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Empty Shelves At Jewish Food Pantries
Excerpt of article on hunger. By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Staff Writer - The Jewish Week - November 23 2007
Alexander Rapaport sees it firsthand. Every night he’s at Masbia, the “restaurant without a cash register,” as he calls the soup kitchen he established in April of 2005 in Borough Park.
A member of a chasidic community there, Rapaport noticed many men making dinner out of the snacks put out in the basement of the 24-hour synagogue in the neighborhood. He realized there must be as many women and children as there were men who were hungry, but he knew they wouldn’t be coming to shul in the rigorously sex-segregated community.
So he, with a partner, started Masbia (Hebrew for “satiated”). On their first night they served eight meals. Today he serves at least 160 dinners, purchased from a local caterer, each night Sunday through Thursday, to men, women and children.
But some nights, when people are standing at the entrance because every seat in the small “restaurant” is taken, he sometimes runs out for chicken and side dishes from a local store. In all, he serves 50,000 dinners a year, with money raised from private philanthropy.
“I do think poverty is getting worse. Five dollars can’t buy a loaf of bread and milk anymore,” says Rapaport, a 29-year-old father of five young children, who by day works in marketing. “Right after the holidays people seemed very desperate. I see more people here picking through supermarket Dumpsters. Frum people, bearded people, sheitel women.”
The Levys walked into Masbia’s storefront space one recent evening and quietly sat down at one of the wooden tables. A waiter brought them each a hot chicken dinner, from soup to fruit compote. Cold seltzer and cups were already on the table, next to condiments.
The Levys — they declined to give their first names — come to Masbia “quite often,” they said, because they cannot afford to eat as well on their own. Their 10-year-old daughter, who attends one of the Orthodox schools in the neighborhood, doesn’t like to come and is embarrassed to be seen there.
“I don’t make much money, and whatever I make goes to rent,” says Mrs. Levy, 50, who tutors people in Hebrew and English. Mr. Levy, 61, and missing a front tooth, worked as a handyman but hasn’t been able to since falling ill from tumors on a kidney, he says.
“A few years ago, it was better. But now...” Mrs. Levy trails off. “Thank God for this place. It’s a big help. A really big help.”
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