Help arrives in New Orleans for Passover.

We have seen countless examples of people across the United States helping the flood-ravaged citizens of New Orleans. In a city more famous for the expression "Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez" ("Let the Good Times Roll") than for "Shalom," the Jewish community recently received help to celebrate Passover.

Among their other belongings, many New Orleans Jewish families lost the ritual vessels required for their Passover Seder--the meal commemorating the Israelites' final night in Egypt before fleeing that land, as described in Exodus.

Help arrived, however, in the form of Passover baskets containing everything a family needed to celebrate their Seder. The baskets were paid for through donations from congregants of B'nai Israel, a synagogue in Milburn, New Jersey. Eighteen volunteers from the synagogue from ages 15 to 80, including their Rabbi, went to New Orleans recently to celebrate Shabbat (the Sabbath) with local congregants and then pack and deliver the Passover baskets.

But that was just a small part of the help sent to the New Orleans Jewish community. According to an April 12 article in the Jerusalem Post, help started arriving soon after Hurricane Katrina, so that families could make their homes livable in time for Chanukah (December 25-January 2).

Another group of volunteers, mostly from New Jersey but also from Washington, D.C., and New York, spent the week of Chanukah studying, praying, and rebuilding the homes of four Jewish families suffering from the impact of Katrina. Rabbi Joel Soffin and 18 other volunteers partnered with members of Temple Sinai and Temple Shalom in New Orleans to perform insulating, dry walling, spackling, and taping of destroyed homes. Then in April, the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans hosted a group of teens, college students, and adults from California who pitched in with relief efforts.