Cost Ends Kosher Meals for Elderly : Nutrition: The Jewish Family Service is searching for a kitchen and more funding.

Increased costs have forced the Los Angeles Jewish community to stop providing hot kosher meals for its old people.

Non-kosher meals have been substituted, but the requirements of religious law and tradition have kept away hundreds of Jews who previously relied on the subsidized noontime meal for a good part of their daily nutrition.

“This has been horrible for our community, and the impact on the elderly has been tragic,” said Barbara Parker, director of the senior nutrition program for Jewish Family Service.

Her agency once arranged for about 1,300 meals a day, including the delivery of 350 “Meals on Wheels” to the housebound, but the demand has dropped to about half that since the program lost its kosher caterer in mid-February, she said.

The meals are offered for a suggested donation of $1.25.

Most of those who now come for non-kosher meals at five locations on the Westside and one in the San Fernando Valley are unhappy about the change, but they need to eat, she said.

Many of them suffer from health problems that make it hard to go shopping and cook their own food.

“It’s a big shame that we have to eat treif (non-kosher food),” said Mindle Cooper, 80, after a lunch of spinach, noodles and a veal patty at the Freda Mohr Multiservice Center on Fairfax Avenue one day last week.

“I come because I cannot cook,” she said. “I have cataracts. But I tell you the truth. I was born Jewish, and I want kosher meals. My husband eats a piece of bread in the house because he won’t eat treif. I eat (here) because I’m sick and I’m cold.”

Others do without the food but come to see the friends they once lunched with. “I make for myself at home now, and it’s hard for me,” said Malvina Tennenbaum, 72, who walks with a cane and complains of arm, back and neck pains.

Officials of Jewish Family Service said there seems to be no way to resume the kosher lunches unless they find a suitable kitchen, which has not been easy.

The previous caterer, Simon Gutis, was discharged after city officials and Jewish Family Service concluded that his kitchen was not up to standard.

Gutis said that he attempted to remodel the kitchen, but that a series of setbacks prevented him from completing the job.

“It was supposed to be completed in the second week of February, but it wasn’t. Had it been, life would have gone on,” he said.

Now, community officials are seeking a kitchen of their own.

“We’re looking for something in the neighborhood of 3,500-5,000 square feet, of which about 500 square feet should be divided into a cooler and freezer,” Parker said. “It should also be within a 12-mile radius of Beverly and Fairfax.”

One possible site was sold before Jewish Family Service and its parent agency, the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, could act on the opportunity, she said.

But even if there were a kitchen, the Jewish community would have to increase its subsidy, now about $120,000 a year, by an additional $250,000 to make it worth a caterer’s while, Parker said.

The kosher food program, which has been in existence for 15 years, is partly funded by the federal government, through grants to the state and local authorities including the city of Los Angeles, the county of Los Angeles and the city of West Hollywood.

It is one of about 50 city-funded food programs for the elderly, said Tony De Clue, assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Aging.

“With each meal they have to get one-third of their USDA nutrient requirements,” he said. “But it’s not only to provide a hot meal, but to provide a place to come to and socially interact.” One aim of the program, he said, is “keeping people in the community and active, so they don’t degenerate and have to go to convalescent hospitals.”

The problem with kosher food is that it can cost up to twice as much as ordinary meals, but the city funding is the same, so caterers are left with the tiniest of profit margins, if any.

In fact, Jewish Family Service has gone through nine caterers in the past 11 years.

A year ago, the federation allocated a subsidy of 28 cents a meal in an effort to make the program more attractive, but even that failed to keep the Marriott Corp.’s food services division, which bowed out last year after a three-month relationship.

“We think it’s appropriate that all meals be kosher, and that’s what we’re striving for , (but) we are going to have to spend some very large sums of money to get out of the problem,” said Frank Maas, chairman of a committee that recommends how the Jewish Federation Council spends its money.

The situation offers the opportunity for someone of considerable means to perform a mitzvah , or good deed. But for now, Maas said, the money will have to come from the federation’s budget.

“It would be nice if somebody came up with the money, but it’s a community obligation,” Maas said.

Jack Simcha Cohen, chairman of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, said he was willing to lead a citywide campaign to raise whatever is needed to resume the kosher food program.

Meanwhile, he said, “we must make sure that those who were always eating kosher continue to do so.”