{"id":466461,"date":"2010-03-24T11:34:40","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T15:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.rj.org,2010:\/rac\/\/2.2613"},"modified":"2010-03-24T12:30:47","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T16:30:47","slug":"a-pesach-plea-for-the-child-nutrition-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/466461","title":{"rendered":"A Pesach Plea for the Child Nutrition Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pesach is fast approaching, and as we’ve regularly reminded you here on the RACblog, the holiday is a great time to draw parallels between our history and the present. We’ve provided you some ways to integrate social action into your Seder<\/a>; earlier this week, a high school student from Arkansas told you about his confirmation class’ project to address current hunger issues<\/a> in conjunction with traditional Passover themes.<\/p>\n

Today, JTA published an op-ed by Rabbi Elliott A. Kleinman<\/a>, chief programming officer of the Union for Reform Judaism and a board member of Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger. The piece, titled “At Passover, a plea for the Child Nutrition Bill,” addresses
\nthe modern-day plague of hunger, especially among children. He writes:<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n

\n…It is the specifics of the seder’s message of freedom from hunger
\nthat cries out to us from across this land of plenty in which so many
\ndon’t have even enough food to eat. The need to eat is the most basic
\nof human needs. It is a need so vital that we must say that no one who
\nis hungry can be considered free in any sense of the word.<\/p>\n

For the Americans who live in poverty and for whom hunger is
\nthe defining feature of daily subsistence, hunger is enslavement. For
\nwhen all your emotional and physical resources and energy must be
\nchanneled into the quest for basic sustenance, nothing is left over for
\nanything else – nothing left to give to your children, nothing left
\nover for education, nothing left over to look around at the rest of the
\nworld, nothing left to find the means to move out of slavery.<\/p>\n

And it is the epitome of cynicism to proclaim that access to
\nadequate nutrition is not at the core of poverty in the United States
\ntoday.<\/p>\n

As with most of society’s ills and failures, children suffer the most. They are dependent on adults for whatever they receive.<\/p>\n

For Jews, taking care of our children and the children of our
\ncommunities is a moral imperative. Psalm 82: 3-4 calls upon us to
\n“defend the poor and the orphan; deal justly with the poor and the
\ndestitute, and to rescue the weak and the needy.” <\/p>\n

So it is appropriate at Passover time and our call to the hungry among
\nus that we also raise our voices to Congress to re-authorize the Child
\nNutrition Bill. This bill funds free and reduced-price lunches in our
\npublic schools, summer and afterschool food programs, free breakfast
\nprograms and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and
\nChildren (WIC), which provides vital nutritious foods to new mothers,
\ninfants and children up to age 5. Food that is made available staves
\noff serious health and social problems that occur later in life as a
\nresult of poor nutrition during the key developmental years.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest<\/a>
\nof Rabbi Kleinman’s op-ed here and let us know what you think. How will
\nyou use this Pesach to raise awareness of child hunger and to advocate
\nfor laws that will ensure no child goes hungry?<\/p>\n

We encourage you to host a Child Nutrition Seder of your own, or to use our simple one-page insert<\/a> to incorporate elements of advocacy and awareness into your traditional Seder. You can also write to Congress<\/a>
\nnow in support of the Child Nutrition Bill – and encourage your
\nfriends, family members and fellow congregants to do the same. Learn
\nmore at www.rac.org\/childnutrition<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pesach is fast approaching, and as we’ve regularly reminded you here on the RACblog, the holiday is a great time to draw parallels between our history and the present. We’ve provided you some ways to integrate social action into your Seder; earlier this week, a high school student from Arkansas told you about his confirmation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}