Leaders of two Jewish groups have joined an organized fast to protest proposed congressional budget cuts to poverty programs in the United States and abroad.
Initiated by HungerFast, a group led by activist and U.N. Ambassador Tony Hall, the fast takes aim at proposed cuts that would target overseas food aid and domestic programs that provide food stamps, subsidized meals for preschoolers and their mothers, and subsidized heating for the poor. Also supporting the effort is Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger.
Participants include senior staff of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body for Jewish public policy groups, and Ruth Messinger, president of the relief group American Jewish World Service.
Options for fasters during the March 28 to April 24 period include missing one meal a day; following a liquid diet one or more days a week; or living on $2 or $4 a day, which represent the international poverty level and the amount U.S. food stamps recipients receive, respectively.
JCPA staffers have chosen to miss one meal a day for the two weeks before Passover, which begins April 18. Messinger’s fast — two days on water and five days on liquids — started March 28. — jta