Empire Poultry donates food to needy
Empire Kosher Poultry donated 50,000 pounds of poultry to a Jewish poverty group.
The food was donated through the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, which distributes millions of pounds of kosher food annually to needy households in New York City.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Jewish organizational leaders and the head of the United Food and Commercial Local 1776 announcing the donation Feb. 6 at a Brooklyn news conference.
“With so many New Yorkers facing tough times, we must all do everything we can to tackle our challenges together as a city,” Bloomberg said, according to a news release. Jewish labor leaders praised Empire for making the donation. — jta
Anti-Israel group protests DirecTV
A group that wants to cut off U.S. funding to Israel is protesting a satellite TV provider for refusing to run its ad.
The U.S. Campaign to End the Israel Occupation prepared a 30-second spot showing scenes of devastation from the recent Israeli military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and saying that “since Dec. 27, 2008, Israel has killed more than 1,300 Palestinians” in Gaza.
The ad ends with a recording from President Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” campaign speech and calls on him to “end U.S. military aid to Israel.”
In a release, the group said it had detailed discussions with DirecTV about broadcasting the ad, but the provider pulled out at the last minute. — jta
Jewish education agency going out of business
The Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education will close at the end of the month. The Feb. 9 e-mail announcement came a month after CAJE said it would not hold its annual conference in 2009.
CAJE, which has been the primary professional development organization for congregational and Hebrew school teachers for 30 years, said in the e-mail that it could no longer survive in this economic climate.
Its annual conference on Jewish education drew some 1,000 educators, but in January CAJE said it would not hold this year’s event because local Jewish agencies could not afford to send teachers to participate and the organization could not drum up enough funding to pay for the conference.
In the e-mail, CAJE said it was seeking funds to pay off some $500,000 in debt incurred from conferences over the past several years.
“It is a major tragedy for Jewish education, and I think it will be missed,” said CAJE’s executive director, Jeffrey Lasday. — jta
Reform rabbi joins White House council
A leading Reform rabbi has been named part of a new advisory council to the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, will be part of the council, which will meet at least twice a year and include leaders from the religious and secular worlds who have experience in social services.
Others tapped for the council include evangelical Christian pastor Joel Hunter; Big Brothers Big Sisters of America president and CEO Judith Vredenburgh; and Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
President Barack Obama has tapped Joshua DuBois, a former Senate and campaign aide and associate pastor, to head the council.
President George W. Bush was the first to open a White House office dedicated to funding religious groups performing social service work. Obama said during the campaign that he wanted to keep such an office, but would revamp it and elevate its prominence in policymaking. He also said that he would not allow recipients of federal funding to take religion into account when making hiring decisions. — jta
JPS expanding free book program
The Jewish Publication Society is expanding its popular Mitzvah Project Program to send free books to at least 30 underserved communities.
The program began four years ago when JPS discovered that Jews serving in the U.S. military were offered only the New Testament as their standard-issue Bible. The nonprofit publishing company responded by raising more than $70,000 to send free copies of the JPS Tanakh (an English translation of the Hebrew Bible) to 13,000 Jewish servicemen and women.
The company then established the Mitzvah Project Program, which has sent thousands of free JPS books to communities and organizations in need. Last year, JPS sent more than 500 pounds of books to 11 communities in North and South America, Israel, Europe, Africa, and China.
JPS’ goal for 2009 is to reach at least 30 communities — such as the Sefwi synagogue in Ghana, the Bnei Menashe in India, and the Seminario Rabinico in Argentina — with at least 2,500 pounds of Jewish books.