Soup for Syria

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Barbara Abdeni Massaad, Peace, prayers, refugees, Soup For Syria, soup supper, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

During the final siege of Aleppo, Syria, in December of 2016, I found myself more distressed than I can ever remember when watching the evening news. Seeing the faces of the children hiding in bombed out buildings as they waited for rescue was heartbreaking. I have rarely felt so helpless in the face of innocence and those faces stayed with me calling me to do something in addition to my prayers for peace.

Some weeks later I heard a report on the evening news about a woman who was working to quell the effects of the Aleppo disaster by making soup! Barbara Abdeni-Massaad, a photographer and writer of cookbooks was living in Beirut, Lebanon and had begun thinking about the Syrian refugees one frigid night in her apartment when she herself could not seem to get warm. By 2015 there were an estimated 1.1 million refugee families in Lebanon. “I couldn’t sleep, thinking about those refugee families in the Bekaa sleeping in their tents. How were they able to beat the winter cold? I couldn’t go on with my life and ignore theirs.” She began to visit the camps bringing soup and eventually, after engaging other soup makers to companion her and cooks from around the world to send her recipes, she wrote a cookbook called Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate Our Shared Humanity, published by Interlink Books. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the books sold in the United States go to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.

“That’s it!” I said to myself. “That’s what I can do!!” Having soup suppers has become one way in which people like me are able to contribute to the care of refugees in a small way. Barbara Abdeni-Massaad is quoted as saying to the refugees, “Had I been a barber, I would have cut your hair for free. I am not a barber but a photographer and a food writer so I will take photos and write about food to help your cause and send a message to the world.” And to us, she says, “Each kind gesture toward another in need is a step forward for humanity. Use what you know to help others.”

I’m not a barber, not a food writer or a photographer, but tonight under the auspices of The Sophia Center for Spirituality, I will take photos and serve soup to anyone who stops in at the First Congregational Church in Binghamton, New York. I and my co-workers will sell the book Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate Our Shared Humanity and speak of the genesis of this project, hoping to generate interest for soup-making and similar gatherings. And I will finally feel that I have taken that tiny first step that is possible for me toward alleviating suffering in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Innocents

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Aleppo, Barbara Abdeni Massaad, children, Christianity, disease, holy innocents, Soup For Syria, starvation, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, violence, war

Today in Western Christianity (and tomorrow in the East) we celebrate the feast of The Holy Innocents. Herod the Great, an insecure king of Judea, was fearful of any threat to his throne. When astrologers from the East who had come to pay homage to the “newborn king” Jesus and eluded him upon their departure without giving up his whereabouts to Herod, the king became furious and ordered all boys under the age of two years to be killed. This slaughter puts one in mind of children in war-torn countries today who, though innocent in every way, die each day from violence, starvation or disease.

I have rarely, if ever, been as distressed about the plight of the world’s children as I have been in the past year seeing newsfeed of the children who are attempting to flee tyranny and danger. Especially moving to me are the pictures from Syria, recently and most dramatically, those from Aleppo. I carry the images with me everywhere, lamenting my inability to effect any tiny change to the situation.

Miraculously, I saw on the news some days ago, the story of a woman – a Lebanese American photographer and chef – who has been taking soup to a refugee camp on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Her name is Barbara Abdeni Massaad and over the past year she had created a project called Soup For Syria. Garnering recipes from 80 famous chefs for soups from different cultures, she wrote a 208-page book in less than one year which includes the recipes and wonderful food photography as well as photographs of the refugees. One of the celebrity chefs, Roden, “hopes the book helps to keep the plight of Syrian refugees in peoples’ minds and that it will raise funds to alleviate their awful living conditions until their future is settled.”  (www.theguardian.com)

The wonderful thing about this for me is knowing that the Interlink Publishing Group has pledged that 100% of the proceeds from the book sold in the United States will go to fund the food relief efforts of the United Nations High Command on Refugees for Syria. There is a movement to get people involved in this project, found on the website soupforsyria.com. My hope is to organize a soup supper in my town – maybe many! – where the price of admission is the cost of the book that will be available at the event. I read this morning that the book is temporarily out of stock because of the great demand – which makes me happy and gives me time to get organized. A reprint is underway and new orders will be ready to ship in February, so I need to get busy.

I know that my efforts will not change the face of the refugee crisis in the world. But I will at least add my small piece to the solution, knowing that some of the Holy Innocents in our world will be fed!