Table To Table

Updating a biblical concept, Israeli group
gleans for the hungry.

YOCHEVED MIRIAM RUSSO
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Beersheva
n Israeli organization devoted
to feeding the needy is updat-
ing a biblical concept as it goes
about its mission.
Joseph Gitler, founder of Table to
Table, Israel's leading food rescue
organization, said his group is "signing
up new farms every day.
"Yesterday, a farmer offered one
tomato field now and said he'd have
another soon. During the holidays —
and Pesach in particular — there's
always a huge demand for donated
food."
The concept is spelled out clearly in
Deuteronomy 24:19-22, where the
Israelites are ordered to leave unhar-
vested food and grain in the field for
"the stranger, the orphan and the
widow, so that the Lord your God may
bless you in all your undertakings."
Through Table to Table, a nonprofit
organization based in the city of
Ra'anana, volunteer gleaners from all
over the country come to designated
farms and cull excess fruit or vegeta-
bles. Drivers then pick up the food
packages and deliver them to food
service agencies that staff Israel's soup
kitchens, school systems serving needy
children, the elderly and agencies that
distribute food boxes for the holidays.
Table to Table added gleaning to its
food rescue services just before
Chanukah. Volunteer pickers have
harvested more than 50 tons of
clementines and 13 tons of persim-
mons.
Gleaned foods include citrus, pota-
toes, carrots and other vegetables the
volunteers regularly collect from ware-
houses.

A

Using Leftovers

The group's regular operations began
three years ago, when Joseph Gitler,
then a 28-year-old immigrant from
New York, went to a bar mitzvah. He
noticed that perfectly good leftover
food was being thrown away, while at
the same time, people in the streets
outside were hungry. He realized that
it would make sense to match the
extra food with the hungry people.
"Why not rescue the leftover

untouched, unserved, food and bring
it to soup kitchens so it can be used to
feed the hungry?" he remembers
thinking.
There are organizations in other
parts of the world — including an
American organization called Table to
Table, and Forgotten Harvest in the
Detroit area — that also redistribute
food to the needy. With his wife's
encouragement, Gitler began to spend
many evenings collecting excess food
in his own car and delivering it to
nearby food charities.
As Gitler's nighttime activities
became known, volunteers began
pouring in. "Now over 500 people
volunteer in our evening food pickups
from locations all across Israel," Gitler
says.
Table to Table also employs three
full-time and three part-time workers.
The group picks up extra food from
about 180 events a week, providing
about 10,000 extra meals, according
to Gitler.
Gleaning started last fall, when a
farmer in Kfar Chaim, outside Tel
Aviv, called the organization and said
he had extra persimmons that he
couldn't sell. Later, the farmer invited
the group to pick persimmons directly
from his trees.
Now, says gleaner Helene Mittman,
who made aliyah from Brooklyn 13
years ago, "It's not just fruit. We pick
vegetables, too. Every Tuesday morn-
ing, I go to a packing shed and spend
an hour picking potatoes, selecting the
ones we can use from a huge bin."
"Gleaning is great for someone like
me," Mittman says. "I'm a stay-at-
home mom with three teenagers and
one younger kid, and I have time in
the mornings. The physical labor is
great — it helps me work off stress.
And it's fulfilling to help feed people
who are hungry."
Table to Table's assistant director,
Daniel Swartz, who is from Chicago,
said, "We work to prevent waste of all
kinds. Food rescue is one part, but
we're concerned about maximizing
human potential, too.
"When we compose our gleaning
teams, we work to mix all segments of
Israeli society — religious and secular,

TABLE TO TABLE on page 34

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