Emma's Torch on Righteous Crowd this week!
Emma's Torch
Empowering Refugees through Culinary Education
This week's Torah portion, Vayetzei, begins with the word (you guessed it!), vayetzei - וַיֵּצֵא, Hebrew for "and he left." (Each Torah portion is named after the first meaningful word in the portion.) Righteous Crowd is supporting Brooklyn-based Emma's Torch, which empowers those who left other countries (or US born survivors of human trafficking) for a better life through culinary training.
Righteous Crowd founder Amy Schilit Benarroch proudly serves on the board of Emma's Torch.
Read our interview below with Founder and Executive Director Kerry Brodie.
What is the mission of Emma's Torch?
Emma's Torch empowers refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking through culinary training and job placement services. We set them up for employment in the culinary industry, where their cultural heritage and cuisine can be celebrated.
Why did you decide to start Emma’s Torch?
Cooking informs my earliest childhood memories. Five years ago, while volunteering and teaching cooking at a homeless shelter, I was struck by the transformative power that cooking has to effect social justice. I began to imagine just how to use the universality of cooking to create lasting societal change. With that as a starting point, I founded Emma’s Torch to empower refugees through culinary training.
How did you pivot during COVID-19?
This has certainly been a challenging time for us as an organization. In the early days of the pandemic, we quickly shut-down in-person operations, and moved our operations online. We started having classes and conversations with all of our alumni, finding ways to help them as we all navigated the new normal.
Now, we are thrilled to have reopened for take-out service, and a range of different projects. We have taken new precautions to ensure the safety of our students and our team, as we continue to provide in-person culinary education.
In addition to this we are excited to be working with new partners, like Rethink, to help to provide meals for those experiencing food insecurity.
While things continue to evolve, we are grateful that we can build on our past experiences, to ensure that the new Emma’s Torch, “Emma’s Torch 2.0” can be stronger and more resilient.
How would you connect Emma’s Torch to a Jewish value?
The concept of treating “the stranger” with dignity because you, too, “were strangers in a foreign land” is perhaps THE value underpinning all of Jewish thought. It is mentioned no less than 36 times in the Torah. Moreover, our Jewish – and American – values teach us that we ourselves are strengthened when we welcome and strengthen the stranger. So in a very fundamental way Emma’s Torch is a “selfish” social enterprise: Yes, we help “them”, but in doing so we make “us” more inclusive and stronger.
What are some non-monetary ways for others to get involved in Emma’s Torch?
While we cannot all gather around a table together, we have just launched our new “Collab Box.” Made up of products from Emma’s Torch and other social enterprises, we are so excited to be able to share these across the country. You can order your box HERE. For more volunteer opportunities, please sign up for our newsletter to learn about ways to get involved. Of course, we are a social enterprise and so depend heavily on monetary contributions, so any leads to individual or foundation grants would have a terrific impact. We thrive on creativity, so whenever a volunteer or community member comes up with a new idea we are eager to listen!
Who has inspired you in the work that you are doing?
Emma Lazarus, our namesake whose famous poem adorns the base of the Statue of Liberty, inspires our team. She provided the nation with a vision of what we could be, and challenged us to fight for it. Her words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, written 150 years ago, are still essential to the American experience and aspiration. They continue to motivate the entire team and Board at Emma’s Torch; this is certainly not a one-person job.
What's the best part of your job and why?
Watching the "light bulb" moment as a student masters a new skill or finds out a new way of understanding their role here is especially exciting. I just love seeing these new Americans prepare and bring us their New American cuisine!
To learn more about the Emma's Torch, click here.