To Life!

ON TH

Paul Shaffer, left, musical

director of CBS-TV's Late
Show with David Letterman,

with shofar 'vituoso'

Joel Jacob and his son

Andrew.

Feeding
I
The World

Shelli Liebman Dorfman

Staff Writer

Activist Joel Jacob fights hunger
on multiple fronts.

38

September 14 8 2006

n 14 years, bottle and packaging sup-
plier Joel Jacob's social action efforts
have taken him from being "that guy
who invented a tzedakah can label-maker
for Yad Ezra" to "the man with a personal
invitation to speak with the president
about world hunger."
Jacob's brief Sept. 8 one-to-one talk with
President George W. Bush was an impor-
tant culmination of his successful initia-
tives, extensive travels and hands-on work
toward the elimination of hunger.
"He thanked me for helping those who
are hungry," said Jacob, chairman and
founder of the West Bloomfield-based
Bottle Crew. "And I thanked him for his
support of the U.S. Drug Administration
food nutrition programs.
"I told him I believe there are people
being born into poverty every day who
could become
great leaders of
Sen. Carl Levin, Joel
the world — who
Jacob, daughter
can bring peace,
Merrick Jacob and
cure disease and
Barbara Levin in Sen.
govern
in unity
Levin's Washington,
of
principle,
val-
D.C., office
ues and morality.
I said that with-
out our help, they will be unable to over-
come their adversity; and that first and
foremost, we must nourish them by shar-

ing the abundance of food in our nation.
"If young people do not eat well, they
will not learn well; and we need to be
there for them and for all the others with-
out enough food to eat."
Jacob remembers clearly what started
him on his dedicated fight against hunger
— a single moment, he said, "re-arranged
my head with an image that stays with me
even today."
In 1992, as a volunteer delivering food
for Yad Ezra, Michigan's only kosher food
pantry, Jacob remembers, "I knocked on
the door of an apartment in Oak Park and
a very frail, elderly man opened the door,
saw the food and started to cry. He told
me he didn't have enough money to buy
food and without what I brought him he
would not be eating that day."
With more than 38 million Americans
— including 14 million children and
members of 443,000 Michigan households
— threatened by hunger, and no national
association to advocate for them, most
would see his mission as daunting. But
Jacob has joined forces with those whose
goal is to cut food insecurity (the limited
or uncertain availability of nutritionally
adequate foods) in half by 2010 and end
it by 2015.
One thing that Jacob learned from his
immersion in issues surrounding hunger
is that fixing the problem is basic.
"The U.S. is the largest, most efficient
food producer in the world, with more

