Sherrie Raz (center), Project Coordinator, reviewing profiles of Soviet émigré families coming to Palm Beach County, with Neil Newstein (left), Executive Director of the Jewish Family & Children's Service, and Sharon Cohen, his assistant.

Becoming A Part Of History

"Great things can happen with. the knowledge and dedication we have in this community." So Sherrie Raz summarized her  optimism over the task set before her: to coordinate the resettle­ment of 80 Soviet Jewish émigrés in Palm Beach County.

As the Jewish Family & Children's Service Project Coor­dinator for the Russian Resettlement Program, Sherrie's assign­ments are humbling. She and the JF & CS, in conjunction with the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, have set out to welcome up to 25 Soviet families into the community, and make them self-sufficient within four months, by providing assistance with housing, schooling, transportation, food, Shabbat services, vocational retraining, English as a second language, social adjustment activ­ities, Jewish acculturation, health and medical services and case management, including counseling for families and volunteers.

"This is quite an endeavor," she exclaimed. "But we can do it. We hope many in the com­munity will volunteer and give of themselves of the mitzvah of resettling fellow Jews in our county," she added.

 Sherrie Raz is uniquely suited to the job. Born in Philadelphia, she spent 12 years with her fam­ily in South America, graduating from high school in Colombia. After obtaining her B.A. in Com­parative Literature from the University of Maryland, she spent ten_. ,years in Israel, - obtaining a degree in social work. There she met her husband, Yuda, now a West Palm Beach businessman. Residents of Boca Raton for 11 years, the Raz's have two children, Yaniv and Orly.

Sherrie, who is currently work­ing toward her doctorate in psy­chology, speaks six languages ((English, Spanish, French, He­brew, Italian and Yiddish) and (hopes soon to add a seventh: Russian. "This work is the most satisfying I've ever done," she :said, "because I'm giving of my­self and helping to make history."

The first wave of six Soviet families is expected to arrive in the community around Passover. 1 "With the help of the commun­ity, we hope to make this pro­cess of resettlement and acculturization as smooth, healthy and as sincere as it can be for our 'new Americans'," she concluded.