OU TORAH The Missing Tzedakah Box By Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

It was a cold winter, all over the world. It was the year 1991, and it was the time of the great Gulf War. Scud missiles were falling upon towns and cities throughout the State of Israel. To say that times were tense would indeed be an understatement. The city of Baltimore had a sister city relationship with Odessa, in the former Soviet Union. The communist regime had just fallen, and travel to places like Odessa was becoming more practical. The Jewish community of Baltimore had begun to send representatives to assist the Jews of Odessa in various ways. Every six months or so, they would assign a different rabbi to travel to Odessa to ascertain the needs of the Jewish community there. That winter, it was my turn as a local Baltimore congregational rabbi to visit Odessa. It was a tense time for such a visit, and my family and friends urged me not to go.