‘In giving, people do receive’

Great Neck Synagogue implements Hunger Initiative Program

By Lisa Schiffman

Issue of Dec. 12, 2008 / 15 Kislev 5769

With the nation in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and food pantries across the New York metropolitan area reporting shortages, congregants of The Great Neck Synagogue have implemented the Hunger Initiative Program to collect and deliver meals to poor Jewish families.

The statistics are grim. A 2006 study compiled by Island Harvest — Long Island’s largest food relief organization — estimated that over 259,000 Long Island residents, including 93,000 children and 39,000 seniors, were in need of emergency assistance. The situation since then has only worsened, according to Island Harvest President Randi Shubin Dresner.

“We’re seeing more and more middle-class people finding themselves in need of food assistance,” she observed. “With the economy the way it is, there are a lot more people accessing food.”

Congregants were inspired to initiate the Hunger Initiative Program after Rabbi Dale Polakoff spoke last Shavuot about the responsibility of observant Jews to help those in need. “Doing chesed is a religious obligation and one of the highest forms of imitating Hashem’s care and compassion for humanity,” he said. Soon afterward, a committee of concerned members was formed, plans were made and a pamphlet outlining the program’s goals was printed and distributed.

“There is an awareness — particularly now that food pantries are serving more people than before and their supply of food has been diminished,” program founder Margery Libin told The Jewish Star. “Everybody is cutting back. Our program is helping to supplement what these food pantries have done in the past.” According to Libin, the pamphlet outlines three ways people can help: donating food, time or funds so that others may eat.

Though congregants have always participated in annual food drives and raising funds for the poor, the response to the program has been “extraordinary,” reported committee member Dr. Nechama Liss-Levinson. “It has been rewarding to see such an outpouring of support for such a timely and important effort,” she added.

One aspect of the program involves donations of leftover food after a simcha.

“The Hunger Initiative was meant to create an awareness and sensitivity to the fact that there are Jews who do not do well, and sensitivity to the food we throw out and waste on simchas,” Great Neck Synagogue Youth Director Rabbi Steve Moskowitz told The Jewish Star. “It used to be a custom where after a wedding food was set aside for the poor to share. Now, we are asking local caterers to pack up their leftover food after an affair and set it aside for donation.”

In addition to recruiting synagogue members as volunteers for the kosher food pantry and Tomchei Shabbos of Queens, Rabbi Moskowitz’s Chesed Cholent Program — in which frozen bags of his homemade cholent are sold to synagogues and individuals for donation to Tomchei Shabbos — has netted $170,000 for that organization.

On Rosh Hashanah, the committee organized a massive food drive dubbed “Pass It Forward” to provide Yom Tov meals for Jewish families in need. The brainchild of rabbinical intern Bram Weinberg, volunteers with a kosher kitchen were asked to make doubles of one holiday dish to be delivered the Sunday before Rosh Hashanah. Another option was for volunteers to either purchase kosher food or make a donation. The response was phenomenal. According to committee chair Cindy Hodkins, hundreds of congregants from Great Neck Synagogue, Young Israel of Great Neck, Chabad and area businesses worked together to organize and deliver 500 complete meals.

“There was not a food that our recipients did not receive for Yom Tov,” Hodkin said. “People were so generous. Someone gave 600 Shabbos candles. The outreach was incredible. It didn’t matter what we asked for — it showed up at my door.”

The food packages were donated to kosher food pantries on the South Shore and in Brooklyn, as well as to senior residences in Great Neck.        “It enabled people who couldn’t afford a holiday meal the opportunity to celebrate with joy,” Libin said.

Volunteer Hirschel Minster of Queens has delivered donated food from Great Neck restaurateurs and caterers such as Bagel Mentch and Lederman’s Catering of Temple Israel to poor Jewish families throughout Queens and Brooklyn for the last eight years and he was a participant in the food drive.

“Everything you give to them is appreciated,” he reflected.

After Rosh Hashanah, The Hunger Initiative effort continued on Yom Kippur, with the synagogue’s annual Kol Nidre food drive.  For Thanksgiving, said Libin,  receptacles were installed at Everfresh Supermarket in Great Neck “so people can donate packaged food.”

“We should always remember how in a second your life can change and it is our own obligation to help people less fortunate than ourselves,” Dr. Liss-Levinson asserted. “As a psychiatrist by training, and in the work I do, through helping other people, people are transformed themselves. In giving people do receive.”

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