About 300 people took home free Kosher for Passover food packages at the Forest Hills Jewish Center on Sunday, April 6. Including their families, an estimated 1,000 people benefited.
Around 50 volunteers, working two days at the Forest Hills Jewish Center – including their Hebrew School, staff, and Board members from the Queens Jewish Community Council (QJCC) – assisted.
“Since Covid, food insecurity has become a really big issue,” said Rabbi Mayer Waxman, Executive Director of QJCC, a licensed social worker with a master’s degree in Social Work from Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School.
“It’s really expensive for kosher food in general,” said Richard Rubinov, picking up Passover items for his grandmother for the first time.
Fourteen percent of Jewish households in Queens live with food insecurity, according to a 2023 UJA Federation study. The study found that 20% of Jewish households (147,000 households, representing 428,000 people) in the eight-county New York area (including suburbs) are poor or near-poor. While this includes Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties, the core NYC Boroughs show higher concentrations: Brooklyn: 36% of Jewish households; Bronx: 26%; Staten Island: 22%; and Manhattan: 15%. Among the chareidi households, 53% are poor/near-poor, comprising 29% of all poor/near-poor Jewish households in the region. Russian-speaking senior households are at 47% poor/near-poor, rising to 69% for those living alone.
Hunger is at its highest level in five years. More than one in ten New Yorkers struggle to access enough food, according to a recent study by the New York Health Foundation. The food insufficiency rate in New York State is at 10.4%, higher than during the early days of the pandemic in 2020 (10.2%). Households with children are experiencing food insufficiency at about 1.5 times the rate of households without children.
Met Council on Jewish Poverty estimates over 250,000 New Yorkers benefited from their free Passover food giveaways in New York City and the surrounding areas.
“With grocery costs skyrocketing – some items have increased by 40% since last year and over 200% from pre-pandemic prices, Met Council distributed millions of pounds of free kosher-for-Passover food across 185 distribution sites in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Florida,” said Joshua Steinreich, Vice President at Steinreich Communications Group, Inc., for Met Council on Jewish Poverty.
Queens Jewish Community Council organized their event with funding from the Met Council on Jewish Poverty and the United Jewish Appeal.
Among the food items given were quinoa, cocoa powder, pickles, chicken, matzah, matzah ball mix, eggs, gefilte fish, tuna, grape juice, applesauce, and macaroons.
Among those helping QJCC distribute the free Passover food were Assemblymen David Weprin and Andrew Hevesi, City Councilwoman Lynn Schulman, Rabbi David Pollack (Special Advisor and Community Liaison for Congresswoman Grace Meng), Neil Trivedi (Deputy Chief of Staff for Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar), and candidates for Judge at Civil Court Sheridan Chu and Eve Cho Guillergan.
Queens Jewish Community Council (QJCC) has seen an increased need for their services, especially for immigration. QJCC’s caseworkers make referrals for free attorneys with the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG).
QJCC has a Food Stamps Enroller from Met Council on Jewish Poverty at their office on Tuesdays. The computers at QJCC are directly linked to NYC’s Food Stamps computers. QJCC’s trained staff also help people get Medicaid and affordable health plans through the NY State Marketplace.
QJCC delivers four prepared frozen kosher meals from Meal Mart to about 55 homebound [mostly] seniors every week, said Rabbi Mayer Waxman, Executive Director of QJCC.
Their kosher food pantry is supplied with help from United Way, Food Bank of NY, and Community Food Connection. New York City Council provides funding to QJCC.
QJCC helps all people, not just Jewish people. For more information, call 718-544-9033 or go to their website, qjcc.org. Their office is located inside Ezra Academy at 119-45 Union Turnpike in Forest Hills.
By David Schneier
