Every dollar keeps the water hot for someone's Grandpa on the other side of the world.
 
Every dollar keeps the water hot for someone's Grandpa on the other side of the world andsmen, listen up. Halfway across the world in Nagano, Japan, there's a bathhouse just like the ones we grew up schvitzing in — except it's called a sento, and it's been open for 138 years. Same idea as our old shvitz houses: hot water, good conversation, and a place where the older generation actually still shows up to see each other in person (a lost art, no?).

The woman who runs it, Yoshiko Kodama, is 87 — practically a peer — and her family's been keeping the boilers hot since before five different emperors sat on the throne. But here's the tzuris: heating a sento takes serious oil, up to 2,000 liters a month, and with fuel prices spiking from the war in the Middle East, costs are up 50%. To make it worse, the Japanese government caps what bathhouses can charge — around 500 yen (about $3) — because sento are officially classified as public welfare, a lifeline for isolated seniors who need somewhere to go besides an empty apartment.

Sound familiar? It should. We know exactly what these places mean to a community of alter kockers who need a reason to get out of the house, kibitz, and take care of themselves.

So we're raising money to help keep Ume-no-yu and bathhouses like it open. Different country, different language, same mitzvah: taking care of our elders and the places that hold them together.