Kosher food pantries report growing need

[cbayer]

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/01/10/hungry-jews-in-america-kosher-food-pantries-report-growing-need/


Students from area Jewish schools donate food and stock the shelves at the Jewish Community Services Kosher Food Bank in North Miami Beach as part of the “Kids for Kosher Food Bank” program. RNS photo courtesy Jewish Community Services Food Bank of North Miami Beach.

Lauren Markoe | Jan 10, 2013 |

(RNS) As the director of a kosher food pantry outside Detroit, Lea Luger knows that some people have a hard time thinking that Jews anywhere in America could be short on food.

“For many years, one of our biggest hurdles was convincing Jews and non-Jews that a need existed,” said Luger, executive director of Yad Ezra, which serves 1,400 families a month, up from 250 a month when the pantry was founded in 1990.

“It’s just like people didn’t want to believe that Jews could be alcoholic, or beat their wives.”

Jews are generally comfortable in the U.S., with incomes, life expectancies and education levels above the national average. America, in the words of historian Howard M. Sachar, gave Jewish immigrants who were persecuted in the Old World the chance to create another “Golden Age” in their history. That idea remains deeply ingrained in American Jewish culture.

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