The Maggid portion of the Seder tells of the Israelites’ journey from slavery to freedom.  It begins Ha Lachma Anya: let all who are hungry come and eat.  This year, don’t let these words pass by as a perfunctory beginning to the Passover story.  The rising tide of hunger in Los Angeles behooves us as a people remembering the poor bread we ate in the land of our affliction to not sit idly by while people who are hungry in our community suffer.

Please help turn yourself and your guests into educated advocates for the ending of hunger by taking a moment to read aloud the Fed Up With Hunger Maggid.  Your Seder is an opportunity to spread awareness of the hunger that exists in our community and what can be done about. 

We’ve included a ready-to-print-and-stamp advocacy letter in support of a strong reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act with our Maggid.   Join Michelle Obama and Scarlett Johansson in their campaign against child hunger and call on Representative George Miller, the Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, to make the Child Nutrition Act a fiscal priority even during this challenging time for the federal budget.  Preventing hunger-associated malnutrition is one of the most cost-effective ways we can ensure that disadvantaged children have the opportunity to grow up into healthy, productive adults. 

This Passover, bring your celebration of freedom out of the past and into the present by taking action against the modern day Mitzrayim of hunger!

On March 24th, we are partnering with MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Valley Beth Shalom, and Sinai Temple for the First Annual Los Angeles Hunger Seder. 

During the Passover Seder, we open the doors of our homes and invite all who are hungry to come and eat but are we really ready to feed all those hungry people?

The statistics are staggering: about 1 out of every 8 people in Los Angeles is hungry, making us the Hunger Capital of the US.  The number of people in poverty in Los Angeles County is roughly equal to the population of Philadephia, our nation’s 6th most populous city.  Around the world, over 1 billion people suffer from hunger.

Come to the first every LA Hunger Seder on March 24th at VBS at 7:o0 pm to learn about hunger in LA and worldwide and to learn how you can make a difference.  Register here.

All proceeds from the $18 ticket will be donated to The SOVA Community Food and Resource Program of Jewish Family Service. 

It will also be webcast at www.JewishJournal.com

Join us on the bus with The Progressive Jewish Alliance and the Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores for a tour of food deserts on Sunday, March 21st.  The bus will leave the Westside JCC at noon and tour the food deserts of Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights.  The program includes learning from health experts, text study, a visit to a community garden, talks with residents, and concludes with an Interfaith Observance of Passover. 

From our Blueprint to End Hunger:

…an assessment by the East L.A. Community Corporation (ELACC) identified one supermarket for almost 90,000 residents in the Boyle Heights area, or more than four times lower than average for the rest of Los Angeles County…61% of residents of California’s 46th Assembly districtm which includes much of Boyle Heights and some surrounding neighborhoods, are either obese of overweight.   

You can register here or click here for more information.

Back in the days of snails, pails and puppy dog tails, I would anxiously await for Valley Beth Shalom’s Purim Carnival for the chance to win a bag of goldfish.  Winning goldfish was no easy task—it usually required some heroic feat, like knocking down a pyramid of bottles with a mere two bean bags.  I relished those glorious years when I persevered and brought home a ziplock with shining goldfish darting back and forth.

Invariably, the goldfish would die within the week despite my best intentions, but that only put a small damper on my joy.  It was all for love of the chase rather than for any sort of deep seated interest in the goldfish themselves.  I’m going to be honest: now that I am older and more empathetic for my aquatic compatriots, I feel guilty.  I’ve left a lot of dead goldfish in my wake.  One might argue that depth of empathy for goldfish is not something one would expect a child to have, but that wouldn’t do much to convince a goldfish that I should be let off the hook.

Thankfully, this year, I had a chance to show that I’m a changed man. Read more »

On Sunday, as part The Jewish Federation’s Fed Up with Hunger Purim events, Jewish volunteers delivered food, toiletries, and other care essentials to people in need all over Los Angeles in the Purim mitzvah of matanot l’evyonim (giving gifts to the poor).

A group of volunteers from Federation’s Young Entertainment Division (some of whom helped organize the Ghostbusters JFS/SOVA benefit screening at Hollywood Forever during Sukkot) and their friends joined me to cook a meal for 60 residents of Proyecto Pastoral’s Guadalupe Homeless Project, the only men’s shelter in East Los Angeles (recipes below).

Even before the cooking started, the volunteers spent the earlier part of the afternoon buying all of the ingredients for our menu.  Sara Reich, who did the yeoman’s job of coordinating all of the volunteers and the food procurement, bought 35+ pounds of chicken.  Jeannine Hamaoui cleared out the produce departments of Vons and Albertsons to get the 30 bunches of Swiss Chard that we needed.  Rachel Fleischer brought enough chicken stock to fill a large kiddie pool. Read more »