BY JOYCE SHELBY

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, October 30th 2007, 4:00 AM

It's a scene Alexander Rapaport has observed far too often on his way to the Borough Park soup kitchen he runs - elderly Hasidic men or neatly-dressed Hasidic women going through garbage bins searching for food.

"Just this morning, I saw a very old man with a plastic bag going through the garbage," said Rapaport, who is in charge of Masbia, a public kitchen serving hot, kosher dinners Sundays through Thursdays.

"As I tried to catch up with the man to tell him he didn't have to do that, I ran into someone who recognized him and said he would help," Rapaport said.

The close-knit religious community is one where the wealthy, the middle class and the poor all live together within walking distance of over 200 synagogues.

"The people who have resources are enthusiastic in trying to help their neighbors," Rapaport said. But emergency-service providers say they are feeling the pinch for several reasons.

Rents in the crowded community and kosher food prices are climbing. And most families pay to send their kids to private religious schools.

"At a time when we're receiving more calls than ever, we're receiving between 25% to 30% less food from the federal government," said Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, executive director of Oneg Shabbos, a food pantry that gives out 1,100 food packages a week.

"More people have lost their jobs, jobs that were outsourced to China and India," Deutsch said. "Our donations are down 40% to 60%."

The problems in Borough Park exist all over Brooklyn, according to a new Food Bank for New York City report.

The number of Brooklynites who experienced difficulty affording needed food increased by 75% between 2003 and 2006.

About 84% of the households receiving food stamps used them up within three weeks and had to turn to soup kitchens or food pantries for the last part of the month.

During the last 12 months, 52% of Brooklyn's emergency food providers have run out of food at one time or another. And all of the agencies are appealing for help.

Deutsch said his organization is searching for food in other parts of the country and trying to raise funds for a large warehouse.

Rapaport said he faces deficits because if food runs out, he must buy more so Masbia never has to turn anyone away.

"Coming here really helps," one young mother said as she shared a meal with her small children at Masbia last week. "I work every day and I get food stamps, but I just can't make ends meet."

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Situation called 'desperate' as federal distributions dry up and need soars.

by Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Staff Writer

Thanksgiving leftovers are still in most of our refrigerators, but Benny Wechsler is already worrying about Passover.

Months before the first seder, Wechsler is usually squirreling away funding from state and city sources for his program, the Kosher Food Network of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, so that when he has to buy the holiday provisions his program distributes to more than 50,000 families for Passover, he has the money saved up.

This year, though, for the first time, Wechsler isn't able to put that money aside.
Instead, in what he and others who run emergency food programs are calling a crisis, food supplies for New York City's hungry are dwindling.

Shelves in emergency food programs are empty at
a time of year when they should be groaning under their contents.  The Food Bank for New York City usually has close to eight million pounds of food in its Bronx warehouse. It is currently down to three million.

So today Wechsler is using the money he tries to set aside for Passover to buy what he needs for the 14,000 bags of food staples he provides every month to hungry Jewish families around the city.

''We're spending the money on our regular budget,'' said Wechsler, director of the Kosher Food Program. ''We don't know what will happen for Passover, but we have to feed people now.''

It is a problem besetting the entire emergency food program system; every New York City food pantry and soup kitchen is feeling the effect of dramatically diminished supplies of food from the federal government, which are distributed to the neighborhood groups by the Food Bank for New York City.

The federal program is funded through the Farm Bill, which is currently stalled in the Senate.

''[Federal money] has decreased steadily, so the amount of food we receive is 50 percent of what it was five years ago,'' said Wechsler. ''Just last week we were out of tuna, which is our only protein.'' So he bought 12,000 cans from an importer to give out in the pantry bags he distributes each month through 35 Jewish community centers throughout the five boroughs.   

At the same time, demand is growing.

Nationwide there are approximately 737,000 poor Jews, according to research by the Met Council. Nearly half are in New York City alone — 348,000 — 25 percent of the 1.4 million Jews in the five boroughs, Long Island and Westchester.

No one knows exactly how many Jews access emergency food programs, but of the approximately 1,000 food pantries and soup kitchens to which the Food Bank for New York City provides provisions, 188 serve kosher food. That's double the number there were three years ago, said Ashley Baughman, research manager at the Food Bank.

''There's this dichotomy in the marketplace of emergency food programs. As they have an increase in clients needing resources, they're experiencing a lesser degree of supply. They're coming to a head at once,'' said Leslie Gordon, director of agency relations for City Harvest, the program that gathers donated food from wholesalers, distributors, retailers and caterers, and then sends it out to about 600 community emergency food programs.

''Everybody is feeling it. I'm feeling it terribly right now,'' said Pe'er   Deutsch who, with her husband, runs an organization called Oneg Shabbos (Joy of the Sabbath) out of their Borough Park synagogue.

''We just get so many requests. Every month it's just more and more,'' says Deutsch, who with her husband, Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, established Oneg Shabbos a dozen years ago when six families came to them needing money to buy food for Shabbat. Today they distribute boxes of food to nearly 1,000 families — feeding 4,000 people — each week. They do not turn anyone away.

While this confluence of reduced food supplies and growing need is affecting all emergency food programs in New York City, it is particularly acute for kosher programs.

They are able to accept less donated food from the big suppliers because the meat and poultry, as well as prepared foods, are generally not kosher.

This leaves fewer things for those who provide the food to the Jewish hungry to pick.

The Food Bank for New York City, from which Deutsch gets part of what her 150 volunteers fan out to distribute on Thursday nights, ''used to have pages and pages of donated stuff'' from which she would order online. ''There used to be 10 items on each of 15 pages to choose from. This week there were just four or five items all together. I don't get as much as I need,'' said Deutsch.

''Kosher food pantry programs are such a minute part of the entire program, there isn't special consideration within the government for kosher foods. Because the free donated food to food banks is not kosher, consequently kosher programs have to purchase'' what they need, Wechsler said. ''That's a lot more money we've got to put into it.''

''We are running on fumes in terms of giving out food,'' says William Rapfogel, Met Council's chief executive officer. ''The situation as it relates to food pantries in general and in particular kosher ones, is desperate. We have to redouble our efforts as a community to make sure people in the Jewish community, kosher or not, have opportunities to get food.''

Part of the problem is the perception that there are not as many hungry people in the Jewish community as there are in others.
Unfortunately some people within government and other programs feel that Jewish poverty doesn't exist, that we're just milking the system and that our problem is not as severe as anyone else's. Consequently we're tolerated'' rather than focused on, says one veteran working in the field. ''The proportion of poor among Jews is just the same as any other group.''

Every third year the Food Bank analyzes hunger in New York City. The 2007 report was published last month and found that in the last three years the number of people going to emergency food programs has risen 24 percent.

''We are seeing an increased number of people with higher education, more people who are working full time coming in. More people who would normally be considered to have more means are having more difficulty,'' said the Food Bank's Baughman.
 
''Costs are going up for food, rent, utilities. Most of our participants rent, and they spend on average 59 percent of income monthly on rent. You can't not pay the rent or not go to the doctor, but you can cut down on food or go to a food pantry. And as rents go up, it's harder for them,'' she said.

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.''

The hungry will not go without turkey on Thanksgiving, as soup kitchens muster up all their resources to provide for them on a night when, traditionally, Americans give thanks by helping those in need.

Though not a well-celebrated holiday among the haredim, come Thursday night, Masbia - a soup kitchen that serves hot meals five nights a week in the heart of Borough Park - will also partake in the festivities.

The mixed crowd the soup kitchen attracts - ultra-Orthodox and non-Jew alike - will get a taste of two traditions, side by side. Thursday's menu will include a serving of turkey and cholent, as part of a four-course meal planned to begin with coleslaw and pickles and end with dessert.

Weeks in advance, Jews were already calling Masbia, looking to volunteer at the soup kitchen on Thanksgiving - a holiday many use as an opportunity to thank God and give back to the community.

This year, food pantries can use all the help they can get, as shortages have reached an all-time high. The scarcity has been caused by steady cuts to a federal food program over the last five years, combined with growing demand.

The New York City Food Bank's warehouse stock is depleted to three million pounds of food - down from its usual eight - and everyone is feeling the pinch, including the Jewish community, where poverty is on the rise. About 25 percent of the 1.4 million Jews in the five boroughs of New York - roughly 348,000 - live near or below the poverty line, according to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Met Council, the largest Jewish food pantry network in the country, receives a large chunk of the 4.5 million pounds it distributes annually from the Food Bank. This year, the council is already dipping into Pessah reserves to meet the current needs, food program director Benny Wechsler said.

For Thanksgiving, Met Council distributed 400 turkeys, far below the expected demand.

"I've always been a firm believer that the Pilgrims should have eaten hot dogs instead of turkey. It's easier to prepare and distribute, and much less expensive," said Wechsler.

Masbia's founders witness the growing poverty daily. Not a week goes by when Alexander Rapaport, who co-founded Masbia with Mordechai Mandelbaum, doesn't see a member of his community searching through the garbage bins.

On its opening night two-and-a-half years ago, Masbia served eight meals. Today, it serves 160 dinners a day.

To meet their $500,000 annual budget, Masbia, which does not receive steady government funding, has come to depend on a daily spirit of "thanksgiving." The founders have found a way to resurrect an "old world" ritual and at the same time ensure that the supply at Masbia never dries up.

Today, most of their annual budget comes from newlyweds and their parents, who thank God by sponsoring a meal at the soup kitchen in the days before the wedding celebration.

"The most appropriate thing to do before my wedding was to pay for a hot meal," said Meir Neuman, who got married less than a week ago. "This is the way to give gratitude to God and let the poor join in my simcha."

To sponsor an entire night costs $960, or roughly $6 a meal.

The tradition dates back to the "old world," where the custom was to sponsor a "poor man's meal" in the days before the wedding. The Talmud and Midrash relate stories in which giving to the poor at the time of the wedding saves the couple from potential danger. What evolved was a tradition of giving to the less-fortunate as part of the pre-wedding ritual.

"When Europe was still a bustling Jewish center, everyone made a 'poor man's wedding' for poor people to have good meal," said Neuman.

In America, that tradition largely faded. But Masbia has found a way to bring it back into style.

"If tomorrow will be the day I rejoice the most, at least let others less fortunate rejoice with me," said Neuman, who came to Masbia dressed in his wedding garb. "[At] my wedding, I spend time with my family and friends, but at Masbia, I am with klal yisrael [the Jewish people]."

Recently, a man visiting from Israel came to eat at Masbia. He came alone, but behind him, a family with small children sat down to eat.

"I couldn't believe what I found here. I never saw it in Israel or anywhere in the world," he said. "Haredim and non-haredim eat together, goyim [and] not-goyim, everyone eats in harmony."

Come Thanksgiving, he said, "we will all celebrate here together."

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תוקן על ידי אגודיסט ב- 22/11/2007 18:19:23