Amidst Affluence, Poverty Persists Among New York Jews

from The Jewish Press

By: Elliot Resnick

“People think of Jewish poverty as an oxymoron,” William Rapfogel, executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, told The Jewish Press.

“When I first started this job in 1992,” Rapfogel recalls, “Bill Clinton was running for president and came to New York to meet with Jewish leaders. Everyone talked about what they were doing and I mentioned Jewish poverty. He scratched his head and said, ‘I came to New York City to raise money among the wealthy Jews. What kind of poverty is there?’ It kind of blew him away that there was such a thing as Jewish poverty because nobody in the Jewish community talks about it.”

And yet, the Jewish poor exist.

According to the Met Council’s most recent report, 226,000 poor Jews live in New York City’s five boroughs, with an additional 104,000 at the near poor level. Large Orthodox families, the elderly, and Russian immigrants comprise the largest portions of the poor pie. Poverty is particularly acute in Brooklyn, and is most concentrated in Williamsburg.

Factors contributing to poverty in New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, said Rapfogel, include young men in kollel, large families, a disproportionate number of elderly, the cost of living an observant lifestyle, and the low federal poverty level: $21,000 for a family of four.

“Somebody can rent a nice two, three bedroom apartment in Mobile, Alabama for $300 dollars a month. In New York you can’t do that,” Rapfogel said.

Another issue, said Masbia soup kitchen co-founder Sender Rapaport, is the all-or-nothing nature of government programs. “The benefits are set up that if you get a job you lose them immediately. And who said the job is paying you enough? Medicaid, food stamps – your account is closed right away. It needs to be a fade-out thing.”

Rapaport’s privately-funded soup kitchen (“restaurant without a cash register,” in his words) serves 160 meals a night in Boro Park, but “every person who comes to Masbia,” said Rapaport, “represents 10 or 20 people who are embarrassed to come – and I would say with women it’s even more.”

Rapaport, 29 and a father of five, said poverty has only gotten worse in the past several months. Not infrequently, he said, he has seen older men and single women rummaging through garbage bins in search of food.

And yet, he is optimistic about the future. “If America has enough money to send someone to the moon, then there is enough money to rid hunger from New York City. Masbia plans to prove this one day.”

Rapfogel was similarly buoyed when he first began working at the Met Council. Although his goal remains to “create greater independence,” he now predicts that “as people live longer and become increasingly older and more dependent, they will need our help more.”

Among its many programs, the Met Council provides housing, job training, food, clothing, medical assistance and homecare.

Asked how the greater Jewish community can combat poverty, Rapfogel said, “We need continued chesed; people to watch out for their neighbors. I can’t begin to tell you how senior citizens tell me that a neighbor who looks out for them means the world to them.

“Number two, people can be advocates to the government.


“And then those who are able need to give to tzedakah…. We have here in New York probably the wealthiest Jewish community in the history of the Jewish people. To have this kind of poverty among hundreds of thousands of people is just mind-boggling.”