I want to talk to you about something that’s very dear to my heart, and that is Jewish people in Israel living below the poverty line…and sadly, many are children, and there are a LOT of them. More than a million precious Jewish children are facing food insecurity. These precious little ones are wondering where their next meal will come from. It’s heartbreaking.
And it’s not just children. There are tens of thousands of elderly Jewish people, many of them Holocaust survivors living in poverty as well. Some of these people are among the thousands we deliver food to each week, but there are so many more in urgent need of help.
This is very personal to me because I grew up living below the poverty line. My mother was Jewish, and my father was a raging anti-Semite. We were living in the projects because we couldn’t afford to live anywhere else. My father worked at the dump, and he often brought food home from his job. Much of it was food that the grocery stores threw out because it had passed the expiration date.
I look back and remember those days, and it fills my heart with a desire for other children to have enough food to eat. I believe you share that heart for others, and that is why I am writing to you today.
The government of Israel has been forced to pour money into defending the country, and there simply isn’t enough to go around. They cannot meet these needs. But God is calling us to do something about it together.
The Word of God is filled with instructions for us on how to treat the poor—and what happens as a result. In Proverbs 19:17, it says, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward them.” And then in Proverbs 22:9, “The generous will themselves be blessed, for they shall share their food with the poor.”
I want to encourage you today to give a generous offering so that we can help the poor in Israel, especially the elderly and the children. Many of those who have been impacted the worst are the more than a million people who came to Israel from Russia and Ukraine. Many of them brought only one suitcase—all they owned in the world.
They live near the Gaza border and the Lebanon border, the areas hardest hit by the war, because they can’t afford to live anywhere else. Some have seen their homes destroyed, and most of them have PTSD.
My heart is breaking for these precious, forgotten poor people, especially the children. I was one of them. So I’m asking you to join me in being as generous as you can today as we reach out to them in Christian love.
The Lord said, “When you give a banquet, do not invite your friends, your brothers, relatives, or rich neighbors. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:13-14).
Today I’m asking you to help feed the poor of the House of Israel—the Jewish brothers and sisters of Jesus—and be a light of His love to the whole nation. Please be as generous as you can with your gift. The needs are urgent, and we must respond.
