Commentary

Fighting Hunger Head-On

A

s children in our community
and throughout our nation
go to bed with empty stom-
achs, we look to our leaders for solu-
tions. Yet many elected officials have
chosen to ignore the needs of those
suffering from hunger by cutting suc-
cessful feeding programs and using
these lifesaving interventions as bar-
gaining chips in legislative maneuver-
ing to cut the federal budget.
This is unacceptable.
When a child is among the 1-in-4
American children who live in food-
insecure homes, that child is more
likely to have trouble concentrating
and to fall behind in school. When a
family is among the 50-million people
in the U.S. who experience hunger,
parents must often choose between
buying food and paying bills, between
finding work and preparing food for
the next meal. When a senior finds
herself among the 6 million hun-
gry older Americans, she faces the
unimaginable choice of paying for her
food or her medicine, a life-threaten-
ing decision.

On Passover,
we celebrated
freedom from
oppression in
Egypt. But how
can we celebrate
when so many
people are still
oppressed by
the shackles of
daily hunger?
During the
chanting of the
Ten Plagues at a traditional Passover
seder, we poured wine from our
glass to lessen our celebration and
remembered the Egyptians who died
as we became free. How can we cel-
ebrate freedom from oppression while
remembering there are those among
us who still do not have freedom from
hunger?

Standing Firm

Now must be a time to come together
and say "Enough!," a time to actualize
our Passover seder promise to "let all
who are hungry come and eat."
Hunger is a
modern-day
oppressor; and
only when we
join together
and work to
ensure our fam-
ily, friends and
neighbors all
have enough
to eat can we
truly celebrate
freedom from
oppression in
our past and our
modern world.
To help us
work towards
the truly achiev-
able goal of
ending hunger
in this commu-
nity, the Jewish
Council
for
CROSS
Public Affairs
(JCPA) worked
with Jewish
communities
across the coun-
try, including
Metro Detroit,
to organize
"Hunger Seders"
— translating
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Passover's mes-
sage of freedom
and renewal into
an opportunity
to advocate for
awareness of the
food insecurity in
our communities
and for the safety
nets available for
those in need.
These Hunger
Seders build on
last year's Child Nutrition Seders that
were co-sponsored by JCPA, MAZON:
A Jewish Response to Hunger, Yad
Ezra and the Jewish Community
Relations Council (JCRC) — and that
successfully advocated for the reau-
thorization of the Child Nutrition Act.
This law provides for reduced-price
and free school meals for low-income
students, often the only nutritious
meals they receive all week, as well
as a variety of other critical feeding
programs.
This was a huge step forward
towards the goal of ending childhood
hunger in the United States, but only
one step, only one piece of the puzzle
towards ending domestic hunger.

Local Action

And so, this year, the Detroit Jewish
community continued to do its
part. In recognition of the 5 percent
of Metro Detroit Jews who suffer
from hunger, JCRC and Yad Ezra
joined with JCPA and the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit
to hold a 2011 Hunger Seder on April
17 to advocate for a moral budget
that helps feed our community
through programs such as SNAP
(Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program, formerly known as food
stamps) and WIC (Women, Infants and
Children).
JCRC also is engaged in volunteer
efforts such as Project Paperwork,
which matches volunteers with cli-
ents who need help filling out online
applications for the Food Assistance
Program. Thanks to the efforts of
dedicated Yad Ezra volunteers, more
than 100 Oakland County seniors
have received SNAP benefits through
a partnership with MiCafe (Michigan
Coordinated Access to Food for the
Elderly). Yad Ezra volunteer Jenni
Moss is currently training volunteers
to register low-income families for

MiBridges, another program that pro-
vides access to SNAP.
We have made progress in the
struggle to overcome hunger in the
United States. But with unemploy-
ment rolls still staggeringly large,
it is not enough. More funding and
more attention are needed if we truly
want to end the oppression of hunger
in our midst.
Please join with us in this critical
work. Ending hunger is daunting; but
as our tradition teaches, while "we
are not required to complete the
task, neither are we free to ignore it."
Contact your members of Congress
and tell them they must vote to help
the hungry. Join us in our work to
ensure everyone achieves the free-
dom promised by the Passover cel-
ebration.

Robert Cohen is executive director

of the Bloomfield Township-based

Jewish Community Relations Council of

Metropolitan Detroit. Lea Luger is executive

director of Berkley-based Yad Ezra,

Michigan's only kosher food pantry.

standing
guard ...

... For Israel
And Our Jewish
Community

To keep the pressure on Iran
and its illegal nuclear program,
contact the Obama administration,
asking the president to continue
toward full implementation of the
2010 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions,
Accountability, and Divestment
Act. (White House email contact
form: www.whitehouse.gov/contact)

Prepared by Allan Gale, Jewish
Community Relations Council of
Metropolitan Detroit

@ May 19, 2011, Jewish Renaissance Media

May 19 • 2011 113