Rabbi David Saperstein, Director Emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Interviewed by Max Samis, MAZON’s Director of Communications
Max Samis: When did you first learn about MAZON?
Rabbi Saperstein: It was 1983 or 84 when I got a call from Leibel Fein (z”l). He was looking for advice about this idea of MAZON, this idea of having a Jewish organization devoted to combating hunger. His idea was to ask people to fund this by taking three percent of the simcha celebrations and donating it to MAZON. No one that I can remember had ever tried to do anything like that, and it would require the buy-in from the movements if this was really going to work. He went on a crusade traveling around the country, drawing on various connections given his leading role as a liberal ideological thinker and writer in the Jewish community. Eventually he got the Central Conference of American Rabbis and others to formally endorse his idea and the word spread, and donating to MAZON became a very common part of celebrations in the Jewish community.
Max Samis: What does the issue of hunger mean to you on a personal and professional level?
Rabbi Saperstein: One can’t be a rabbi who takes the social justice tradition of the Jewish community, tradition, and text seriously and not take just as seriously the need to combat hunger. The mitzvah of setting aside a corner of the field was a way to ensure that strangers passing through the community, as well as the community itself, would be provided for. And the prophetic call to deal our bread to the hungry has resonated through the centuries, all the way to MAZON, which merged the tradition of giving tzedakah with the mitzvot of taking care of the poor and hungry.
Max Samis: What stands out to you about MAZON in the broader Jewish social justice community?
Rabbi Saperstein: MAZON’s model is deeply and intuitively Jewish — the way that we mesh charity and policy. Very quickly, it became obvious to Leibel and everyone else that you couldn’t win the battle against hunger only by feeding people, but by changing policies to help eliminate hunger. MAZON infused this into other social justice causes, and this has had an enormous impact on the programmatic life of synagogues.
Max Samis: Where do you think advocates can best put our collective energy in the next few years to really make a difference?
Rabbi Saperstein: This is a crossroads moment for America, and there are a number of things that we can do to ensure that we don’t lose the social safety net that millions of people need to survive. One is educating our communities about the nature of hunger, and the terrible impact it has on people. We have to be sophisticated and tactical about what’s going to work in this extraordinary moment, but I know that in the hunger field, MAZON is the jewel of the American Jewish community. So this organization is going to be more important than ever in the years to come.