Their taking the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shifts allowed non-Jewish volunteers to spend the holiday with their families.

The Ner Tamid members worked in the hospitals’ main lobbies and the reception areas of the continual care unit; their tasks included answering phones, distributing guest passes, and running the occasional errand. At St. Joseph’s, the volunteers also helped out in the gift shop.

“One time, one of our volunteers actually shaved a patient, but that doesn’t happen too often,” said Henry Morginstin, a resident of Bloomfield and past president of the congregation.

Morginstin has been handling the logistics for the synagogue since the project began 19 years ago. His father, the late Samuel Morginstin — who was cantor emeritus at Temple B’nai Zion in Bloomfield when it merged with Temple Menorah to form Ner Tamid — was the volunteer chaplain at Clara Maass and instituted the program in 1987.

Cantor Morginstin expected the tradition to continue with his son, who added volunteer service at St. Joseph’s in 1997.

Morginstin, a retired engineer, sees his work at the hospital as fulfilling an obligation. “When your father tells you to do something, you do it,” he said.

“We thought we would do a mitzva by being here and helping the [regular volunteers] who work so hard who are not Jewish,” said Stan Keyles, who with his wife, Claire, was a first-timer. “We were going to do this as a family activity with our [two] girls, but since they’re both home sick, we figured a hospital was not the best place for them,” Claire Keyles said.

Two of the younger volunteers on hand were 16-year-old Julia Berlin and her sister, Anna, 14. They’ve been coming to Clara Maass for “four or five years,” according to their mother, Lisa, a former administrator at East Orange General Hospital. “When the kids were finally old enough, we just jumped right in. We see it as a family way of giving back.”

While her husband, Michael, answered the phones and handed out passes to visitors, she told NJ Jewish News, “It’s hard to get staffing [for the holidays], so if we can help the hospital a little bit on a day that’s really not our day, it’s a good thing to do.”

“I like it; it’s fun,” said Julia, a student at Montclair High School. “It’s something to do at Christmas to make other people happy.”

“It’s a positive thing to do with a day you have nothing to do,” said Anna, who attends Mount Hebron Middle School and religious school at Ner Tamid.

Like many of the other volunteers, the Berlins had plans after their shift ended.

“We’re going to get some Chinese food,” said Lisa Berlin.