MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger is proud to announce its co-sponsorship of On1Foot (On1Foot.com), a web portal for Jewish text and educational resources that enables Jewish clergy, educators and activists to broaden and deepen their conversations about the intersection of Judaism and social justice.

We have just shared our first dvar torah (click here to check it out), which is now available for you to learn or teach. In the coming months, MAZON will contribute at least 50 unique pieces of hunger-related content for the site, including texts and text studies, lesson plans and divrei Torah. And moving forward, we are committed to sharing additional content as we create it – so feel free to check back often.

We hope you will find On1Foot to be a valuable and inspirational resource.

Related posts:

1. MAZON kicks off Healthy Options, Healthy Meals Initiative
2. D’var Torah: Chukkat

by Abby J. Leibman and Steve Gutow

April 5, 2012 | Originally published by JTA

A well-known D.C. maxim advises that any economic stimulus must be timely, targeted and temporary. So as legislators begin drafting the 2012 Farm Bill, why are some proposing to cut a program that responds in direct relation to need, supports recipients for an average of just nine months, boasts an extremely low payment error rate and in the process generates $1.79 for every $1 spent?

In the case of SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps — it’s because we have let a politically devised gross mischaracterization define how most people understand the program.

This partisan rhetoric has only intensified lately because of the upcoming presidential election. In the midst of all the speechmaking, Congress seems primed to cut SNAP, which certainly will have a devastating impact on 50 million of our fellow Americans.

As leaders of national advocacy organizations, we cannot stand by while the health and well-being of one of every six American men, women and children are threatened. As leaders of Jewish advocacy organizations, we are further compelled to act by the arrival of Passover, a holiday that opens with an invitation to “Let all who are hungry come and eat.”

If we do nothing to confront the prevailing rhetoric or challenge cuts to SNAP in the next Farm Bill, we not only will be abandoning our principles but also dishonoring the sincerity of our Passover invitation.

Every five years, the Farm Bill reauthorization process gives us a chance to re-examine our national priorities with regard to food. The bill has far-reaching impact, containing an array of titles that cover the whole process, from seed to table. Simply, the bill brings the bounty of our country’s farms to the tables of rich and poor. One of the primary ways it reaches the latter is through SNAP, which provides food assistance to those who might otherwise not have enough resources to eat. And this vital program accomplishes its function with great success.

SNAP is specifically designed to be responsive to economic conditions — to expand when the U.S. economy is weak and unemployment is high, and then to contract when the economy improves and more people are back to work. What could be timelier than providing help only when people need it?

Moreover, this help is provided with great efficiency. Exemplary among government programs, SNAP has a nearly unparalleled record of program integrity and a historically low improper payment rate of just 3.8 percent. This means more than 96 percent of SNAP benefits are accurately and appropriately delivered to those who are eligible to receive them.

For this highly targeted group of people, SNAP is nothing short of a lifesaver that spares them from having to choose between food and other necessities such as rent, utilities and health care.

A program, then, that saves lives so effectively deserves to have its story told with facts, not distorted narrative. Contrary to what some would have you believe, for the vast majority of the 46 million Americans currently on SNAP (over half of whom are children or seniors), the program serves not as a permanent handout from the government but a temporary bridge to get past hard times. On average, SNAP recipients transition off the program in nine months — receiving benefits just long enough to find a new job or get back on their feet.

But the best way to reduce reliance on SNAP is to build a stronger economy, and strengthening SNAP is one of the surest ways that Congress can contribute to our recovery. The money these families spend on food quickly goes directly into their local economy, helping to support the community and stave off further unemployment.

In addition, according to a recent census report, in 2010 SNAP helped lift 3.9 million people out of poverty. Instead of feeding a cycle of poverty, SNAP helps prevent people from being enslaved by one.

At Passover we are reminded that we once were slaves but now we are free. Like the liberty our ancestors won, millions fewer Americans feel the oppression of hunger because of SNAP. But this accomplishment, worthy of celebration as it is, is not enough. Far too many Americans still struggle with hunger, and even more will do so if funding for SNAP is cut. And so we must continue to be vigilant.

For the fourth year, our organizations are sponsoring more than 50 Hunger Seders taking place in communities across the country that will increase awareness about hunger and urge participants to take action. On March 29 we hosted the National Hunger Seder at the Capitol that united members of Congress, administration officials and national anti-hunger advocates in our commitment to freedom from hunger for all Americans.

If the Farm Bill sets the priorities for our national harvest, then from our perspective SNAP gives us a legislative means of realizing our biblical commandment to leave the “gleanings of your harvest” for “the poor and the stranger” (Lev. 23:22). By strengthening SNAP, we help fulfill that sacred mandate with a response that is timely, targeted and temporary. And in ensuring freedom from hunger, we also honor the Passover holiday now upon us.

Abby Leibman is the president and CEO of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing and alleviating hunger among people of all faiths and backgrounds.

Rabbi Steve Gutow is the president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the public affairs arm of the organized Jewish community.

Related posts:

1. Published in j. – A Jewish Response to the Farm Bill
2. Published in the Jewish Exponent | Growing Income Disparity Also Equals Growth in Hunger
3. House passes Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act!

Original article published in the Jewish Exponent on December 28, 2011

Opinion: Growing Income Disparity Also Equals Growth in Hunger
by Ruth S. Laibson

I am usually proud to call Philadelphia my home. But a recent study that highlights our city’s increasing income segregation contains some very disquieting facts that should challenge all of us to action.

The study, conducted by Stanford University, demonstrated dramatic growth in income segregation in the United States over the last four decades. Since 1970, both the poorest and the most affluent neighborhoods have more than doubled in size, while middle-income neighborhoods have shrunk by nearly one-third.

At a time when the disparity between the “haves” and “have-nots” is growing, the middle class is disappearing. Alarmingly, our city, which in 1970 was the 43rd most income-segregated metropolitan area in the country, has risen to third place. Even more disturbing, Philadelphia and its suburbs registered the sharpest rise in this segregation of any metropolitan area.

As the study notes: “The increasing concentration of income and wealth (and therefore of resources such as schools, parks and public services) in a small number of neighborhoods results in greater disadvantages for the remaining neighborhoods where low- and middle-income families live.”

The challenges abound. Children have fewer educational opportunities or neighborhood support services; adults facing economic hardship are far too often forced to make painful choices about how to stretch their limited dollars to cover even the basic necessities — shelter, medical care, food.

As a board member of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, one of the nation’s foremost food justice organizations, I am keenly aware of the shocking statistics about the prevalence of hunger in America. Fifty million Americans — including 17 million children — are too often unsure if or when they will have their next meal.

Nearly one in four U.S. households with children couldn’t afford enough food for themselves and their families in 2010. For households without children, 49 of 50 states reported food hardship rates higher than 10 percent in 2009-2010. In Philadelphia, one in four people struggles to put food on the table.

Charitable organizations, including MAZON’s nationwide partners on the front lines, are already doing their best to bear a heavy burden. How much more can we realistically expect them to shoulder?

Our elected officials are in the position to help alleviate this shameful situation. But with the current focus on reducing federal and state deficits, programs like SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps), that have proven instrumental in reducing hunger and promoting better nutrition for families in need, are at risk of being severely cut back.

It is not too late to change this paradigm. We must band together to help those struggling for food and slipping into a lifetime of poverty and despair. We must urge our elected officials not to balance the budget on the backs of the least fortunate among us.

No one can predict with certainty where the economy is headed, but it seems clear that things are not going to improve quickly. We cannot allow our continued hard times to justify the destruction of the lives and hopes of millions of American families.

Ruth S. Laibson, a resident of Haverford, is a board member of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger.

Related posts:

1. Published in j. – A Jewish Response to the Farm Bill
2. Published by JTA-Op-Ed: Keep the SNAP aid program strong
3. PB&J: A Jewish Teen Summit on Hunger

by Abby J. Leibman
President & CEO, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger
December 23, 2011

As an advocate, I often spend my days in a state of outrage. I am buffeted by chilling statistics, the devastating experiences of families in need and the grindingly slow response by policymakers to those needs. I am also regularly stunned by the assumptions made about who is hungry in America, why they are hungry and what it will take to address hunger in America. There are 50 million Americans who aren’t sure if or when they’ll have their next meal. That’s a documented fact—a painful, challenging fact. But beyond recognizing that it is an astronomically high number, how much do we really understand about that fact?

If you think hungry people are just the inherently lazy and irresponsible, think again.
The spike in the number of hungry Americans comes substantially from those who’ve lost their jobs as a result of our struggling economy. The nation’s unemployment rate continues to hover around nine percent, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in May that the number of people who were unemployed for more than 52 weeks before being hired again in 2010 was nearly triple that of 2007.

If you think government programs enable needy people to live well on our tax dollars, think again.
SNAP provides about $1.40 per person per meal. SNAP is designed only to ensure that people receive some basic sustenance so they can contribute back to society and get off the program.

If you think hunger exists because we don’t have enough food, think again.
There’s enough wheat, rice, and other grains produced globally to provide every human being with 3,500 calories a day—that’s 75 percent more calories per person than are recommended in the USDA’s Nutritional Guidelines. Hunger persists in this country not because of a lack of food, but an absence of political will to solve the problem.

If you think our national predicament is reprehensible, then take action. We must all practice and promote a holistic approach to ending hunger in America—providing nutritious food to those in need today, and working to develop and advance long-term solutions so that no one need go hungry tomorrow. The time to end hunger in America is now. We urge you to join our fight.

Related posts:

1. BUDGET: Threat to Food Stamps Lies Hidden in Ryan’s Plan
2. Published by JTA-Op-Ed: Keep the SNAP aid program strong
3. Published in the Jewish Exponent | Growing Income Disparity Also Equals Growth in Hunger

If you were waiting for the “right” moment,
that moment has arrived.

Hunger in America has never been more prevalent. And yet, for the first time in generations, funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps) could be in jeopardy. SNAP has historically enjoyed bipartisan support and protection. But the recent stalemate about the debt ceiling, and the “supercommittee” it spawned, has put the fate of this highly effective program – and the 46 millions of Americans who rely on it – at risk.
As this threat to nutrition programs has loomed large, MAZON has embraced its leadership role within the Jewish community and in the anti-hunger field. We have taken a firm public position in published editorial articles in major newspapers across the country. We encourage you to read these articles by clicking the appropriate link below:

What they’re not saying about hunger in America
- Des Moines Register, 8/30/11

Putting Jewish values on poor Americans’ dinner tables
- j. The Jewish news weekly of Northern California, 10/6/11

Americans need supercommittee to maintain food assistance
- Detroit Free Press 11/2/11

Where not to cut the budget
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/5/11

We will continue to fight to preserve the vital support that allows so many of our fellow Americans to put food on the table. But we also need your help!

Join us by raising your voice as an advocate for the 46 million Americans who need our help. Urge your elected officials to preserve funding for the nutrition programs that prevent mass starvation in our country. Write, email, or call to remind them that you will not stand for the budget to be balanced on the backs of the most vulnerable among us.

Together, we can transform how it is into how it should be.

Reaching out to your legislators is easy. Follow the simple steps below:

• Dial the toll-free number: 1-877-698-8228
• When prompted, enter your zip code.
• Listen to the brief instructions, and you will be patched through to your Senator’s office automatically.

Once you’ve been connected to the first office, deliver this message:

Please weigh in with the Super Committee personally and urge them to reject any proposals that would cut anti-hunger programs like SNAP, TEFAP, CSFP, or WIC or other child nutrition programs during the deficit reduction process. Our nation cannot afford to increase hunger in America.

After the call, stay on the line. You will be automatically connected to your remaining legislators’ offices.

Related posts:

1. Published by JTA-Op-Ed: Keep the SNAP aid program strong
2. House passes Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act!
3. BUDGET: Threat to Food Stamps Lies Hidden in Ryan’s Plan

(The information that follows is courtesy of our good friends at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC))

Funding issues are dominating the debate on Capitol Hill. Here are two opportunities for you to weigh in with your Members of Congress.

FY2012 House Agriculture Appropriations Bill

On Tuesday, May 24, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee marked up its FY2012 spending bill. The bill includes cuts to WIC, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), and The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).

The full House Appropriations Committee will consider the bill next Tuesday, May 31, and a vote on the House floor is expected in June. No timetable has been set for Senate consideration.

Click here for details on the FY2012 House Agriculture Appropriations bill.

Action Needed on FY2012 Ag Appropriations Bill:
Call your Representative on the House Appropriations Committee (click here for list), and ask him/her to speak out against nutrition cuts at full Committee mark-up next week. If your Member is not on the Appropriations Committee, urge them to speak out against the nutrition cuts when the bill moves to the House floor (expected in June).

FY2012 Budget Battles

As the House moves forward on its FY2012 spending bills, Congress has yet to settle on its FY2012 budget resolution. Yesterday, the Senate rejected the House budget bill (Ryan plan), which would block grant and slash program funding for SNAP and other safety net programs.  Click here to see how your Senators voted.

Action Needed on FY2012 Budget Bills:
Last call for SNAP block grant letter! The (absolutely) final deadline for the national, state and community-based sign-on letter opposing a block grant/structural changes to SNAP is COB Tuesday, May 31 – when the House returns from its recess – and will be sent to Congress and the White House on June 1. Make sure your organization and allied state/local agencies and partners are on – click here to sign on/view signatures.  Please make every effort before next Tuesday to ensure maximum participation from your state!

For more information on FY2012 Ag Appropriations bill or the FY2012 Budget bill and sign-on letter, contact Ellen Teller or Etienne Melcher at FRAC.

Related posts:

1. House passes Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act!
2. For our nation’s children
3. Tell Congress: Stop Raiding Food Stamp Benefits!

With the federal budget battle in full swing, Congress, media pundits and most of the general public have their attention riveted on proposed changes to Medicare and Social Security. But Social Security — dubbed the “third rail” of politics — is likely to remain intact, even in today’s hyper-partisan political climate.

Hiding in the darkness of the pages of the House of Representatives’ proposed 2012 budget is more bad news for our nation’s middle class and poor — a stripping away of federal funding for our safety net food programs. In a cruel twist, at the very same time that the budget and the economy create more jobless Americans, the help we as a nation extend to the jobless and their children is in danger of being slashed.

Congress is poised to consider major cuts in the federal budget that could forever change the landscape of America. Flying under the radar of some very public proposals is a recommendation by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to cut billions of dollars from America’s food stamp program, known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). These proposed cuts — 20 percent, in fact, amounting to $127 billion through the year 2021 — would dismantle SNAP’s essential structure and impose astonishing limitations on those who receive such help: Recipients must either be working or be enrolled in a job training program, and there would be time limits on how long one could receive assistance.

According to an April 11, 2011, report issued by the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, implementation of the proposed Ryan budget plan would result in dropping more than 8 million of the 44 million Americans currently enrolled in SNAP from the program. Most of these families, according to the center, are those with children, seniors or people with disabilities, and 93 percent of these households are living below the federal poverty line — $22,350 for a family of four.

With more and more Americans forced to enroll in the program — a nearly 12.1 percent increase from January 2010 to January 2011 alone — it’s absolutely clear that the food stamp program has prevented massive hunger in America. With the proposed changes in the Ryan budget plan, the iconic images of the Great Depression — families moving from place to place seeking work, food and shelter; hundreds of unemployed workers in lines at soup kitchens and desperate mothers begging on street corners — would no longer be the stuff of history. Those pictures would depict our lives, ourselves, today.

Who are the millions who rely on food stamps? They are your friends, your neighbors and your family. They are seniors who found themselves eating cat food because canned tuna was too expensive for them on their fixed incomes. They are formerly middle class — even upper-middle class — parents who lost jobs in this economy and cannot feed their families without the additional support of food stamps.

The America we built after the end of the Great Depression was an America that promised that we — all of us — would ensure that none of us would endure that depth and breadth of hardship again. That time gave birth to the great safety net programs we now take for granted to be there when our country faces a crisis such as the economic downturn we have been experiencing for the past several years.

Cutting the SNAP program would be devastating. Eliminating people unable to find work but still needing to feed their families not only adds insult to injury but also is a “Catch-22” from which these people cannot escape. People turn to food stamps when they lose their jobs — if they could secure employment or replace that lost income, there would be no need for them to apply for SNAP in the first place. The illogic of the work requirement would be laughable if it were not so tragic.

America in 2011 is a place where children are tormented by thoughts that they have driven their families to apply for federal help because they need clothes for school; fathers who once supported their families with ease now find themselves standing on a corner with a cardboard sign asking for work; mothers go without dinner so there will be enough food for their children to have breakfast.

This is not the America we promised ourselves. It is, however, the America in which we are living. Far too many of us are simply unaware of who is hungry and why. If these latest budget proposals are realized, far more of us will be aware of the worst, as we drive by scenes of people waiting for food. Some of us will even be in those very lines, watching as others drive by.

We cannot, and must not, turn a blind eye to what is happening in front of us. Yes, the pundits are right — most Americans will not allow those programs that affect them to be gutted. But we must show both pundits and the rest of America that merely seeking to protect Medicare and Social Security isn’t enough. We know that the challenges to SNAP are challenges to our very survival, and we will not allow our families, our friends and our neighbors to go hungry in America.

(Originally published in the Jewish Journal on 4/22/11)

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Dear Friend,

It’s almost Purim – a festive time that involves dressing up and wearing masks that hide our true identity. For us these masks are a symbol of heroism, of fighting for what’s right despite the risk involved. But for others, masks serve a different, less joyous purpose. For them wearing a mask is about hiding a painful truth from the world.

Earlier this month, 60 Minutes aired a compelling segment on the increasing number of children in America who go to bed hungry every night. It served as a powerful reminder that we cannot always know a child is hungry simply by looking at her face – that hunger often remains hidden behind a mask.

These children exist in nearly every community in the country. It breaks our hearts.

We hope you will take the time to watch this important news segment:

When 11 year old Destiny says, “And when things get better again, we know that there are still people struggling, so we’ll be able to help out a lot more,” we are reminded why MAZON exists: not only to ensure the availability of resources for Destiny and her family to find help now, but also to create a future in which Destiny will not need to help other children find enough to eat.

Please join our fight.

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In response to increasing evidence of the link between hunger and obesity, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger officially kicked off a groundbreaking initiative designed to make nutritious food more accessible for low-income families. Healthy Options, Healthy Meals is a two and a half year program funded by Kaiser Permanente, one of the country’s leading health care providers and not-for profit health plans. The initiative is designed to help food banks all over the country advance their nutrition goals and become stronger community resources for healthy eating.

“Our nation’s food banks have been taking steps to improve the nutritional quality of the food they provide,” said program director Marla Feldman. “But distributing healthier food requires that these organizations broaden the scope of their programs and practices. MAZON is uniquely positioned to help them build their capacity to accomplish this by sharing what we’ve learned the last several years working with emergency food providers on our California Nutrition and Healthy Eating Initiative.”

Participating food banks will be able to tap into MAZON’s expertise in this arena and apply effective strategies, best practices, and concrete tools that have been successfully used by their peers. Each one will be empowered to identify and implement organizational changes that will improve their ability to provide healthier food to low-income families.

“Kaiser Permanente is committed to the good health of the communities we serve, and good nutrition is an essential component of good health,” said Raymond J. Baxter, senior vice president of Community Benefit, Research and Health Policy, Kaiser Permanente. “However, in many communities across the country, good nutrition remains elusive and the prevalence of nutrition-related health issues continues to rise. This initiative is about giving low-income families who rely on the emergency food network the resources they need to eat nutritious meals and ultimately lead healthy lives.”

For more information about Healthy Meals, Healthy Options, please visit http://mazon.org/go/hohm.

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3. Healthy Eating on a Budget

(from the Food Resource and Action Center)

MAZON applauds the House of Representatives for passing The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act today. President Obama is expected to quickly sign the bill. This is very good news, but we’re not completely out of the woods yet. This bill includes a cut to future SNAP benefits; to say that this scenario is less-than-ideal is an understatement.

A number of the speakers on behalf of the bill on the House floor referenced the need to restore the SNAP cut. During meetings with House Democrats prior to the vote, President Obama strengthened his commitment  to fix the SNAP cut contained in the bill.

Just as your voices were paramount to getting this bill passed, so will they be crucial to getting SNAP benefits restored. Please call or write your Member of Congress to deliver two messages:

1. Thank them for voting in favor of the child nutrition bill.
2. Urge them to act during the lame duck session to restore the SNAP cut

Together, we have accomplished the first goal. Now let’s go out and conquer the second!

Related posts:

1. For our nation’s children
2. More Than A Shame – A Scandal!
3. White House: Child Hunger & Obesity “Is An Epidemic”