Food packages for the needy
Food packages for the needyIsrael news photo: Flash 90

A variety of Israeli organizations are working overtime this week and next to provide all families, including the needy, with a festive Rosh Hashanah.

The Hazon Yeshaya organization plans to provide food packages to 12,000 families, in addition to giving premade meals to many more who cannot cook food for themselves. In order to get the packages out before the holiday, which begins next Wednesday night, the group is getting help from teams of volunteers.

A heterogeneous group will donate its time to the project. Among the volunteers are IDF soldiers, yeshiva students, Birthright Israel participants, and employees from the Jerusalem court system.

The packages include special Rosh Hashanah foods such as honey, honey cake and grape juice as well as fruits and vegetables and other basics.

Hazon Yeshaya was founded by Abraham Israel, a wealthy businessman who himself experienced poverty and hunger as a child, after he and his family were forced from their homes in Egypt because they were Jewish.

Many other groups plan to help the poor over the holidays as well. Yad Eliezer plans to distribute 12,000 food packages, and to support widows and orphans in particular through a special fund. The Ohr Meir & Bracha Terror Victims Support Center will distribute holiday food to hundreds of families devastated by terrorism. The Jaffa Institute in the Tel Aviv area will include gift certificates to grocery stores along with its usual packages of staple foods for the needy, allowing recipients to buy meat and dairy products in honor of the holidays.