In this column, we highlight small and not-so-small acts of kindness that happen each and every single day.
This article was originally published in October 2022.
For one Orthodox resident of Kansas City, Missouri, Sukkot starts a month and a half before the first night of yom tov.
At least the sukkah-building planning work does.
Dr. Jay Robinow, a semi-retired radiation oncologist, has for over fifteen years volunteered to build sukkot for members of the city’s Jewish community, and for Jews across the state border in Kansas. Many of the recipients of his chesed are strangers.
Dr. Robinow constructing a sukkah.
The sukkah-building began as a fund-raising project for the city’s community kollel. “I did most of the labor,” says Dr. Robinow, a native of Des Moines, Iowa. Now he does the sukkah building on his own, donating any money he makes to local Jewish causes. (Usually he does his service at no charge, but asks $300 from people who can afford to pay; others he charges just for parts.)
“I don’t know how many requests I will get,” he says, so he starts his work in advance, ordering parts and making a list of people who will need a sukkah, to avoid doing everything at the last minute. By his estimate, last month he put up, expanded, “recycled” or supervised the work on more than 100 sukkot, sometimes as many as three in a day.
“People need sukkot,” he says.
A ba’al teshuvah, he is a member of Congregation Beth Israel Abraham and Voliner, an OU shul in Overland Park, home to most of the area’s Jewish community. Dr. Robinow first studied the Talmudic laws about embarking on this project. He has spent about $9,000 of his own funds on sukkah materials.
“Let’s just say this would not be a good case study for the Harvard Business School,” he likes to say. “It’s definitely a money-losing business.”
The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle called him a “Doctor by day—sukkah savior by night.”
Often working as late as midnight on his sukkah projects, he’s built them for newcomers to the Jewish community, for single mothers who cannot do it themselves, for young couples during their first year of marriage, for large frum families, for some less-observant families, and for other individuals and families who need his help. He’s built a sukkah on a balcony, built another on an hour’s notice for a Kansas City native who arrived erev chag from Israel to sit shivah for his father.
How does he find out about these people? “Strictly word of mouth,” he says—no social media, no posters, no announcements in synagogue bulletins. “People talk to people.”
Rabbi Donny Schwartz, NCSY Midwest regional director, calls Dr. Robinow “a community builder.” The doctor and his wife, Dr. Margie Robinow, “work hand in hand in all the chesed they do. They have an eye for identifying a need and doing the work to make it happen. They are not just writing a check, they are deeply invested in the success of Jewish Kansas.” The Robinows are active supporters of NCSY and the community kollel, and Dr. Robinow is also known in the community as the “Challah Man” for the large number of challot he bakes and distributes each week. And when people ask, “Who built your sukkah?” they hear Dr. Robinow’s name.
Among his many sukkah projects is the sukkah outside Kansas City’s Jewish Community Center.
“It was my gift to the JCC,” Dr. Robinow says. “It’s really a labor of love. In some ways, it’s become a kiruv initiative, inspiring people to strengthen their commitment to Yiddishkeit. But that’s not its main purpose. I just want people to be able to sit, and eat—and sleep, weather permitting—in a sukkah during the holiday.”
Dr. Robinow was interviewed about this by Jewish Action by phone one morning. But he had limited time for the interview as he had more sukkot to put up. “I’m working on three sukkot today.”
Steve Lipman is a frequent contributor to Jewish Action. This column is dedicated l’ilui nishmat Alta Sara Etel bat Alter Yechiel Mechel.
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