Lending a Hand

So it's Winter Break and I wanted to do something productive.  Yesterday, I went to Carmei Ha'ir, check out their website, a soup kitchen near the Machane Yehudah Shuk here in Jerusalem.  My friend Ruth volunteers there every week so I thought I'd tag along.  It was very cool to help out.  This soup kitchen is unique in that it has more of a restaurant feel than a soup kitchen.  We serve the patrons and ask them which meal they want rather than having them come through a serving line.  I started off helping to set the tables with silverware and a bowl of soup at each seat.  Then as people came in I asked them which main dish they wanted- meat or kuba.  Kuba is an iraqi food usually something like a breaded beef pattie but this version was vegetarian.  Every person got vegetables and spaghetti as well.  Some people had special requests such as no pasta or no vegetables.  As people left, I helped clear the tables, took the used plates and utensils to the person doing  the dishes, and prepped the tables for new people.  When the crowd died down, I helped clean up everything.  I had a great time, was able to practice my Hebrew, and received many Todah Rabahs (Thank Yous).  Hopefully I'll have some time to go back a few times before I leave Israel.

Speaking of volunteering, back in November, our group took part in a project of Leket Yisrael, Israel's national food bank organization.  They take leftover food from bar mitzvahs, weddings, bakeries, etc. as well as extra produce from farms all over Israel and distribute them to soup kitchens and other social service organizations that provide food to people in need.  Leket לקט is a word found in the bible to describe the tradition of leaving extras for the poor when gleaning your fields: "When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings." (Deuteronomy 24:19)

Leket Yisrael, one of their huge trucks to transport food

Our group was taken to a farm in Rehovot and assigned the task of picking oranges.  Basically, farmers aren't always able to pick all of their fruits and vegetables in time before they go bad, so this farmer has Leket assist and then they have access to the extra produce.  I paired up with my friend Ruth and we tried to pick as many oranges as we could find.  We filled up cartons and dumped them into a huge vat.  I had a lot of fun doing this.  Don't be fooled, these are indeed oranges.  Apparently due to the water shortage in Israel, the orange do not actually turn orange.  However, I can attest that they were indeed delicious oranges.  (We were allowed to taste some.)  Our group picked a total of 500 kilos of oranges (about 1100 pounds) which were then put in food packages for about 250 families I believe!  All of that in less than an hour of picking!

getting all up in the tree to pick those oranges

one of the many cartons we filled

For more information about the places I mentioned above or to make a donation, feel free to check out their websites:
Carmei Ha'ir Soup Kitchen
Leket Yisrael