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See Beyond the Mask is an annual Purim event, which this year was held in the Atrium at Greenspring Shopping Center. Organized by Elaine Gerstenfeld under the umbrella of the Zooz organization, the event is intended to bring together Jews from all different walks of life for a few hours of fun and chesed.
An enormous banner hanging over the entrance to the shopping center invited any passing Jews come inside and join in seeing beyond the masks that divide us the rest of the year into different categories and celebrate the unity of the Jewish people. Inside, the Atrium had been taken over by a crowd of unmasked partygoers, wearing colorful costumes of all shapes and sizes.
“It’s about reaching out to the entire Jewish community, a diverse community, and coming together as one,” Mrs. Gerstenfeld told me. “Community in the Purim story was so important and I think it’s equally important today. Haman described the Jews as being divided and dispersed and Mordechai asked Esther to have the Jews pray together and come together in unity. We need to do that today as well.”
The party kicked off at 1 pm with a raffle, and musical accompaniment by R’ Shmuel Simenowitz, a friend of the organization. There were refreshments and some dancing, led by Yaakov Goldman, one of the organizers. Dressed in a leprechaun costume and a beaming smile, Yaakov told me: “The extravaganza is for everyone. It’s about seeing beyond the mask.”
And indeed, the crowd seemed to be drawn from all walks of Judaism, although with everyone dressed up it was hard to tell. Which shul did the man in a streimel and tzahal uniform daven at? What about the family of Irish musicians? It didn’t seem to matter. In here everyone was wearing the same uniform- none.
Batsheva Goldman, another of the event’s organizers, told me: “See Beyond the Mask is about looking beyond the exterior to see that we Jews are all connected, that we all have the same neshama.”
There were a number of raffles, none of which I won, but among the prizes were several bottles of wine and a gift card to iTunes. The prize in the grand raffle was a gift basket of food donated by Gourmet Again, a local catering company.
The party didn’t end there though: volunteers split up into groups to distribute over 300 packages of chips, candy, soda, pretzels and applesauce in more than a dozen nursing homes and care facilities around the city. There were also low calorie options for those suffering from diabetes. The contents of the shalach manos were donated by Wegman’s, Giant, Safeway, and Mars.
See Beyond the Mask is not the only project Zooz carries out. The Shmira Project, which links people with Israeli combat soldiers to do mitzvos in their name, was inspired when Batsheva Goldman’s son was a chayil boded (lone soldier, i.e. a foreign soldier fighting for Israel) during Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012.
Yaakov Goldman also runs the “A Better Non-Profit” program under the Zooz umbrella, which helps Jewish non-profit organizations to maximize their impact through educational seminars and mentoring.
For more information on the organization, visit www.izooz.org.
