Jews Asked to Donate to Group That Feeds Hungry

More than 1,000 rabbis nationwide will ask Jewish faithful at Yom Kippur services today, a day of fasting, to donate money they would have spent on food to Mazon, a new group which describes itself as “a Jewish response to hunger.”

Mazon, which means “food” in Hebrew, was founded less than two years ago by Leonard Fein, then-editor of Moment magazine, and is chaired by Theodore R. Mann, president of the American Jewish Congress.

Since its inception, Mazon has allocated about $260,000 to established agencies, both Jewish and non-Jewish, that feed poor people. About $500,000 is expected to be distributed in the next 12 months.

Among recipients so far have been Project Ezra, which conducts a food kitchen for elderly Jews on New York’s Lower East Side; American Jewish World Service of Boston, which helps to train volunteers for an agricultural development project in Sri Lanka, and the Wilkinson Emergency Service Center in East Dallas, which stocks a food pantry servicing recent Asian immigrants.

Mazon has raised most of its funds not from the Yom Kippur appeal but from the idea of asking Jewish families to impose on themselves a 3% “tax” to the cost of a celebration--wedding, bar or bat mitzvah, birthday or anniversary--and contribute it to Mazon. Thus, a bar mitzvah that cost $3,000 would bring Mazon a gift of $90.

Fein came up with the concept during a conversation he had in the parking lot of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino with Rabbi Harold Schulweis. The idea quickly caught on and received the endorsement of Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist organizations.

Irving Cramer, executive director of Mazon, works at Mazon’s national office in the West Los Angeles area.

Mann said that the voluntary tax is seen as an opportunity, not a burden. “Scarcely a check arrives at the Mazon office that does not include a note of thanks from the donor--thanks for the opportunity to make a difference,” Mann said.

“Mazon is important not only for those who hunger for food; it matters as well to those who hunger for meaning,” he said.