish Child Care Association. “I was moved by the fact he had no family roots,” Mr. Sperling said. “We serve youth who have estranged family ties, but they have some sort of family, people they call Auntie or Uncle or Cousin. He had nobody.”
The money went toward his rent, phone bill and MetroCard, as well as a new skullcap and prayer shawl. (His were lost during the hospitalization.)
Now, living in Flatbush, Mr. Trepp works as a telephone fund-raiser for Naaleh, a Jewish educational Web site. “It is an interesting and diverse job,” he said, and the people he calls are often glad to speak with him.
He hopes to study criminal justice or forensic psychology.
And he has reconnected with his father, and talks with him on the phone.
“On a simplistic, basic level, Judaism is all I am familiar with,” Mr. Trepp said. “That’s what I grew up around. On a deeper level, I feel spiritually connected to Judaism. Some people are quick to judge. Everybody should be able to observe their religion in their own way.”
Reference: The New York Times
Share this post :Jeffry Trepp makes friends easily. He talks to people in the synagogue, on the subway, on the sidewalk.
In fact, that is how Mr. Trepp found his new apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He encountered a woman putting trash out and stopped to help, mentioning that he was on his way to see his rabbi. She asked him to pass the word along that she had a half-furnished basement apartment for rent.
Well, he was interested. And that is where he currently lives, for $450 a month.
Mr. Trepp, 20, manages to pay his rent, but until recently he had feared he would end up on the street. He was hospitalized in September with a lung infection, lost his job and faced eviction from his previous apartment. He had no one to take him in.
Mr. Trepp was born in Little Rock, Ark. All he knows about his birth parents, he said, is that his mother was Puerto Rican and his father an Italian Jew. He was adopted as an infant by religious Jews and was converted to Judaism. The family lived first in Washington Heights and then in Far Rockaway, Queens.
Around age 13, shortly after his bar mitzvah, he began to rebel against his strict upbringing, and his parents distanced themselves. His mother “wanted me to learn Bible every single day,” he said. “I guess I wasn’t living up to her standards of Judaism.”
He admits he was difficult: hyperactive and impulsive. “I was flying off the wall,” he said. Medication did not help.
His parents sent him to a group home for religious youths, where, he said, he fell into drugs and delinquency. “I don’t feel I had an addiction,” he said. “It was a problem, not an addiction.”
His parents had Jewish authorities declare that he was no longer a Jew, he said, and he felt betrayed.
At age 16, he was sent by the group home to the campus of the Jewish Child Care Association in Westchester, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. There he met Ed Sperling, director of one of the residential treatment centers, who took him to Jewish services on weekends and holidays, and to daily minyan, or prayer services. He received schooling, counseling and culinary training. “Jeff wanted to go on a path back to Judaism,” Mr. Sperling said.
He was welcomed at the Mount Kisco Hebrew Congregation, where Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider arranged for his reaffirmation as a Jew. “He underwent a second conversion,” Rabbi Goldscheider said. “It is an affirmation that you are embracing all the laws of Judaism.”
Later, Mr. Trepp went to live on his own, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He worked at a variety of jobs, mostly at delicatessens, restaurants and supermarkets, and took some college courses.
But his health issues interfered. He was hospitalized in September with the lung infection and put on a respirator. When he was released, he had no job, no money and no MetroCard. He was facing eviction from his apartment and could not pay his phone or credit card bill. (He had been a little too enthusiastic about buying clothes, he said.)
He called Mr. Sperling, who arranged for him to receive $496 from the Jewish Child Care Association. “I was moved by the fact he had no family roots,” Mr. Sperling said. “We serve youth who have estranged family ties, but they have some sort of family, people they call Auntie or Uncle or Cousin. He had nobody.”
The money went toward his rent, phone bill and MetroCard, as well as a new skullcap and prayer shawl. (His were lost during the hospitalization.)
Now, living in Flatbush, Mr. Trepp works as a telephone fund-raiser for Naaleh, a Jewish educational Web site. “It is an interesting and diverse job,” he said, and the people he calls are often glad to speak with him.
He hopes to study criminal justice or forensic psychology.
And he has reconnected with his father, and talks with him on the phone.
“On a simplistic, basic level, Judaism is all I am familiar with,” Mr. Trepp said. “That’s what I grew up around. On a deeper level, I feel spiritually connected to Judaism. Some people are quick to judge. Everybody should be able to observe their religion in their own way.”
Reference: The New York Times
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