The Iron Lady of New Orleans

When news reached me of the death of Jackie Pressner Gothard on Monday morning, May 21, the very first thing that went through my mind was that it must have been a trick or some sort of fantastic jest to test me. There was no warning. No bulletin rang out in advance preparing me for her sudden disappearance. She was a pillar of the New Orleans community one moment - a woman of indomitable will and gracious Southern charm - and then she was a memory.

But what a memory she leaves behind.

Jackie Gothard at the re-burial of seven Torah scrolls in 2011. 

Jackie Gothard was the consummate cheerleader, the never-say-die, larger-than-life character who, quite literally, saved my synagogue and embodied renewed hope for Jewish New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Jackie was the spirit of the new Congregation Beth Israel, erected phoenix-like on the ashes of more than 100 years of Orthodox Judaism in New Orleans.

It was her life's mission to never let anyone forget the history of Beth Israel or its tragic demise beneath the murky floodwaters from the breached 17th Street Canal following the landfall of the monster storm. She made the decision to bring the lifeless synagogue back from the dead, even while she was an evacuee in Houston and the news out of New Orleans was nothing less than bleak.

That was Jackie. She was always organizing and planning. She made certain that there was only one High Holiday period that the members of the synagogue under whose shadow she had grown up near the heavily Jewish corridor along Dryades Street, would be without a building in which they could assemble, pray and, let us not forget, eat.

Jackie employed her son Eddie, himself a former Beth Israel president, to get on the phone with the Orthodox Union, the United Jewish Communities (now the Jewish Federations of North America) and anybody else who would listen. Beth Israel was coming back, she would tell them. Orthodox services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were planned and executed at a Houston hotel and many bewildered and depressed former New Orleans residents gathered to daven and begin to consider that a move back to the city and Modern Orthodoxy might again be possible.

When the floodwaters had receded and residents were allowed back into the city, Jackie beat a path to the once magnificent structure on Canal Boulevard the synagogue had called home since 1970. She gasped in between tears as she beheld with her own eyes what 10-12 feet of toxic waste laden and sewage-filled floodwaters had done to the exterior and interior of her shul. The Torah scrolls had been rescued famously by an Israeli search and rescue team from ZAKA, a group initially charged with rescue or recovery of bodies. The scrolls had been largely destroyed and were rendered invalid. In some cases, the parchment had been eaten away by whatever microbes and chemicals were in that water. Jackie contacted Becky Hegglund (see page 32, Best of the CCJN SOURCE 5776), a former receptionist who hadn't worked at the synagogue for several years, as soon as she returned home. The synagogue was in ruins, but the Torah scrolls needed to be buried in a reverent fashion, according to Jewish law. Jackie didn't know who else to call. Like so many others who had been charged with a task by Jackie, Becky - a non-Jew - agreed. Jackie gave her the contact number for ZAKA's Rabbi Issac Leider and she arranged to pick up the seven Torah scrolls, dig a four-foot by six-foot plot by herself and deposit them in a makeshift grave. 

Jackie Gothard at the reburial of religous artifacts.

Upon her return home, Jackie renewed her conversations with Reform Congregation Gates of Prayer's (senior) Rabbi Robert Loewy. Out of a gesture of kindness and charity, he offered Jackie and those Orthodox community members an opportunity to re-establish the congregation in the back chapel, a room that by divine coincidence had an aron hakodesh (holy ark) for prayer services. Beth Israel began to meet there and went on to establish a unique partnership with the Reform temple, eventually purchasing land from them and building a new structure there.

Over the course of the several months and years of recovery, Jackie was at the helm of leadership, retrieving religious articles from the old synagogue and overseeing the burial of thousands of prayerbooks, hundreds of prayer shawls and several dozen phylacteries. One of the items she was most proud of saving was the synagogue's giant Chanukiah - the special brass menorah used during the celebration of Chanukah. That menorah was scrubbed and polished to a new luster by Jackie and others who would see it used in a synagogue again. Not only was it used again at Beth Israel, but it was prominently displayed in 2011 at the official White House Chanukah ceremony at which President Barack Obama lit the Chanukah candles. 

The young rabbi who carried that menorah to the White House was none other than Rabbi Uri Topolosky, a visionary figure who, along with his wife Dahlia, were charmed by Jackie on a tour of the old synagogue and decided almost immediately to move to the Crescent City and its tiny Jewish minority from their heavily-Jewish neighborhood in Riverdale, New York. It was Rav Uri, who along with Jackie, became the public face of recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Even while the property was for sale, she constantly gave tours of the old synagogue to groups that wanted to see what destruction the structure had suffered. 

Jackie told the story of her family's kosher delicatessen and other businesses run by Jewish merchants along Dryades Street that became known as "the second Canal Street." Two Orthodox congregations had sprung up there - Beth Israel and Congregation Anshe Sfard - and only a few blocks away was the original location of Temple Sinai, the first synagogue formed under the branch of Reform Judaism.

She never tired of answering questions to the many different groups who inquired as to what Jewish communal life was like in the old days and what was in store for the congregation.

Jackie and others who followed her, including another woman president - Roselle Middleberg Ungar - saw to it that Beth Israel was restored with a magnificent new building that was dedicated on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall seven years later. Over the last five years, Jackie continued to be a mainstay at the synagogue, celebrating her 60th wedding anniversary only a few months ago with close relative and the third woman president, Lee Kansas, looking on proudly. On many a Thursday, she helped others organize and prepare the meal that would be served after Shabbat services on Saturday. 

A tireless force of nature, she never seemed to slow down, bragging on the accomplishments of her grown professional children, her grandchildren and even her great-grandson. That's why her sudden passing is so hard to believe.

On a personal note, I was defeated in 2003 for my run for Congregation Beth Israel president. At the time, I took my defeat hard. There had never been a woman elected before to that office and there were even questions as to whether an Orthodox congregation could have a woman as president. Those doubts were soon erased as Jackie enjoyed the high of celebrating the synagogue's 100th anniversary in 2004 to be followed by that difficult period of recovery from the hurricane.

At the time, I had no way of knowing how lucky I was to have lost. There is little doubt in my mind that I would have been thoroughly unprepared for the many challenges Jackie met and defeated with ease. While I may have lost, Beth Israel, the New Orleans Jewish community and, dare I say, the city of New Orleans all won. It was all because of Jackie and her fierce determination to bring Beth Israel back.

There was no one like Jackie Gothard and there probably never will be.

Todah rabah (thank you very much), Jackie. Todah rabah.