Food to the foothills: feeding Yehuda and Shomrom’s poor

Fifteen years ago, Alan Hirsch saw the inability of 22 families in Maaleh Amos and in Hebron to pay for their Passover expenses. So he paid for it himself. The following year, the number doubled and after that he sought donations to help pay for the mounting costs.

That initial solo effort has grown into a completely voluntary organization that will be providing Pesach necessities for more than 1400 families this year from $250,000 in funds. “I still have $75,000 to go,” Hirsch told the Jewish Star in a free moment from fundraising and organizing food purchases.

The Bnai Israel Matzoh Fund provides over the top kimcha d’Pischa or maot chittim (food and funds for Pesach) to residents of Yehuda and Shomron who are struggling financially. Hirsch and his associate Jerry Pasternak and his son Ari Hirsch in West Hempstead began collecting on Tu B’shvat this year, with their biggest day of collections — 19 hours of work — on Purim. The fund gets a yearly endorsement from Rav Herschel Shechter’s shiur in the Young Israel of Midwood.

Needy families receive meat, chicken, fruits and vegetables, shmurah matzo, wine, grape juice, lollipops for the children, and either a voucher for the local supermarket or a personal check with the family’s name on it. “About half the people never had meat on Yom Tov before,” Hirsch said. “We never say no to anybody.”

They gather the small donations; he even received a $4.50 check from a baal teshuva currently in a U.S. prison wanting to give his required maser (charity donation). The food is purchased or donated or sold at low cost in Israel, since the vendors want to participate in the mitzvah as well. The food is taken to four distribution points — Kiryat Arba, Itamar, Ebay Hanachal and Beitar Illit.

Every family is screened and lists are composed by the rabbanim of the yishuvim.

“It’s down to a system,” explained Hirsch. “Often, the packages are quietly delivered to the door at night, with an envelope with a check inside and a note in Hebrew that says, “Chazak vamatz meachaichem b’America” (“stay strong from your brothers in America”)

Most of the recipients work, he said, but they can’t afford the “crazy costs of Yom Tov.” Some of them are widows, orphans, victims of terror, or are ill. The communities send a brief history of the family so the fund is aware of their status and writes a check for them. “Each is checked out by the rav or representative of the rav of the yishuv before they are put on the list,” Hirsch said.

“They help tremendously,” Baruch Marzel, of the Hachnasat Orchim of Hebron, told The Jewish Star by phone from Israel. “Kol dichphin (whoever is needy)” is helped.

“What Alan Hirsch does each year is one of the most remarkable endeavors in the Jewish community,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind. “He is a superstar. His work is vital.”

www.matzohfund.com