Ensuring Seder Meal for Needy Jewish Families

About 300 needy Jewish families and individuals will have a chance to celebrate Passover in style--with a traditional seder meal of kosher chicken, gefilte fish, borscht, applesauce, matzo meal and other delicacies donated Sunday by five San Fernando Valley lodges of B’nai B’rith.

More than 40 volunteers worked from 8 a.m. to noon delivering the food baskets, which also contained kosher dish-cleaning fluid, a wool blanket and a bottle of wine. In addition, the baskets contained a Haggada, the book read at seder that includes the biblical narrative of the Jews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt in search of a homeland.

Seder is the festive meal that marks the beginning of Passover, which begins at sundown Wednesday. The eight-day holiday commemorates the biblical account in which God spared the Jews from the last of 10 plagues against Egypt, where the Jews had been living in exile.

Other items donated included oranges, apples, grapefruit, tea, sugar, honey, onions and eggs, said David Kaye, community chairman for the Encino lodge of B’nai B’rith.

Aid at Easter, Christmas

“We do this every year for Passover,” said Mike Singer, ways and means vice president at the lodge. “We do similar things for Easter and Christmas for other denominations. People who observe a holiday should not be denied the privilege of observing the holiday because of financial problems.”

Volunteers spent Saturday packing the boxes, which were delivered Sunday directly to needy Jews living in the Valley, Santa Monica, Venice and the Fairfax District, Singer said. Volunteers picked up the baskets behind Gelson’s Food Market at Reseda and Ventura boulevards in Tarzana, he said.

Each food basket consisted of two boxes of goods, with a retail value of more than $50, Kaye said.

“The first house I went to, the man was retarded and the woman looked like she was retarded, too,” Singer said. “What depressed me was the condition of the house. It was so bare. It looked like a threadbare coat. You see people like that and your heart goes out to them.”

Lodges’ Participation

The effort was organized by the Encino lodge, said Kaye, who has been coordinating the “Passover Food Basket Program” for 14 years. The Kadima, Rishon, Van Nuys and Haavarim lodges--all in the Valley--also participated in the effort, he said.

Kaye said the lodges paid for the food baskets with money raised at B’nai B’rith fund-raisers held throughout the year. He said the 103 baskets donated by the Encino lodge alone cost at least $4,000.

Kaye said the Passover food baskets represent only one part of the lodges’ year-round donations to a host of social agencies, which include churches and drug rehabilitation centers.

He said only about 20% of donations are made to Jewish organizations.

“We don’t see color, we don’t see race, religion, or anything,” Singer said. “People qualify if they’re needy. That’s what we’re here for.”