Brooklyn kosher soup kitchen reports sharp rise in child patrons

A kosher soup kitchen in Brooklyn`s heavily haredi Borough Park neighborhood reported a sharp increase in the number of parents bringing young children for free meals in September.

The shift - from just 300 children in August to about 450 in September, according to Masbia cofounder Alexander Rapaport - reflects both rising need among Orthodox Jews and diminished embarrassment about being in financial trouble as the economy worsens.

With most people cutting corners or inviting fewer guests to their tables,
Rapaport said, families that had been scraping by with help from relatives are being forced to turn to assistance from strangers.

On Monday, single mothers who had received special postcards from Masbia flooded a kosher take-out restaurant to pick up free meals they could prepare at home, rather than bringing their families to a public succa.

By 11:30, Rapaport said, the owner called and said he was worried he wouldn`t have enough food left to sell to his regular customers.

"A lot of people are very ashamed on a holiday to come to a public place - it`s very painful," Rapaport told The Jerusalem Post. "There isn`t a day that goes by that a woman doesn`t call me crying." Masbia, founded in 2005, serves roughly 3,000 meals a month, mainly to single men - some unemployed or on food stamps, others looking for company while going through divorces or other family turmoil, Rapaport said.

While the influx of pint-sized guests, with correspondingly pint-sized appetites, represented only a small increase in the overall numbers, the organization has been scrambling to make accommodations, including buying extra high chairs and booster seats.

Rapaport said his workers were referring the newest patrons to city and state agencies for food stamp assistance, something most had no previous experience with.

"These children don`t just come themselves, so it means a mother or a father came in with them," he said. "But they`re just lost, they don`t know our hours or anything."

Jewish social services agencies in New York said they had not yet seen a corresponding spike in requests for aid, but noted that many people already on public assistance were afraid they might be affected by the bleak state budget.

"People are really concerned about assistance ending," said Tzipporah Wisansky, a caseworker at the Jewish Board of Family and Children`s Services Brooklyn office.

The same concerns lurk in the background at private charities like Masbia, where donors have been slow to send promised checks, Rapaport said.

Yet he said there were no plans to cut back on ambitious Succot and Hol Hamoed programs, when attendance typically doubles from 160 to 300.
"We try to make it nice," he said.