Your Daily Phil: Leket Israel keeping focus on helping farmers — for now
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on an Israeli teen wounded in a January terror attack who cheered on his baseball teammates as they competed in the European championship and on reactions to antisemitic vandalism in Pittsburgh. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Joshua Stanton and Rabbi Yehiel Poupko with advice for building effective long-term interfaith alliances. Also in this newsletter: Julie Marzouk, James Tisch and Jessica Fox. We’ll start with how Leket Israel has focused on supporting Israeli farmers after Oct. 7.
Nearly 10 months after the Oct. 7 attacks and the resulting conflicts on Israel’s southern and northern borders, the Israeli food security organization Leket is keeping its focus on propping up Israel’s hard-hit farmers, but has not yet decided if this will be a permanent element of the nonprofit’s activities, its founder and chairman told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
“Since Oct. 7, almost all of our work has been focused on helping farmers,” said Joseph Gitler, who launched Leket Israel in 2003 and continues to play a leading role in the organization alongside CEO Gidi Kroch.
Leket ordinarily focuses on “rescuing” crops and prepared food from industrial kitchens that would otherwise be destroyed or thrown away and distributing it — through some 270 partner organizations — to Israeli families in need. As Israeli farmers have faced a host of challenges since Oct. 7, Leket has instead organized and dispatched over 70,000 volunteers from Israel and abroad to Israeli farms to assist them plant, prune and harvest crops, which are overwhelmingly not being donated but are instead being sold in the market.
“So our [food] rescue has dropped dramatically. It’s not that the [amount of] crops our volunteers are picking has dropped — it’s grown dramatically — but we’re not getting those crops. Here and there we are… but we purchased over $10 million worth of crops since Oct. 7 to help farmers and to make up for what’s been lost because we’re not getting as much of the resources,” Gitler said.
According to a new study by Leket and the consulting firm BDO, the first six months of the Gaza war saw the amount of food wasted in the agricultural sector increase to 22%, more than double the 9% of food waste from the same period before the war. The additional 150,000 tons of wasted agricultural produce cost the economy an estimated $280 million — $185 million in the value of the wasted food, $35 million in the environmental costs attributed to food waste and $60 million in “additional healthcare costs attributable to consuming less healthy food and the resulting harm to citizens’ health,” according to the Leket study.
“This report highlights Israel’s failure on the food security front. Our national resilience was damaged. Since the outbreak of the war, fruit and vegetable prices have risen by about 13%. The food insecurity gap in Israel increased by 8%. Food waste in the agricultural sector rose by 13%,” Chen Herzog, the chief economist of BDO and the editor of the report, wrote in a statement. “While reconstructing the communities around Gaza and in the North, it will not be enough to revert to the previous situation. A new economic reality must be created that enhances agricultural output, addresses labor challenges in the agricultural sector, and creates appropriate incentives to support Israeli agriculture.”
The Hamas terror attacks and ensuing war in Gaza and fighting along Israel’s northern border have had a disproportionate effect on Israeli farmers, whom Leket has set out to help with its volunteer coordination and by establishing a low- and no-interest loan fund with the nonprofit lender Ogen and a $4 million grant fund with the Israeli food giant Strauss Group.
Gitler lamented that its loan and grant funds are insufficient in the face of farmers’ growing needs. “That $4 million fund, when we publicized it to farmers who were eligible, we got $17 million in requests,” he said. “It was really painful to see how much you had to cut people down.”
“What we’ll continue [to do] once things go back to normal, whenever it is, that is going to be a question for Leket: Is Leket an organization that part of what we do is just to help farmers, whether they’re giving us the crops or not,” Gitler said.
Gitler, who started the organization in the midst of the Second Intifada and has led it through wars in Lebanon and Gaza and through the COVID-19 pandemic, reflected on the current moment. “One thing I have to say: I’ve been here for 23 years, and we just go from crisis to crisis. I thought COVID was crazy, but this is just next level, sadly,” he said. “And it’s not over. So we’re going to continue to push.”
DIAMOND DREAMS
U.S.-born Israeli teen wounded in terror attack cheers on baseball teammates as they finish 3rd in European championship
When the Ra’anana Cadets took the field in the recent European Baseball Championship in Lithuania, the emotional center of the team, 15-year-old second baseman Nadav Kamer, was back home in the Tel Aviv suburb recovering from a January terror attack that left him severely injured. But at the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, he was decked out in a Boston Red Sox jersey — his family made aliyah from the Boston area eight years ago — and was closely following his teammates online as they competed against the best junior teams in Europe, reports Efrat Lachter for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Keep playing: Before the attack, when Palestinian terrorists struck him with a car that they’d stolen after stabbing 79-year-old Edna Bluestein to death, Nadav played baseball two to three times a week and dreamed of playing professionally. “I love baseball because there is no time limit. You can keep on playing,” he told eJP, speaking from his hospital room.
‘Better than we found it’: “The heart and soul of this team was Nadav,” said Natan Bash, the national team’s coach, who explained how the players channeled their trauma — from Nadav’s injury as well as the Oct. 7 attack — into achievements on the field. “Before the terror attack, we practiced with Nadav, who was part of the team that won the regional tournament. Thinking about him, and about our friends and families in Israel, brought incredible energy and pride, as well as healthy leadership and togetherness. This was my 12th national team, but it felt different after Oct. 7. One motto we had was to leave everything better than we found it. Whether on the field, in the dugout, or even on the bus with a non-Jewish driver, we always wanted to represent Israel at its fullest.”
Baseball again someday: Nadav’s father finds the situation bittersweet: “Nadav was able to attend the playoff games in Ra’anana and the surrounding area, and he loves being able to go, but he wishes he could be playing. He doesn’t come across as feeling sorry for himself, but he definitely expresses his wish to play baseball again. Hopefully, he will someday. It’s a good goal to aspire to.” The devotion Nadav used to put into his baseball practice, he now puts into his recovery. “He starts activities from 8:30 in the morning and goes until three-plus o’clock,” said his father. “He sometimes comes home in the afternoon for dinner and then goes back and sleeps at the rehab center during the week with one of us. So myself or my wife stay over with him every night. Nadav is very positive in his outlook. He wants to walk again. He wants to be active again. He almost caught up to level five math [the highest in Israeli high schools]. He is still in a wheelchair, but he is working hard to get out and try to walk again.”
TARGETING HATE
VP Harris, lawmakers condemn antisemitic vandalism in Pittsburgh
Leading public officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, spoke out on Monday against the vandalism of two Jewish buildings in Pittsburgh targeted with antisemitic graffiti tied to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, reports Matthew Kassel for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and Chabad of Squirrel Hill were both defaced overnight, local authorities said, with spray-painted messages and symbols including an accusation of funding “genocide” and an inverted red triangle of the sort used by Hamas to identify targets.
No place here: In a statement to JI, Seth Schuster, a spokesperson for Harris’ campaign, said that the vice president “condemns antisemitism in all forms, particularly in the neighborhood of the deadliest act of Antisemitism in our nation’s history.” He added that Harris “believes this kind of hate and discrimination has no place in the United States of America.”
Pittsburgh again: The incidents come amid a rise in antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, including several instances in Pittsburgh — where a synagogue in the city’s heavily Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood was targeted six years ago in the worst antisemitic attack in American history. “The Squirrel Hill community witnessed the deadliest act of antisemitism in our nation’s history at Tree of Life Synagogue,” Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat, said on Monday in a social media statement condemning the graffiti. “They should not need to wake up to antisemitic graffiti in their neighborhood. Vandalism of any type of house of worship has no home in our Commonwealth — and we must all continue to call it out and speak with moral clarity.”
Under investigation: A spokesperson for Pittsburgh’s Public Information Office said in an email to JI that local police detectives are “currently investigating” the two reported incidents, “including the possibility they are related,” but clarified that “there are no suspects at this time.” Laura Cherner, the director of the Community Relations Council at Pittsburgh’s Jewish federation, said in a brief interview with JI on Monday morning that the organization is now “working with federal and local law enforcement to determine the actors.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
FORGING CONNECTIONS
The American Jewish community needs a new interfaith strategy
“We should recognize this moment both as a clarion call to redouble our interfaith efforts and to reexamine how and with whom we co-create them,” write Rabbi Joshua Stanton, who oversees interfaith and intergroup initiatives for the Jewish Federations of North America, and Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, a leader in interfaith collaboration, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Times have changed: “America remains the setting of the most effective Christian-Jewish relationships in history. Too often, however, Christians and Jews have overlooked the extent to which American religious demography has changed over the past two generations… As theologically hateful and demonizing as mainline Protestant denominational resolutions about Zionism and Israel can be, they do not matter as much as they once did. There are yawning gaps between national and local leadership and between local leaders and their congregants. We can still work with individual mainline pastors and communities and stop wasting our breath condemning resolutions from declining denominations. We can also use that time and energy to refocus on the essential groups in which we have underinvested due to political differences and anxieties about proselytizing. Both are surmountable when it comes to individual friendships and showing up for each other in times of need.”
Relationship-building 101: “While interfaith collaboration is of key importance at our present moment of isolation, a longer-term approach will most strengthen our communities and the communities with which we partner. This approach must be rooted in relationships and must be local and individual in nature. One close friendship that grows over a period of years can mean more than a dozen large community-wide programs — and a community-wide program brought together by close friends can mean the most of all. For a given city or locale, we suggest a process of charting relationships, fostering new relationships, [and] creating relational programs.”
Worthy Reads
‘There’s Already a War Here’: In The Wall Street Journal, Dov Lieber and Carrie Keller-Lynn produce a searing impression of the minutes and hours after a rocket struck a soccer field where children and teens where playing in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights on Saturday. “Rmah Awad, 20 years old, who was working at a jewelry shop in the village, heard the alert and almost immediately afterward a massive boom. A five-minute run separated him from the soccer field. He ran as fast as he could. ‘I saw all the children in pieces,’ he said… After arriving at the field, Awad set about trying to help people, but they were in shock. Many were crying with their hands covering their faces or on their heads… Emergency responders began to arrive minutes later. The effort would eventually include all 10 ambulances in the Golan Heights fleet and more. Israeli medic Idan Avshalom was one of the first to get to the scene. ‘It was terrible,’ he said. He saw body parts strewn around the playing field. Items were still on fire. Many of the wounded children and teenagers were dressed in soccer gear. He began triage and quickly determined several people were dead. ‘They had the loss of human likeness,’ he said, repeating the euphemism used by Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency services operation, to mean injuries so catastrophic that it was impossible to identify the victim… Adam Mostafa, a volunteer medic who rushed to the scene on Saturday, said he wasn’t worried that retaliation might start a war. ‘There’s already a war here,’ he said.” [WSJ]
Finding Security in Community: Julie Marzouk shares her feelings about the value of community in the Jewish Journal. “My husband and I made conscious choices to live near family, near a JCC, and a Jewish day school — even though when my kids were born I was adamant that they would go to public school and the JCC is used mostly for my son’s obsession with basketball. The truth is that making a choice to live among Jews didn’t seem necessary when my husband and I made those choices. It just seemed like a nice bonus. But, it was necessary; subconsciously we must have known it. When the s— hits the fan, it is community that rises up… Of course, non-Jews live in community too. And yes, you can form community with non-Jews. It is, in fact, critical for Jews to make connections outside our bubble. But, at this moment, when the world seems to be attacking us from every corner, and people we thought were our friends turn their backs on us, there is particular strength and resilience that can be had in finding your Jewish community.” [JewishJournal]
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Pic of the Day
The Jewish Agency for Israel lit its Jerusalem headquarters with images of the Druze flag on Sunday night in solidarity with the Druze community after 12 children were killed in the town of Majdal Shams the day before by a rocket strike attributed to Hezbollah.
Birthdays
The first woman justice on the Nebraska Supreme Court, as a teen she won two gold medals and a silver medal as a swimmer at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman…
Commissioner emeritus of Major League Baseball, his 2019 memoir is For the Good of the Game, Allan Huber “Bud” Selig… Retired attorney from the firm of Hatton, Petrie & Stackler in Aliso Viejo, CA, Ronald E. Stackler… Author and longtime owner and editor-in-chief of The New Republic, he was chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation for 12 years, Martin H. “Marty” Peretz… Actor, director and producer, Ken Olin… Philanthropist and investor known as the “King of Diamonds,” Lev Leviev… Former Mayor of Arad and then a member of the Knesset for the Kulanu and Likud parties, Tali Ploskov… President of C&M Transcontinental, he served as COO for the first two Trump campaigns, Michael S. Glassner… Emmy Award-winning actress, comedian and producer, Lisa Kudrow… Head coach of men’s tennis and director of tennis operations at Columbia University, Howard Endelman… Best-selling nonfiction author, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone magazines, he is a co-creator of the HBO series “Vinyl,” Rich Cohen… District director for Congressman Jerrold L. Nadler (D-NY), Robert M. Gottheim… Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at USDOJ, Jonathan Seth Kanter… Motivational speaker, author and entrepreneur, he served as a law clerk in 2008 for Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg, the only blind person to clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, Isaac Lidsky… Senior vice president of content strategy at MSNBC, Rebecca M. Kutler… Senior producer at Vox and host and producer of the podcast of the Association for Jewish Studies, Avishay Artsy… President and founder in 2014 of Dallas-based ECA Strategies, Eric Chaim Axel… Senior director of camp leadership for BBYO, Lewis Sohinki… Author of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered: One Woman’s Year in the Heart of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem, Sarah Tuttle-Singer… Former director of policy and public affairs for the Jewish Community of Denmark, now in the renewable energy and offshore wind industry, Jonas Herzberg Karpantschof… Head of digital operations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, Tamar Schwarzbard… Managing principal of West Egg Development, a New York-based real estate development firm, Samuel Ezra Eshaghoff… Director of business development at Israel’s economic mission to the South and Midwest U.S., Joshua Weintraub… Winner of the Miss Israel pageant in 2014, she is now an international businesswoman, Mor Maman… Actress, as a 10-year-old she starred as Ramona Quimby in the comedy film “Ramona and Beezus,” and since then in many movies and television shows, Joey Lynn King…
