'It's humbling to have to ask for help' - "food & Hanukkah candles come from the Jewish Food Pantry"

[Breeze54]

'It's humbling to have to ask for help'

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/06/its_humbling_to_have_to_ask_for_help/

By Steven Rosenberg
Globe Staff / December 6, 2007

Tonight, on the third night of Hanukkah, a menorah will be lit in a Jewish home in Ipswich. Inside that house lives a family that has been challenged over the years. These days, their food and Hanukkah candles come from the Jewish Food Pantry of the Jewish Family Service of the North Shore.

"Every once in a while life has a way of not working out," said David, who asked that only his first name be used in this article.

A Chicago native, he moved from California to the North Shore five years ago. His wife and two children loved the area, and David found work as an electrician. But the economic squeeze that has affected families throughout Eastern Massachusetts hit home last month when he lost his job. That's when he learned that he could get almost one month's worth of food for his family each month from the Jewish Food Pantry in Marblehead.

"What we get means everything," he said. "It's humbling to have to ask for help."

These days, more North Shore Jews are asking for free food than ever, said Alyse Barbash, coordinator for the Jewish Food Pantry.

"This is the most clients I've ever had," said Barbash. With 26 individuals and families receiving food each month, the number represents a 50 percent increase from this time last year. That comes amid similar rises in demand among food pantries locally and nationwide, even as federal funding and private donations are down.

Barbash said the food recipients represent Jews from all walks of life, and include professionals, seniors, and recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. "My philosophy is that we're all just one paycheck away from needing it. You never know what's going to happen," said Barbash.

More....

[NorthernSpy]

1. this is NOT going to be a good winter, I fear...

Fuel prices are absolutely soaring. I suspect that a lot people are ending up needing donated food because they've already spent the grocery money on heating oil.

I wonder just how harsh things have to get economically before the Bushbots finally admit that all is not well.

[SharonAnn]

2. The Bushbots and their enablers will NEVER admit all is not well. They'll create their reality.

[Breeze54]

5. With half a million being cut from the WIC food program and

the rise in fuel for heating homes (that's being cut by * too) and donations
to food pantries at an extremely low level...the future is not looking very
good for low income and the poor in this country and i suspect many more middle
income people. :(

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. When my son was in Sunday School, it was a yearly tradition to wrap school supplies for needy Jewish

kids and they also collected food for needy Jewish families in the community.

This is the most clients she's ever had. How pathetic is this country that they let people go hungry?:(

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Study claims Jewish poverty rate in the U.S. is higher than in Israel

Every day at 6 P.M. 72 Jews come to the Ezra Center in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. They come to eat dinner. Although the meal is provided by a respectable caterer and served in a place called Uptown Cafe, this is unmistakably a soup kitchen.

Many of the diners are elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Others are homeless people living in the Jewish community center's basement, released prisoners, illegal aliens, including Israelis, and the poor.

"We found abysmal poverty," says Anita Weinstein, founder and director of the Ezra Center, which provides social services to some 4,000 needy Chicago Jews living in the area. The Ezra Multi-Service Center (MSC) is a collaborative project of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago (JUF) and is administered by the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago (JCC). It was founded 23 years ago for distressed middle-class Jews who lost their jobs in the recession.
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"We asked ourselves, if this could happen to middle-class Jews, what was happening to other people?" says Weinstein.

In addition to some 7,000 middle-class Jews who needed help, some 3,000 Jews were receiving welfare. "We discovered an entire community of poor Jews of all ages who have been living here for a very long time," she says.

more...

[Prefer]

6. Humbling to read and see that we have more work to do

Not a person should have to go hungry. They should all have food, clothing and shelter.