The Faces Behind Feeding the Poor in Israel at Passover
With a soaring cost of living and the challenge of many new immigrants from Ukraine, food charity organizations in Israel are working harder to bring food, and joy, to the tables of people in need this Passover holiday
The Jewish world will celebrate the major holiday of Passover starting this week on Wednesday at sundown. Passover, called Pesach in Hebrew, marks the time of the year when the Jewish people commemorate their liberation from slavery in Egypt.
Food plays a central role in this week-long holiday, but not everyone is fortunate enough to easily put food on their tables and celebrate a traditional dinner with their families.
Passover is very much based around food, says Yael Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), the largest philanthropic organization in Israel today.
The main characteristic of Passover is the prohibition against eating leavened bread, which is why Jews instead eat matzah – an unleavened flatbread – during the holiday. But Eckstein told The Media Line that the cost of matzah and kosher food for Passover food is so high that, “without aid, many people would literally not be able to celebrate the holiday with food,” she said.
Even though throughout the year we help hundreds of thousands of people on a regular basis with food aid, we wanted to put a special emphasis on expanding that food program over the holidays
The IFCJ was established 40 years ago with the vision of helping the poor both in Israel and the former Soviet Union, collaborating on security issues, and assisting with aliyah, or immigration to Israel, of Jews from non-Western countries. IFCJ operates year-round, but places a special focus on the important holidays of Passover and Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.
Holidays, Eckstein said, are a time of the year when it is “especially meaningful for people in need to receive the simple gift of food so that they can celebrate the holidays with dignity and joy.”
“That is why even though throughout the year we help hundreds of thousands of people on a regular basis with food aid, we wanted to put a special emphasis on expanding that food program over the holidays,” she added.
This year, Eckstein notes, IFCJ is donating 25 million shekels for Passover aid in Israel and the former Soviet Union, and that aid is going to over 250,000 families, the elderly, children and lone soldiers who require assistance over Passover.
IFCJ also is distributing 17,300 food boxes, and 20,580 cooked meals at soup kitchens across Israel just for Passover this year. In the former Soviet Union, IFCJ is providing 9 million shekels and is helping 140,000 Jews celebrate the holiday. “We have provided 15 tons of matzah that we made here in Israel and shipped to Ukraine and Moldova, and for the first time also to the Jewish community in Morocco,” she added.
Joseph Gitler, founder and chairman of Leket Israel, the leading food rescue organization in Israel, noted that his organization also employs special efforts around the holidays. “Hungry people are always hungry whether it is a holiday or not. But around the holidays, prices tend to go up, children are home, and there is more pressure on parents,” he told The Media Line.
“We make a very big push around the holidays whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian, to try to get our hands on as much food as possible so those communities can feed their poor with dignity,” he added.
Leket Israel works with about 270 charities around Israel, and those organizations serve about 250,000 Israelis every week. “We are providing them with large amounts of fruits, vegetables and cooked meals that we rescue from hotels, army bases and corporate cafeterias primarily,” explained Gitler, adding that the fruits and vegetables in general are either not esthetic enough to be sold but perfectly fresh and edible, or excess product donated by farmers around the country.
Eckstein notes that her organization has seen a huge increase in requests for help for this Passover in comparison to last year, which she attributes to the rise in the cost of living, especially food prices, and the number of new immigrants that arrived in Israel after running away from the war in Ukraine. “We doubled the number of meals at soup kitchens and many of them are actually olim from Ukraine who escaped the war,” she noted.
Gitler says that inflation has had a big impact on the poor. “Israel already had a high cost of living relative to salaries for a long time and now, with inflation, prices have gone up more than people’s salaries, making the situation more difficult, especially for the people with low income,” he said.
These organizations are in the front line of helping the needy, but behind them stand thousands of volunteers and financial supporters who make their work possible.
We make a very big push around the holidays whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian, to try to get our hands on as much food as possible so those communities can feed their poor with dignity
The IFCJ has over 600,000 active donors, mostly Christians in America and Canada, who donated even smaller amounts of money for this holiday to help enable people to eat properly. “We represent lots of people who aren’t necessarily wealthy themselves, but it’s this interconnectedness and this grassroots model of working together in order to make a huge impact,” Eckstein said.
Leket’s work is based as well on its volunteers and financial supporters, who make the organization’s mission possible. “We are always looking for volunteers, so those who are reading the article please do come out and volunteer, we are trying in a time of inflation to keep our operation growing so we certainly need financial supporters, so those who read this please consider Leket, especially around the holiday time there’s a lot of pressure on us,” Gitler said.
He also urges people in Israel to not waste food in their homes. “I beg people to try to do a better job and to eat what they buy, it doesn’t matter who you are or whether you can afford it,” he said. “Besides the fact that, usually, food could feed the poor, it’s also an environmental catastrophe and we can’t let that happen as a society.”
