Rabbi Yossie Stern of Teaneck, whose Jewish charity, Project EZRAH, has helped thousands in Bergen County challenged by unemployment and financial distress, died Friday. He was 64.
Rabbi Yossie Stern of Teaneck
The cause was complications of heart surgery, said Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, where Rabbi Stern was a member.
More than 1,000 people attended the funeral Saturday night at the Teaneck synagogue.
Project EZRAH — the word is Hebrew for “assistance” — had its roots in the trying days after 9/11.
After Congregation Bnai Yeshurun learned of a middleaged father of five in dire employment and financial straits, Rabbi Stern — a Brooklyn-born educator and jeweler — pushed to establish a helping network “because he realized there could be many others who needed assistance in finding jobs or retraining,” Pruzansky said.
Rabbi Stern’s goal initially was to offer help with job searching and basic living expenses. Today, the Englewoodbased non-profit he founded and directed offers a variety of services, including career counseling, fiscal planning and budget management, and aid for catastrophic needs. Among those in the Jewish community assisted by Project EZRAH was a divorced woman who lost four of her children in a 2005 Teaneck house fire.
“The need for employment opportunities and financial aid increases each day,” Rabbi Stern said in a 2010 interview with The Jewish Standard. “Many people are earning less than before, and their mortgage becomes a much higher percentage of their income than it used to be.”
Helping others was in Rabbi Stern’s nature, Pruzansky said. For many years, Rabbi Stern went to the synagogue at sunup daily to meet with a group of people who could not read Hebrew well “to get them mainstreamed into the conversation,” Pruzansky said.
“He had a tremendous heart,” Pruzansky added. “When Yossie saw a situation where someone was suffering emotionally, financially or psychologically, he felt innately that he had to do something to ameliorate that person’s plight.”
Rabbi Stern, who was buried Sunday in Israel, is survived by his wife, Rifka; his daughters, Dvora Marcus and Naava Schreiber, both of Israel; sons Shai Stern and Effie Stern, both of Los Angeles, and many grandchildren.
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