This ambitious goal would require making fertile even the Negev Desert, a scorched wasteland which comprises much of Israel’s southern half. (Negev is a Hebrew word that means “dryness.”) As David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, wrote in 1954, when he moved to the Negev himself, “For those who make the desert bloom there is room for hundreds, thousands, and even millions.”

Such passion accomplished incredible things. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Israelis pioneered the use of “drip irrigation”—which delivers water directly to a plant’s roots. Later innovations in desalination processes and water recycling drew the world’s attention. Soon enough, an arid coastal plain between the Mediterranean and Dead Seas was alive with vast fields of watermelons, tomatoes, olive trees, and date palms.

Since then, however, the garden hasn’t continued to bloom equally for all Israelis. This became clear when I visited Rachel Bier, a young social worker in Dimona, a poor village set hard along the Negev’s edge. Beir is a slender and pale young woman, who always wears her hair covered by a knotted silk scarf. As she tells it, most of Dimona’s economic problems, and the domestic difficulties they cause (such as husbands beating their wives), can be traced back to decisions made a half-century ago.

“When he set about to establish the state of Israel, Ben Gurion knew everyone in this country could not live in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. So, he decided to send various groups of people to the Negev. At that time, there was nothing here. I mean, literally, nothing. Ben Gurion hoped these new citizens would bring life to the desert and, in fact, some of them did. But many more were simple people, who’d come from simple lives, and they couldn’t cope. They came to Israel because things were not good for them at home, yet they had no education, and no money, to bring with them. Some people succeeded wonderfully and have thrived here; others, totally failed.”

Today, the area’s original settlers (who came from Russia, India, Morocco, and Roumania, among other places) are mostly old people. It is these senior citizens who are fed at the Meir Panim soup kitchen in Dimona, which is also where Beir has an office and her counseling practice. Through a few emails with a man named Nissim El-Mekayes, the restaurant’s manager, I’d arranged to assist in cooking there for a few days.

Traffic was scant on my drive down from Jerusalem. For many miles, as I drove through the desert, all I saw were ramshackle groupings of huts built of corrugated tin, and blown nearly flat by the constant wind and sandstorms. These are bedouin communities, and the Israeli government would very much like to see these sad camps eradicated, and the Bedouins relocated into better housing. Bedouins are nomads, however, and prefer freedom and dwelling close to the land, even when this also means they live in squalor.

The terrain I was passing through used to be along what historians now call the “Spice Route.” It started in Yemen, where a particular tree produces sap which was dried and turned into incenses like Frankinscence and Myrrh. These precious substances, sweet-smelling when burned, were used in the temples of Jerusalem, and elsewhere, to mask the horrible odor created by all the animals sacrificed during holy rituals. On a journey that spanned nearly 2,000 miles, traders would traverse the Arabian Desert to the city of Petra (in what is Jordan today), then head across the Negev. Caravans of camels were required, maybe several thousand at a time, to carry food, water, and guards to protect against bandits. Finally, when the caravans arrived at Gaza, on the Mediterranean Sea, the incense, as well as spices such as pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, and saffron, was shipped to India, Africa, and around Europe.

My journey in an air-conditioned, four-wheel drive vehicle was altogether less arduous. I arrived in Dimona earlier than expected, and found the restaurant closed. It was barely eight o’clock in the morning, yet the sun was beating down mercilessly. I found a concrete bench in the shade of a covered porch, and waited for what came next.

Lined up on the porch to my right are a collection of cardboard boxes. Later, I’ll learn these containers hold produce that’s been deemed too bruised, molded or mashed for Albert, the restaurant’s head chef, to cook with, and so it is left here, free for the taking. A small group of solidly-built women rummage about, speaking loudly in Russian, as they salvage what they can of peppers, tomatoes, red grapes and eggplant. Obviously, they haven’t come from too far away as they wear shapeless “house” dresses, and bedroom slippers. They ignore me, and I do my best to avoid looking at them.

Instead, I pretend to be captivated by a clumsily-executed mural painted beside Meir Panim’s front door. It featured a caricature of Laurel and Hardy, a comedy team who were extremely popular in Hollywood during the 1920’s and 30’s. What are they doing here? I dimly recall Laurel and Hardy made a movie called “The Sons of the Desert,” though this film allusion seems too obscure to explain their presence in dusty Dimona. Next to the actors’ faces was Hebrew lettering, a translation of which only compounded the mystery. It read, “This is a House of Food. Be Satiated, and Be Humble.”

Nissim now arrives, and hurriedly tours me about his facility. He is a giant of a man, easily 6’ 7”, and he has fantastically large ears, hands, and feet. My neck will soon begin to ache, as I’m forced to constantly crane my head back to make eye contact with him. Nissim’s personality, however, seems somewhat dwarfed by his physical enormity. He is not, I immediately discern, a man much given to talking. This, combined with his rudimentary English, makes some of his statements seem abrupt and slightly callous. His customary response to nearly every question I ask is to laugh nervously, as if to say, “Really? You want to know that?”

Ten volunteers, mostly women, come every day to help out in the food preparation. In the dining area, I see them gathered about a long table, busily engaged in peeling carrots and pumpkin. In my week of traveling about Israel, I’ve eaten many meals at free restaurants, but this is the nicest dining room I’ve seen yet. One wall is decorated with floral-printed curtains, and a rippling swag of small Israeli flags is strung up from one corner of the room to another.

Nissim and I stand observing the workers for a few moments, and soon enough, all of them stop work and look up, not with quick, shy glances, but long, unblinking stares. I pretty quickly infer from their wide-eyed and overly-animated facial expressions that most, if not all, of these women have mental disabilities. Not knowing quite how to ask Nissim about this,
I inquire if these women are criminals, like the volunteers I’d spend time with in Tiberias
and Jerusalem.

Nissim chuckles, and replies, “No. I tried that. But I didn’t like having this type of man around. I found their energy to be overly aggressive. With these women, it’s more, how shall I say? They have problems in their heads. They are not normal. No one else would take them, so I hire them. It’s nice. At least most of the time.”

He exhales loudly. After a long silence, Nissim speaks again. “Now they are calm but, trust me, there are times when you don’t want to be around them. The littlest thing can make them upset or angry. A single word can set them off. You never know where or when it’s going to happen, but no matter what, I have to stay calm.”

Though he makes no mention of it, I will subsequently learn what extraordinary efforts Nissim makes on behalf of these women. Among countless other kindnesses, he always arranges a special Pesach feast for them, along with their families and friends. At last year’s Seder, I’m told, over 200 people came.

We leave the dining room, and head into a large and exceedingly well-organized kitchen, where Nissim introduces me to Albert, the chef. Albert is midway through one of the countless cigarettes he smokes each day. He is wearing black pants, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a black yarmulke. Albert doesn’t speak much English, but I’m made to understand that he immigrated from Morocco. I’m not surprised,
as the scent of North African spices are in
the air as Albert stirs a vat of mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, and green peas. He offers me a spoonful.

“Taim,” I reply, using one of the handful of words I’ve learned in Israel. It means “delicious.”

Nissim takes me back to his office, as he wants to show me a scrapbook he keeps of all visitors from Israel and around the world, who’ve come to see this free restaurant. He’s especially proud of a photograph of himself with Jill Biden, the Second Lady of the United States. (I am astonished the Vice President’s wife ever found her way to this woebegone spot.) He offers me a glass of very cold, and very sweet orange juice.

Nissim is 47 and has six children, two of whom are currently serving in the Israeli army.
He opened Meir Panim here in Dimona ten years ago. Before that he worked in various factories in the Dead Sea area, which is nearby, and a rich source of chemicals and minerals, many of which end up being used for medicinal purposes. When I asked him what sorts of things he made, Nissim replies, “Magnesium, mostly. It’s used to make soda cans, and … what is the word, in English, for the thing that makes your bowels open?”

“Laxatives?”

“Laxatives, that’s right. I helped make laxatives.”

I’m quite certain this is the first time I’ve heard this job description.

Why did he decide he wanted to run a soup kitchen?

Nissim smiles, and thumps his chest. “If everyone learned to help others, there would be no problems in this world,” he said. “The future of Israel is its children. If they learn English and Math, and I give them food, they will not end up on the street.”

He then smiles, awkwardly, as if he’s not sure if he’s made a fool of himself by making such a sincere statement. I want to tell him how moved I am by his generosity of spirit, yet I know this will only further embarrass him.

Standing up, Nissim abruptly announces he must now leave, as he’s about to go deliver food to various groups of schoolchildren. While he’s gone, Nissim suggests I help make lunch with the other volunteers.

I find my way back to the dining room.
The women have finished the carrots and pumpkins, and have moved on to making a fruit salad. I’m unsure how to join into this operation. Visitors do pass through here from time to time, as Nissim’s guest book can attest, but I doubt many have sat down with the volunteers. In addition to barriers of language, there’s also
the ticklish question of how the sexes are separated in Orthodox Judaism. Handshakes, or any sort of touching, is strictly a no-no. As such, I am acutely aware that I’m a man, a gentile, and a stranger.

To my surprise, then, one of the women hands me a paring knife. Its blade was about as sharp as a piece of cardboard, but I set to work peeling mangoes and peaches, de-stemming grapes, and slicing bananas. Another woman, it’s now revealed, speaks some English. She does her best to translate a fusillade of questions that are now shot my way, as well my answers.

Talk about a captive audience! I probably could have simply opened my mouth and yawned, and still these women would have been spellbound by the sounds I made. All were staring at me, laughing excitedly, and parroting back phrases in English as soon as I’d said them. Their questions came in overlapping waves, so I could never be quite sure if my answers were matching up to any particular inquiry. As they were rendered by the high, gentle voice of the translator, too, nearly all of their questions were limited, somehow, to three words.

“You live where?”
“What you do?”
“What you write?”
“You are rich?”
“You travel world?”
“You go India?”
“You go Goa?”
“She from Goa!

At this, all fingers were pointed at one woman, who promptly screamed in embarrassment and dropped her face forward directly into a huge pile of peach peelings.

“You like Israel?”
“You are Jewish?”
“You are Christian?”
“You no Arab, right?”
“You are married?”
“You have girlfriend?”
“You want girlfriend?”

Only these last questions posed any difficulty for me. Homosexuality is not unknown in Israel, of course, though it is still frowned upon among Orthodox Jews, as Nissim had told me many of these women were. Since I’d arrived in Israel, if anyone asked about my marital status (as Israelis invariably do, and within seconds of first meeting you), I had made no attempt to hide my sexuality, or my life with James. Still. Even though they seemed highly amused by the interrogation I was enduring, hadn’t Nissim told me these women could become extremely upset about even very small things? Proof enough was the Indian woman, from Goa, whose face was still buried in the peaches, just because a few fingers had been pointed her way.

What was I to do here? I thought if I said I was gay, or married to a man, this crowd might get more excited than I would know how to handle. As it happened, though, my failure to answer the question was only making them more agitated.

“You married?”
“You have girlfriend?”
“You married?”
“You married?”

“No,” I finally replied, giving the answer that “confirmed bachelors” have probably given for centuries. “I guess I just haven’t found the right girl.”

This was met with a chorus of groans, and one woman burst into tears.

“I be your girlfriend!”
“No, I his girlfriend.”
“Me, girlfriend!”
“Me, girlfriend!”
“No, me girlfriend!”

It went on like this for quite some time. I peeled mangoes, and spoke not another word.

The next day, I arrived at Meir Panim at half-past seven. Albert told me I could help cook today’s lunch, but first I had a meeting with Rachel Bier, the social worker I’d met earlier. She tells me more about her clients in Dimona. Even those who have jobs, mostly in the Dead Sea factories, make such low wages that after paying rent and utilities, they don’t have enough money left to buy groceries.

“There is tremendous anger. There’s drug and alcohol abuse. And sudden eruptions of violence, for no particular reason. A lot of men need therapeutic treatment, but they won’t come. They say women are the cause of all their problems. Their wife deserves to be beaten because she doesn’t get dinner served on time, or keep the house clean. All problems get worse, though, when you are hungry.”

Another challenge is the fecundity of Orthodox women.

“The Haredim, or the ultra-orthodox, think having many children is a gift from God,” Beir explains. “A lot of women want these children, even though they don’t have any real way to pay for them. ‘It will be fine,’ they think. ‘God will take care of me.’ Then, when they can’t feed all these kids, they end up coming to Nissim.”

Many of these ultra-orthodox women are completely unfamiliar with the concept of birth control. And, curiously, though her English
has been excellent up to this point, Bier
herself does not have the words for what she now wants to say. I teach her the words “contraception” and “abortion.” We sound them out together, several times. Cont-tra-CEP-tion. A-BOR-tion. She knows how to speak these concepts in Hebrew, of course, though Beir feels she can’t press either alternative too
hard upon Haredim women, no matter how poor they are.

“At the end of the day, I return to my house, they go to theirs. I can teach the existence of certain tools, but only they can decide whether or not to use them.”

Listening to Rachel, I find myself wondering how soon it will be before different nations in the world begin to legislate child-bearing, and when birth control will become proscriptive. China has been pilloried for its one family/one child rules and the draconian measures they have taken to enforce this limit. In the future, will China’s stance appear forward-thinking and progressive?

I suspect it will.

It’s now time for me to join Albert in the kitchen. As a sanitary measure he instructs me to put on a white plastic laboratory coat, which is nearly the equivalent of wearing a large garbage bag. It’s close to 100 degrees outside, and no sooner do I put this body-encasing sheath on, then I begin to sweat. Moisture runs off my chest, through my underwear, and down my legs. Welcome to the Negev in summertime! I’m a son of the desert, literally sweating in my boots.

Israeli folk music blares in the background, as the perfume of roasting vegetables fills the air. Moving about the kitchen, I pass through separate clouds of pumpkin, fennel and garlic. The odors are so strong, I feel like I’m eating with my nostrils.

I am put work washing enormous piles of shredded cabbage. First one rinse, then a second, and third. I’ve never been this careful when making cole slaw at home. Usually, I’ll just slice the cabbage as thin as I can, and mix it with dressing.

Albert runs an extremely tidy kitchen. Pots are hosed down before they are washed. They are then dried, and put away at the bottom of a pile, and new ones, from the pile’s top, used for the next task. “Food that is clean tastes better,” he explains, with a shrug. This is a truth so obvious, it hardly needs mentioning. Yet, in this place, where the bar could be set far lower, it is poignant to see how fastidious Albert’s techniques are.

At work on a side dish, he mixes rice with red peppers, carrots, onion and paprika. It smells like Heaven. He’s working in a large stainless steel pan about the size of a shallow bathtub. It has electric heating coils underneath, and can rotate and be emptied by disengaging two central screws that keep it upright, and then pivoting the front downwards. When Albert is done with his recipe, he dumps out rice in huge splurts, expertly filling one stainless steel tray after the next. Making his dexterity all the more remarkable, is that he does this one-handed, while sending a text on his cell phone with the other. Now that’s multi-tasking. I am impressed.

Next he begins to heat up a melange of peas and mushrooms he’d cooked yesterday. Albert believes flavors need to meld, and dishes taste better on the second day, reheated, then they do when first made. As such, he is forever planning and preparing recipes one or two days in advance, and then leaving trays of food to “improve” in the walk-in refrigerator. Later, when I follow him into this chilly cavern, I am amazed at the exotic ingredients donated by local farmers; there are many boxes of sprouted Mung beans, Enoki mushrooms, bunches of fresh mint, Swiss Chard, and cilantro.

He sends one of the volunteer girls out to the nearby market, and she takes off at a run, soon returning with two packs of Marlboro Light cigarettes. Before she hands them over, though, much high-volume haggling passes between them. From what I can tell, their argument is over how many cigarettes he will give as payment for having completed this errand for him. Finally, I see Albert fork over exactly one smoke. The girl scurries off, waving it above her head like she’s the victor.

Perhaps because he’s embarrassed I’ve witnessed him in this stingy transaction, Albert now begins screaming at me. “Hurry with the cabbage! There are pots to be washed, too!”

“You know why Moroccans put tampons in their noses don’t you?” This question comes from a man with a South African accent. I turn around, and see a gentleman who appears to be in his mid-sixties, with a brush-cut mustache standing by my side. He’s smiling, and nodding his head towards Albert, the chef. “That’s because when they’re angry, all their blood rushes to their head.”

I smile, even though it takes me a moment to get this crude joke.

The man, who is another kitchen volunteer, introduces himself as Jay Sher. No sooner have we shaken hands in greeting, than Sher wants me to know that he’d recently had an operation on his brain that allows him to carry a medical card proclaiming he suffers from “major memory deficit.” (He gets the card out of his wallet, and proudly shows it to me.) What might have discouraged another man, was for Sher an opportunity. He insists he gets away with murder, saying anything and everything that pops into his mind, as he can later always claim he has no memory of what he just said or did.

I couldn’t tell if this was all a gag, or the truth.

Sher helped me finish washing the mountain of shredded cabbage. He’s originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, but came here as a 19-year-old volunteer to fight with the Israeli Army during the Six Day’s War of 1967. He’s full of exciting tales of skirmishes along the Syrian border, and explanations of how wealthy South Africans figured out ever-more complicated ways to smuggle money into Israel for the war effort.

“Jews will be Jews,” he said. “They are, by and large, a clever bunch.”

“I know, Jay,” I replied. “I live in Manhattan.”

He was extremely charming. If this was what it was like to have a “major memory deficit,” it didn’t seem too bad. Sher invited me to come visit him at his home at the Kibbutz Revivin, which was only a few kilometers away, and was where Golda Meir retired. (Revivin means “a light rain,” something quite desirable in this parched terrain.)

“The glory days of the kibbutzim was in the 1970’s,” Sher said. “Revivin is one of the last of the Mohicans, a real old school kibbutz. We have what’s said to be the biggest olive tree orchard in the whole of the Middle East.”

As he explained it, after Ben Gurion sent some settlers down to what became Revivin, they discovered that beneath the arid terrain of the Negev Desert sits a large subterranean reservoir of brackish water. This allowed them to plant orchards of Halutza olives, the soil and micro-climate conditions proving so ideal, Halutza Olive Oil is now revered by connoisseurs around the world.

Guests are lining up again. It’s time to serve lunch.

I will not be staying today, as I need to drive on to Tel Aviv. After I take off my plastic lab coat, I find a men’s bathroom, and do my best to mop off my sweaty skin with paper towels. Then, I say my goodbyes to Rachel, Nissim and Albert. As I pass out the front door, I look once again at the mural of Laurel and Hardy. “This is a House of Food; Be Satiated, and Be Humble.”

There’s something odd about that wording. Satiety and Humility are nearly antithetical states of being, aren’t they?

Lined up on the porch, and down the stairs, is a crowd of people waiting to be fed. I see some of the same Russian ladies from yesterday. I recognize them because of their slippers and house dresses. As I walk down the stairs, I see that my new friend, Jay Sher, is sitting in the back seat of a black Mercedes sedan, talking on a cell phone. His chauffeur is settling himself into the driver’s seat, and adjusting a pair of sunglasses.

Sher waves to me jauntily, as the car takes off, about to return him to the kibbutz.

For him, at least, the desert has clearly bloomed.

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This last surprised me most, as I stood outside a free restaurant in Tsfat, a small town to the north that’s located atop Israel’s third-highest peak. On my way from Tiberias to Jerusalem, I’d made a side trip to this mountain village, which is a center for Jewish mysticism, and study of the Kabbalah. As I wandered about, I’d discovered Beth Hiabsil (or, “House of Eat.”), a free restaurant which is mostly patronized by Tsfat’s elderly citizens. A sign outside proclaimed it was funded by a grant from The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

I was curious to find out more about the Claims Conference, but this research would have to wait, as my visit to Beth Hiabsil was on a Saturday morning, midway through shabbat, and the place was locked up tight. Jotting down the address, I noted this soup kitchen was adjacent to the Beirav Carlebach Synagogue on Meginei Street.

My face turned towards my notebook, I was startled to hear a voice behind me. “Tsfat is like a big circle. No matter where you start, you’ll end up coming back to the same place.”

When I turned around, I saw a bearded man in his mid-fifties. He was smiling. As we shook hands, he told me his name was Irving Ginsberg. “It’s spelled like Alan Ginsberg,” he said. “You’ve maybe heard of Alan Ginsberg, the great American poet?”

I agreed that I had.

In short order, it was established that Irving Ginsberg grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City, but is now the cantor/ spiritual leader of the Beirav Carlebach Synagogue. He pointedly demurred, though, from calling himself rabbi. Shlomo Carlebach has been dead for many years, but Ginsberg hinted, without exactly spelling it out, that through his ministrations at services, and prayers of the faithful, Carlebach’s spirit returns each shabbat. Thus, Ginsberg still considers Shlomo Carlebach to be this synogogue’s official rabbi.

Intrigued by all this, I ask Ginsberg if he has a moment for a quick question.

“I have two moments! I have many more than two! Come into my office. Come! Come!” Ginsberg is practically shouting his welcome as he unlocks the temple, and insists I pass through the door before him.

We sit in his office and I describe my gastrophilanthropy project, explaining that I’m trying to find out what might be distinctive about soup kitchens in Israel. I’m curious to learn more about the Claims Conference, too. But first, can he tell me something about Talmudic tradition, when it comes to charity?

“In Judaism,” Ginsberg begins, “to share something you have with the needy is not, it is not, a question of yes or no. It is a must!”

This custom originates with the Hebrew Scriptures. In several passages in the Torah, God commands the Jewish people to perform acts of tzedakah (pronounced tseh-DUH-kuh), which is the Hebrew word for “justice” or “righteous behavior.” This definition, however, somehow misses the mark, as charity is typically understood to be a spontaneous act of good will that’s indicative of the giver’s special generosity. In Judaism, Ginsberg explains, tzedakah is no whim, but an obligation. Doing what is right towards the poor and hungry
is a central part of being a good Jew.

“If you have something, you must share it!” Ginsberg cries, his voice again getting
quite loud. “God says, ‘If you are rich, it’s only because I gave this to you. If you give
it back to others, you prove to me I was correct to have entrusted it to you in the first
place. If you don’t….”

Ginsberg raises his hands, palm up, and makes a dramatic shrug. “Well, money comes, and money goes.”

He leaned back in his chair, and smiled. “So, Jews must give, but this is all within reason. If you make 3,000 dollars a month, you can’t give away 4,000. Obviously! So, a good rule of thumb is you are supposed to give 5% from the profit. Pay your expenses. Take care of your family. But what’s left over? Give 5% of this to the poor and needy.”

In my Baptist upbringing, it was always taught you were supposed to tithe 10% of your salary (meaning, the “gross”), not 5% of the profit (or, “net”). As if he’s read my mind as I calculate all this, Ginsberg continues speaking.

“In addition to that, though, charity is something Jews are commanded to do every day. You can always find someone who needs something, even if it’s as little as a dollar, or a dime, or it does not have to be money! Maybe it’s a box of pasta, or an old pair of shoes. We are to make ourselves ever aware of needs around us, and seek to do something about them, every day. If, in the unlikely circumstance that you don’t run into someone who needs your assistance on any given day, however, there is always the pushke!”

The what?

He explained that “pushke” (pronounced PUSH-kee, PUSH-kuh, or PISH-kee) is a Yiddish word, derived from Polish, and it means a little can or container kept in the home, often in the kitchen, in which loose change is deposited. When your pushke is full, you give this money away to a charitable cause. Hearing this, I suspect that the “March of Dimes,” started by FDR in the 1940’s to fight polio, was an appropriation of this Jewish notion to fill little tins with coins.

I mention my earlier conversation with Rabbi Kalmonfsky, and his idea of the “Charity Police” who could simply demand money from the more well-off citizens to be given to the needy. Irving Ginsberg takes some exception to this.

“It’s not so much the giving was forced. Or, at least it’s certainly not that way now. It’s something rather more like, if you give, and give big, you will be greatly blessed. You get a better seat at the shul. People recognize you for your generosity. There are worse things to be known for, right?”

Indeed.

After bidding Ginsberg farewell, I went directly from his office to a store in Tsfat that sold Judaica. I bought two pushke, one for my office, and the other for my bedside table at home. From now on, I decide, all my pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, will be collected in these boxes and donated to charitable causes. I notice my new pushke have tiny padlocks — presumably to prevent anyone (me?) poaching from the poor.

Driving on to Jerusalem, I think more about my chat with Irving Ginsberg. Among other things, he’d explained that the mission of the Claims Conference was to secure some measure of justice for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, through a combination of negotiations, disbursing funds to individuals and organizations, and seeking the return of Jewish property lost during the Holocaust. Since 1952, the German government has paid more than $70 billion in indemnification for suffering and losses resulting from Nazi persecution. A percentage of this total has gone towards the creation and maintenance of senior centers, and soup kitchens to feed the hungry.

This seems just desserts, I think. Then, I worry that, under the circumstances, this pun is unforgivable.

Jerusalem’s Meir Panim free restaurant is located on Hatzvi Street, nearly in the shadow of the city’s Central Bus Station. Traffic in this part of town is fierce and frenetic, as buses arrive into the country’s capital every few minutes from all over Israel.

A few young men, who look nearly identical in age and demeanor to those I’d seen up in Tiberias, are mopping the floor as I enter the restaurant. Others are hoisting about tables and chairs. All are amusing themselves as they go about their work, by singing, in phonetic English, the cadences of the U.S. Navy marching song, “…I don’t know, but I’ve been told: Navy wings are made of gold…”

I approach a couple of these workers, and ask for the manager of this soup kitchen. “Excuse me. Is Aryeh here?” They look at me for a moment, and then burst into laughter. Rather than answer, they repeat some of what I just said, continuing to practice their English.

“Egg-scooze me!”

“Ek-coose me!”

I am embarrassed, but realize it will only make things more awkward if I appear bothered by this slight mockery. I smile, back away, and go sit at one of the empty tables. I am a few minutes early for an appointment to meet with a man named David (“Dudi”) Roth, who is the national director of all Meir Panim soup kitchens in Israel.

Gazing about, I see a great many signs posted on the walls, announcing benefactors.
“Meir Panim is generously supported by the Iranian-American Jewish Federation of New York.” Or, “Frances Frymet (Auschwitz Survivor) in memory of her family who perished
in Treblinka, and her friend, Rosa Robate, who perished a martyr in Auschwitz.” Or, “250 meals at Meir Panim Free Restaurant were generously contributed by the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, California.” And dozens more, worded similarly
to these.

So many tzedehahs, for just one soup kitchen!

Only now do I notice a man sitting at a table in one corner of the restaurant. I guess he must be a probation officer, checking up on these young lawbreakers who are working off their sentences. When I attempt to photograph some of the benefactor signs on the wall, he mistakenly thinks I am trying to snap his picture. The officer jumps up from his seat and waves me off vehemently. He is equally humorless and brusque with the boys. As one after another sit before him, the officer scowls mightily, doing his best to demonstrate how very, very serious he is about his job. While they talk, he makes notes on a legal pad, and occasionally checks his Blackberry.

A few more minutes pass before Dudi Roth arrives. He’s dressed as an Orthodox man, clad from head to toe in heavy black cloth, which makes him look quite a bit older than his 51 years. Roth seems harried, and announces he has only a few minutes to sit with me. That made clear, he immediately launches into what I infer is his “stump speech.” It begins with a preamble about Dudi Zilberschlag, who founded Meir Panim fifteen years ago. The two men were friends, and about 11 years ago, Zilberschlag asked Roth if he would help run the organization.

Roth was, at the time, living in Brooklyn, with his Israeli-born wife, Esther. He had a business selling electronic equipment such as televisions, stereos, and DVD players. “But we were not blessed with a family of our own, and after years of not having children, Esther says to me one day, she says, ‘let’s go back to Israel, where my family is.’”

“We had 21 years of consultation with doctors that all ended in sorrow. There was no chance, absolutely no hope for us having children of our own,” Roth recalled, shaking his head sadly. “So, after being in Israel for a couple of years, we were about to adopt. My wife, though, wondered if we shouldn’t try one more time. We talked to our doctor, and he said it was a waste of time and money. But my wife was adamant. It was on shabbat that we finally found out the test results were positive. A miracle had befallen us! My wife, my Esther, was pregnant!”

Befallen? His archaic choice of words only amplified how much Roth’s story sounded like one from Hebrew Scriptures, say, that of Abraham and Sarah?

“Here I thought all my prayers were answered, but then came the hardest part,” Roth continued. “It was September 18, 2001, and my wife, my dear, dear Esther, is diagnosed with preeclampsia.”

This, he explains, is when a pregnant woman develops high blood pressure and hypertension in her second or third trimester. Doctors advised if the baby was not taken out, either mother and child would die. Maybe both. Faced with such awful alternatives, Esther Roth underwent a Caesarian section in her 25th week of pregnancy.

“For hours I waited, praying with all my faith. Finally, I found out, my wife had survived, and I was the father of a girl! She was so small, she could have fit into the palm of my hand. How can I describe what I was feeling? Sorrow, panic, fright, hope. After decades of struggle to be parents, now it seemed like our problems were just beginning.”

The baby girl weighted slightly more than one pound, and was given only a three-percent chance to live. She stayed in an ICU at the hospital for six months, at the end of which, the medical staff told Roth and his wife they should not try to take care of the child, and she should be institutionalized.

“They said we wouldn’t want her, she would be so deformed and mentally-impaired. Yet, today, she is 11 years old, and is completely normal. She gets 90 to 100 on all her tests, and other than for sniffles or minor cuts, she has never had to see a doctor again, since coming home. In some ways, she is smarter than her father. One thing is for sure. Her English is better’n mine! I don’t speak so good, ‘cuz I’ze originally from Brooklyn.”

I suspect this is a joke Roth has told many times before, but I grinned, obligingly.

“That is what made me get involved with Meir Panim. You see, we’d been blessed, my dear Esther and I, but there are still many more children who need help, children who through no fault of their own are born into bad circumstances. I made a promise to help each child in Israel — and, it didn’t matter if the child was Jewish, Christian or Arab.”

This promise, Roth acknowledges, has not been easy to keep. With the Israeli economy in such bad shape, it is exceedingly difficult to raise money. “In Israel, people don’t usually want to give shekels; they prefer to give value.” For instance, restaurants intentionally cook too much food, and donate the extra to soup kitchens. Food is the least of his costs, though. What’s more expensive is paying the rent and utility bills for the Meir Panim locations. “I can only do this, if I have strong partners,” he says. He then gestured towards the signs and plaques I’d noticed earlier.

Aryeh Cohen arrives at the table. He runs this free restaurant, and it takes only a glance to see the job takes a heavy toll on him. Aryeh has a fretful air about him, with a forehead that is perpetually wrinkled with worry, and a posture that’s bent over by the psychological burdens he carries. Dressed in the same all-black ensemble as Roth, Aryeh’s coat and pants are not terribly clean, but splattered with food he’s been cooking already that morning. On his feet are a pair of well-worn black Nike sneakers. He has extra-luxuriant payes, which are the side curls of hair worn by Orthodox Jewish men. Aryeh’s payes dangle down to
his waist.

Later I learn he immigrated to Israel (or made “aliyah”) nearly three decades ago from England, but his voice still carries the accent of his native Newcastle. He speaks very softly, so I must frequently ask him to repeat what he’s said. He now apologizes, nearly in a whisper, that he doesn’t have much time for me this morning. Some of his workers are exceedingly “rough boys,” he says, and today they are overly excited by young women in the kitchen.

As Aryeh rushes off, Roth explains there’s another problem today — namely, a surplus of volunteer workers. Two different families, one from Canada, another from the United States, will be showing up in an hour or so, to serve lunch as part of celebrations surrounding both a bar-mitzvah and a bat-mitzvah. These volunteers, of course, are in addition to the “rough boys” who are already making Aryeh’s day difficult.

No sooner has this been explained, than pandemonium erupts. The Straus family, all fifteen of them, have arrived early! They hail from Kew Gardens Hills, which is in Queens, New York, and have traveled to Israel to honor thirteen-year-old daughter, Michal.

Dudi Roth swings into action, greeting these visitors, and making them feel welcome. “Have you ever been inside a soup kitchen?” he asks Michal. The girl blushes and smiles, but doesn’t answer.

Undeterred, Roth continues joking. “Well, you are going to have to put on plastic gloves. I bet you’ve never done that before, either, have you?”

As he leads the Straus family back to the kitchen, Aryeh says seventy-percent of the
people who show up at this free restaurant are senior citizens. Meir Panim also delivers meals to hundreds of house-bound seniors every day. He points out his dwindling store
of dehydrated soup packets. Not too long ago, he’d been given a mountain of boxes,
nearly 1,500 in total. Each carton contained over a hundred packets of dehydrated soup
in a variety of flavors made by the Knorr Company. Now, Aryeh says, he only had forty of these cartons left.

It is a peculiar thing about soup kitchens, this braggadocio about quantities and
numbers. Soup kitchen proprietors are justifiably proud of how much food they serve.
Yet, at the same time, they must be saddened and ashamed that so many people
would go hungry otherwise.

Aryeh gestures towards a series of enormous stainless steel sinks, where countless potatoes are soaking in clouded water. All need to be peeled and chopped, a daunting task which I tackle along with the Straus family. While we work, I talk with Avigail Straus, the mother. I can’t help but notice she appears confused about how to use the peeling tool Aryeh gave her.

“I brought my children here so they could see life is not all ‘No, I want sushi! We had Chinese last night!’” she says, in all seriousness. “We don’t see this sort of poverty in New York. Not where we live, at least. I always say, ‘there but for the grace of God….’”

I’ve heard this expression my whole life, and even used it more than a few times myself. Hearing it now, however, it struck me as heartless and absurd. Why is God showing grace to us, in New York City, but not to these poor people in Jerusalem? Why would God treat some people with more generosity than others?

Shouldn’t someone organize a Claims Conference on the Almighty?

Such thoughts are pushed aside, however,
by the work of the next hour. Lunch today is roasted chicken, lamb goulash, potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and rice. Aryeh told me about an organization called Lekot, which arranges to harvest any unpicked fruits or vegetables from various agricultural centers in Israel, and then distributes this produce to places like Meir Panim.

“Every Monday someone from Lekot will call and tell me what they’ve got, and it is delivered the next day,” he said. “This week, I got plums. Lots and lots of plums.”

Just before noon, people begin to filter inside. They choose their tables, groups of three or four senior citizens all clustered together, kibbitzing, as they wait to be served lunch. It is a hot August morning, and the restaurant’s interior has no air conditioning, so the front door is wide open. Buses headed in and out of Jerusalem’s Central Station roar past every few seconds, and an Israeli flag hanging there flaps and flutters in the commotion.

Because the dining area at Meir Panim is small, seating only forty or so at once, there is no fixed hour for lunch. Instead, people are free to come in whenever they like between 12:00 and 1:30 p.m. “I don’t like it to be all one go. I could not handle everyone we serve if they all came at once,” Aryeh said.

Like Varda Sohan, the manager in Tiberias, he knows the personal history for most of his regular clients.

“He’s an Arab!” Aryeh says, in a whisper, almost as if he’s embarrassed to speak the word. He’s pointing to a very dark-skinned man, who sits alone, and is sweating profusely as he eats. He’s so overheated, in fact, that a moment later he’s taken his shirt off, and is sitting bare-chested. After finishing his lunch, he pulls out plastic containers, and asks if they
can be filled up, too. “It’s food for his kids,” Aryeh explains. “His wife used to come in
here, but she was too picky and would only take the stuff she liked to eat. The children
were starving!”

About another woman, he observes, “She has three children, and all of them are autistic. Do you know what autism is in America?”

I assure him that, yes, sadly we know all about autism in America.

The station from where food is served is barely six feet wide. To prevent congestion, volunteers act as waiters and waitresses, and today it is the Straus family’s job to bring trays of food to the assembled guests. In honor of her bat mitzvah, Michal Straus is allowed to deliver the day’s first meal. As she walks towards an old man sitting alone in the corner, she carries the tray, and herself, with all the self-consciousness of a nervous girl who hopes to be invited to sit at the “cool kid’s” table in a junior high cafeteria. With a shy smile, she places a tray down in front of the elderly gentleman. He doesn’t acknowledge her presence, but begins to eat. His hands shake quite badly, with what appears to be Parkinson’s disease. While maneuvering the fork towards his open mouth, much of what he’d scooped up falls onto his shirt front.

During the next two hours, more guests, and still more, continue to arrive. They shuffle into the restaurant, sit down, and plates full of goulash are placed down in front of them by Michal, as well as others of the Straus family. People eat, either not noticing, or not being interested, that these strangers are doing a “mitzvah” around them. I’d guessed their lack of response would discourage Michal, but I was wrong. She brings what must be her strong competitive streak to bear on even this task. She will deliver more trays, and smile at more hungry people than anyone else! No sooner does she drop off one tray, than she races back to the serving line to pick up another. Aryeh smiles fondly while observing her zeal.

Things turn briefly weird when a guy comes in who appears both mentally-ill and drunk. He’s carrying many plastic bags, the rustling bustle of which adds to a swirl of chaos he creates around himself. His shirt is buttoned wildly out of sequence and is bunched up sideways across his chest. It looks as if he’s slept for many days, and maybe even urinated onto, the grimy pants he’s wearing. His sandals reveal toenails that are swollen with dirt and fungus.

Dropping his many bags beside one of the tables, he brushes aside all offers of food, preferring to barge up to the serving line himself, where he grabs two plates of stew, and half a dozen slices of white bread. Returning to the table with these, he lays out three slices of bread. Carefully picking only meat out of the stew, he makes sandwiches with the lamb chunks, mooshing them closed with a hand so dirty, it leaves a shadowy imprint of filth on the bread’s surface. The guy shoves these moist sandwiches down into the bottom of one of his bundles.

“Aryeh! Aryeh! ARYEH!” he now began to scream.

Still behind the serving counter, dishing up food for others, Aryeh rushes out, a white plastic apron flying up about his waist. By gently squeezing the man’s arm, and whispering soothing words into his ear, Aryeh manages to calm this gentleman down, and even to make him giggle. He nods his head in agreement to something Aryeh has said. With exaggerated care, the man now picks up his bags, and makes his way out the front door.

“Dining with Dignity” is a slogan often used to describe the distinctive style of gastrophilanthropy practiced at Meir Panim’s free restaurants. Just how difficult it is to maintain decorum in such a setting is powerfully shown by the gale-force of crazy energy created by this one guy.

The lunch shift ends, and those few diners who remain come up to the serving line, and Aryeh scrapes the scant leftovers into their Tupperware containers, or even just plastic bags. He warned me it pains him deeply when anything goes uneaten, and I can see that’s true by how carefully he wields a spatula to coax every last drop of food from each pan. Nearly 300 people passed through Meir Panim today, Aryeh tells me, as he stands over the garbage can, looking at what did and did not get eaten. For that large of crowd, there are actually very few plate-scrapings here, though if the truth be told, the mushrooms were a wee bit salty and not to everyone’s liking.

“I don’t need compliments on my cooking. It’s not like I wish people would say, ‘Oh, this food is delicious!’ I just want people to clean their plates,” he says. “My father was from Poland, and was poorer than poor. I can’t stand to see any food go to waste.”

He suggests we have a cup of tea. He could now relax for a minute, but I sense that
Aryeh never truly relaxes. He seems perfectly content (or unaware) that he’s still wearing a white plastic apron, and rubberized gloves. Aryeh tells me he is 50 years old, and has ten children, two of whom now live in the United States. Before coming to work at Meir Panim, Aryeh studied the Torah full-time, and taught many students. Did he miss doing this all
day, I ask? Wouldn’t he prefer to be studying and teaching, rather than working here at
Meir Panim?

After thinking this over for a moment, he tells me how easily discouraged and angry his Torah students would become. “‘I don’t understand! I’ll never understand,’ they would cry.” Aryeh would have to stop, and back up to the point where he had lost them. “O.K. you get this, right?’” he’d say before moving on. “And, then, you understand this, yes?”

He continued, “each step builds on the next, until they are well past the point where they got confused just a few minutes earlier. It’s about patience. If a child sees you are not being patient with them, they will never understand.”

We hear a whoop of laughter from the kitchen. When Aryeh looks up, he sees a pretty young girl is once again being the cause of flirtation and distraction for some of his
young criminals.

“These boys … They didn’t get good treatment at home. They never learned how to keep themselves out of trouble.”

He now frowns and, to my surprise, mentions Avigail Straus, the mother from Queens,
New York. Earlier, he’d handed her a peeling tool, and asked if she’d start working on the potatoes. “But she didn’t know how! How is it possible a woman her age would not know how to peel a potato?”

Before I could answer, Aryeh offers his own theory.

“I guess she’s probably rich enough, she has some machine that does it for her. Bzzzt! Bzzzzt!” Aryeh was imitating the whirring sound of the blades on this fantastical appliance.

No, I assured him. Other explanations were more likely. Avigail Straus had a servant to do such kitchen chores for her.
Or, she never cooked at all, preferring the ease of restaurants and frozen entrees heated up in a microwave. Or, maybe she was so nervous about gaining weight, that she never ate carbs.

“Carbs?” Aryeh asked, his brow knotted with worry. “What are those?”

“Carbohydrates. Like in pasta, or bread, or potatoes.”

“There are many Americans who never eat potatoes or bread?”

“Many,” I said. “Especially if they are rich.”

Aryeh stared at me, dumbfounded. It was as if I’d divulged that many Americans
are vampires.

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“There is a myth all Jews are wealthy, that every Israeli is a Rothschild,” Varda told me,
the first morning we met. “On the contrary, many people in this country are in nearly desperate straits.”

These are difficult times in Israel. Nearly a quarter of the country’s population lives below the poverty line. On a daily basis, it’s estimated that one out of every four adult Israelis goes hungry, and two out of every five children.

An estimated 400,000 people gathered for a recent march along Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard; there have been angry protests in many other cities across Israel, too. So deep is the despair that at one of these rallies, two men — one of them was the son of Holocaust survivors — set themselves on fire. Both men died as a result of their injuries.

“A Buddhist monk in Saigon, maybe,” Varda said, shaking her head. “But for a Jew to pour gasoline on themselves and light a match? It’s unthinkable.”

Varda and I were seated together inside her sunny and clean restaurant, which is part of an organization called Meir Panim. Founded in 2000 to help alleviate suffering caused by poverty, Meir Panim (Hebrew for “Lighting up Faces”) is Israel’s leading relief agency, and operates over 30 food and social service centers throughout the country, including nine free restaurants. Meir Panim feeds nearly 5,000 people each day.

“We serve people with dignity and respect,” said David Birnbaum, the Executive Director of American Friends of Meir Panim, a non-
governmental organization based in New York City. Most of the funding for this N.G.O. comes from Jewish communities and wealthy individuals who live outside of Israel; Mortimer Zuckerman, the Manhattan publisher and real estate tycoon, is a major donor. “It’s not about a soup line, and a piece of bread along with a bowl. We want our guests to feel like we really care for them. This will help them gain self-confidence,” Birnbaum said.

I’d arranged to visit, and cook at, Meir Panim locations in central Jerusalem, as well as at Dimona, which is south in Israel’s Negev Desert. My first stop, however, during a few sultry days at the beginning of August 2012, was in Tiberias, which sits on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. So-called “Holy Land” tours, which are primarily marketed to American Christian groups, tend to focus on Galilee’s eastern shore, where Jesus preached his famous Sermon on the Mount.

In Tiberias, many ancient stone columns remain that were erected two thousand years ago by Roman pleasure-seekers who came here to relax in the area’s natural hot springs. Following the exile of Jews from Jerusalem in the 1st and 2nd century AD, however, Tiberias became a center of Jewish life, and academies of Talmudic study flourished here. A Tiberian system of grammar and punctuation for the Torah eventually became standard for all Hebrew. In honor of this living history, Tiberias is today considered one of Israel’s (and so, Judaism’s) holiest cities.

The Meir Panim facade is all glass, and looks out onto Hagilil Street, one of downtown Tiberias’ best avenues; it is handsomely landscaped with palm trees and well-tended flower beds. The restaurant’s interior is a long, tall-ceilinged space, which for most of the day is so filled with sunshine, no electric lights need to be switched on. Completing the decorative good cheer is a breakfront cabinet filled with tchotchkes — stuffed animals, teapots, and other bric-a-brac — as well as vases full of silk flowers.

You’d never guess it was a soup kitchen, an observation that, when made to Varda, pleases her enormously.

“When I first opened it, I said I wanted people to feel happy, not like their coming here to eat was a shame or something to be embarrassed by,” she said. “We ask no questions. People show up by mistake sometimes, and I will have to explain what Meir Panim is. I am proud this place looks enough like a regular restaurant that people might not know the difference. Besides, I never know from how someone looks, how needy they might be. We feed whoever comes in: Jews, Christians, Arabs, Muslims. Everyone is welcome.”

Varda’s parents emigrated in 1950 to Israel from Arbil, Iraq which, she tells me, has a history dating back to 6,000 BC, and is considered one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world. Aged 54, Varda is a heavy smoker, and has a raspy voice to prove it. She has dark brown eyes, which are deep-set, and nearly lost in dark shadows. A pile of gold bangles clatter about at one of her wrists.

She’d been working as the manager of a food storage facility, which shipped ingredients
to restaurants and cafes all across Northern Israel. Then, nine years ago, a friend who is
in local government of Tiberias asked her to help open a soup kitchen for hungry people, and Varda agreed to take on the challenge. This location on Hagilil Street was already a restaurant, so the initial task was relatively easy, she said. “At first, it was one by one.
But pretty soon, we were a full house. The restaurant feeds between 150 and 250 people
a day.”

“It is very hard in Israel now. The price of bread is up! Petrol, up! Alcohol, up! Cigarettes, up! It’s all up and up and up and UP!” After Varda speaks, she smacks the table between us with her palm, and the bracelets at her wrist sound like a dropped platter of silverware. It’s one of her standard gestures of emphasis, yet in the two days I spend with Varda, I never get used to it. I jump each time.

“Some people eat here, others, especially if they have kids, will bring along some sort of plastic container, and we’ll put food in that for them to take home. There are a few street people, and a few who drink or do drugs. Most of our diners, though, are old people who just don’t have enough money to live on,” she said.

The food is free, but if someone can afford to give any money, they are charged two shekels, about 50 cents, for an all-you-can-eat meal. “For some people, giving this money is a way of maintaining their dignity.”

Varda has one paid employee, Ziva Sharon, a woman who is her best friend. Ziva is in her mid-sixties, and has her still-dark hair pulled back from her face, and tied into a ponytail. She, like Varda, likes to wear Capri pants, and gaily colored sandals. Ziva has a crooked smile, that makes any expression of joy she makes look more quizzical, than truly happy. Varda and Ziva are assisted by a cadre of youngsters they call “the criminals.”

Because Meir Panim is a Kosher restaurant, a man comes from the rabbinate every few days to make sure Varda is following dietary rules as decreed by the Kashrut. Of these, the most important is a prohibition against any mixture of milk and meat. Not only should these items never be blended in any recipe, but additional rules dictate how separate a person must keep them inside their own body. For instance, those who eat meat must then wait six hours before drinking any milk. Conversely, milk drinkers must wait two hours to eat meat.

“I’m not Orthodox, but I respect the idea of kosher,” Varda said. Although she knows all the rules — no pork, no shellfish — she admits there are still some she doesn’t completely understand, but adheres to nonetheless. “For some reason, I’m not allowed to serve cauliflower. I don’t know why it’s not kosher, but I don’t cook it.”

Varda furthermore explains there are various levels of the Kashrut. “There’s kosher, and there’s Kosher, and there is KOSHER,” she said, slicing her hand horizontally in ascending heights. “The top-top-top level of Kosher is very expensive, and we can’t afford to do
that here.”

On the menu for today are chicken drumsticks, schnitzel, hot dogs, rice, roasted potatoes, pumpkin soup, beet salad, carrot salad, bread, and water. There’s usually a piece of fruit for dessert. Fresh produce is occasionally given by nearby growers; the Upper Galilee is something like the Salinas Valley of Israel, and has many farms growing fruits and vegetables, not to mention grapes for wine. Most of the prepared food, like todays’ drumsticks and schnitzel, is donated from nearby hotels.

The morning quickly passes as the Meir Panim team works to get these various menu items ready. Soon enough, lunchtime guests begin to arrive.

Many people dine here because they are lonely, Varda believes. She points out a woman who appears to be in her late sixties; she wears a brightly-colored tunic top, over a long skirt. Her hair is bundled up into a knitted cloche, a type of head covering which is popular with Orthodox women.

“See her? She looks after herself. She’s clean, but she probably gets no more than 1300 shekels each month from the government (a little more than $300), and what sort of life can you have with that?” Varda leans forward and drops her voice. Now I’m going to get the real story. “This woman has one son, and her daughter-in-law doesn’t like her, and doesn’t want her around. So, she has three grandchildren that she’s never even seen!”

An obese man waddles in the front door. He is wearing the full garb of an Orthodox Jew: a black overcoat, vest, pants, and a broad-brimmed black hat. Out of the side of her mouth, Varda muttered, “O.K., let’s see what this one wants….”

As it happens, he demands to know just how kosher the food is. When Varda tells him, he leaves, apparently not satisfied.

“It’s a funny thing. Some poor people try to maintain their self-esteem by being fussy eaters. You’ve maybe heard the expression that beggars can’t be choosers? Well, I see it all the time! People will be hungry, but they claim to be unable to eat certain things — tomatoes, say, or onions — as it might upset their stomach. I tell them, what really upsets your stomach is when there is no food there!”

Boom! She drops her hand to the tabletop again with a clatter of her bracelets. I flinch.

Varda is a shrewd judge of character. Her head jerks up as the door opens, and she gives a quick glance of surveillance to anyone who enters. She seems to know everyone’s story. And what she hasn’t yet learned, she will ascertain in the not-too-distant future. What is the secret of her rapport, that all these strangers easily share their life stories with her? My question causes Varda to let loose a snort of impatient laughter. “It’s pretty simple,” she replied. “If people look sad, I talk to them.”

Lunch is served from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and diners can drop in whenever they like during this time period. All the while, Varda works the room, as if she’s the hostess of an especially swell cocktail party. She gives hugs, and shoulder rubs, as well as offering words of comfort and advice. Most often, she merely listens, nodding her head with interest. Her phone rings constantly, and several times it is her four-year-old daughter, Leah, who is calling. Varda, a single mother, proudly shows me the child’s picture.

As the crowd begins to thin, she invites me to sit with her again. Varda lights a cigarette, and tells me the story of how she became pregnant. “At a certain point, I said to myself, ‘O.K., I guess I am not going to get married. So, I’ll have a baby on my own.’” From the ages of 39 to 50, Varda underwent 21 different attempts at artificial insemination, and endured 21 miscarriages. “I did not give up. I was going to be a mother! Finally, just as I was about to turn 50, God says to me, ‘here is your birthday present!’”

Varda shows me another picture of Leah. Twenty one miscarriages! The story is so improbable, nearly miraculous, I hardly know what to say.

Instead, I ask about the young men who are working as volunteers — serving up food, washing dishes, and cleaning the kitchen. They pretty much keep to themselves, I’d noticed, preferring to sit and talk only with each other. Sometimes they horse around, or arm wrestle; at other moments, they stare straight ahead, eyes blank and sullen.

“They’re criminals, all of them,” Varda replied, with a shrug.

I laughed, nervously, assuming this was just a figure of speech. This turns out, however, to be an accurate assessment. These guys are working at Meir Panim as part of a “community service requirement” because they are each guilty of some minor crime or misdemeanor. They are assigned lengths of service from one month to six months, and they have to show up here at Meir Panim (or at hospitals, police stations, old folk’s homes) where they work for seven hours each day.

“No one is a murderer — at least that I know of!” Varda said, with a scratchy chuckle. “Maybe they were driving without a license, or got into a fight with their parents or wife. A lot of them are married, and have children.”

If an Israeli youngster has any sort of criminal record, Varda tells me, they are ineligible for Israel’s mandatory draft into the Army. She feels military service is an important rite of passage for many youths, as they are forced to become responsible. “We hand them guns. They are given the power of life or death. That makes you grow up pretty fast.” But her volunteers, the “criminals,” as she calls them, haven’t been drilled with Army discipline. It falls to Varda to help them straighten our their lives.

“I tell them it is shameful to steal, it is no shame, however, to do dishes!”

She continues, “Their probation officers come each week, and we go over their cases. They each have a card. I make notes, and I record if they are late, or don’t show up, or are lazy. If they don’t do their jobs ….” Varda claps her hands together, her bracelets jangling. “….Then, they’re off to prison! Meir Panim is kind of like their jail, too, but I always tell them, they’d rather have me for their warden, than what they’ll get behind bars.”

This is tough love, Tiberias-style.

“Ziva and I care about this place, and the people who eat here. We want to keep our restaurant very clean, and we get nervous that sometimes the boys won’t do things right, but will take shortcuts. I tell the boys, if one of our guests gets sick, it will be their fault. You’ll see,” Varda says with a wink. “Ziva and I scream at them a lot.”

Varda is not exaggerating, as I will soon learn.

That afternoon, after leaving Meir Panim, I wander along Tiberias’ beach front for a while. My movements are slow, as the promenade is crowded with families, youth groups, and what seem whole temples full of Orthodox Jews who’ve come here for vacation. Their sober attire is in marked contrast to the lurid beach scene. Shops are selling scanty bathing suits in acid shades of orange and chartreuse, while blaring the latest songs by Rihanna and Nikki Minaj, yet this crowd dresses only in black and white, their bodies full covered, even when they go swimming. It is perplexing to see teenagers splashing about in the water. The boys have on long sleeve white tunics, worn over long black pants. Girls are clad in voluminous black bloomers. All this fabric appears to be something of a health hazard, especially for those who don’t know how to swim. More than once, I see a girl knocked over by the tiniest of waves, who then must be helped to stand upright again, as the sodden folds of cloth weigh her down and upset her natural balance.

I am also shocked at the size of the average family. It is not unusual to see groupings of eight or more, with toddlers pushing baby carriages which hold their younger siblings. Orthodox Jewish law commands married couples to have sex every shabbat, and frowns on the use of contraception. Is it really possible these women are happy to be forced into such non-stop fertility?

Seeing all this begged-for bounty, I’m reminded of something I’d learned from Rabbi Jeremy Kalmonofsky, who is the spiritual leader of Congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. While I was planning this trip to see Israeli soup kitchens, I’d met with Rabbi Kalmonofsky, to ask about the role of charity in Judaism.

“What you need to understand,” he said, “is that for most of pre-modern Jewish history, until the 20th century in some cases, Jews tended to live together in near-complete isolation from the dominant culture, be it Christianity or Islam. Jews lived in shtetls, or ghettos, where they only associated with other Jews. As such, Jewish communities were almost like Indian reservations. They had their own elders, and their own law.”

“An important part of this set-up,” Rabbi Kalmonofsky elaborated, “was how the town’s governors acted as the police authority, or nearly a parallel judicial system. They would
visit each family regularly, sometimes every week, sometimes daily, and they would place
a charitable assessment on each household. Giving to the poor was not optional. It was mandatory. Those who were richer were expected to help support those who were
less fortunate.”

It occurs to me that a Meir Panim truck pulling up to the kitchen of a luxury hotel along Tiberias’ waterfront was something similar to this — a kind of enforced form of charity. I wasn’t sure Varda was in the mood to muse philosophically, however, so I contented myself with asking, “What’s for lunch today?”

“It’s a little like Chanukah every day,” she replied. “We never know what we’ll be given; it’s always something of a surprise. So, we open up all the packages first, to see what we’ve got. If there is fish, this must be the first thing to go. Anything with tomatoes, we can’t keep for longer than a day, as it goes sour right away.” Today, once all the foil is removed, there are many trays of roasted potatoes, others containing green beans mixed with sliced carrots, as some with pieces of poached salmon.

Varda bends over to smell the contents of every pan, taking a pinch of this, a nibble of that, to see how things have been spiced, and to make sure her nose isn’t deceiving her into thinking something might taste good, when it doesn’t. A magician when it comes to re-purposing left-overs, she deploys many tricks to cheer up food that may be a day or two old. Varda doesn’t deliberate long, but quickly decides which ingredients will be combined, or kept separate. The salmon goes into a warming oven, while she begins sauteing a large pan full of cut-up hotdogs, to blend with the roasted potatoes.

I chat for a moment with one of Varda’s volunteers, eventually working up my nerve to ask what was the crime he committed, so that he’s working at Meir Panim. He’s a good-looking man, maybe 22 years old, with long eyelashes and shining, dark hair that curls gently around his ears.

“I did funny things with Visa, selling access to stolen credit card numbers over the Internet.” He cocks an eyebrow at me, as if to say, “you probably would have done the same, if you were smart enough to know how.”

He was in prison for three years in Tel Aviv, and is now serving the last six months of his sentence with Varda. I want to ask him which was harder — jail or Meir Panim — but from the way he keeps nervously darting glances at Ziva and Varda, I already have an answer to my question.

The day is getting hotter and hotter. Through the glass front of Meir Panim, I see troops of tourists trudging past, on their way to Gai Beach, where they will pay 80 shekels to swim for the day. I suddenly realize this same amount of money would buy a poor person 40 meals — a month and a half of freedom from hunger — here at the restaurant.

Around 10 a.m., there is a lull. Ziva and I are serving up small plates of carrot salad, to have them ready for the lunch rush.

Ziva tells me she’s a second generation Israeli; Ziva’s parents came from Syria (her Mom) and Morocco (her father). She’d formerly worked selling cosmetics and “natural” skin products at a hot springs resort a few miles farther down the beach. She’d also volunteer from time to time here at Meir Panim. Ziva knew how hard Varda worked, and how difficult it was for her to be alone all day, surrounded by young men who were in trouble with the law. One day, Varda’s father asked Ziva if she would also work full-time at the free restaurant.

“He said Varda and I were not only good friends, but we were like sisters. Sisters will have fights, sure, but they will make up, too. He convinced me to take this job. That was seven years ago.”

But why did she come here, I ask. Wasn’t it much easier to sell cosmetics?

Ziva sighed, and explained more of her background. She was born in 1950, when there were worse problems for Israel and its neighbors, than exist today. Back then, she says,
the east side of the Sea of Galilee still belonged to Syria, and life around the lake, even over here in Tiberias, could be dangerous as a result. Her father was a policeman on a boat, and one day, the other cop on this boat was shot and killed by a Syrian sniper. Ziva’s mother panicked, and insisted her husband quit and find some safer line of work. He tried various things, all relatively unsuccessfully, but to keep food on the table, he moonlighted as a fisherman.

“In April, the St. Peter’s fish, which is the most plentiful kind of seafood in the Sea of Galilee, all go over to the eastern shore to lay their eggs. They become scarce here on the west side, and their price goes up. My Dad had a friend who said to him, ‘It’s Passover. Early in the morning, we will go a little bit further out into the middle of the sea, closer to the east bank, throw one net, and come back. There won’t be any problems.’”

Ziva pauses, and smiles one of her crooked grins.

“I was eight at this time,” she continued. “My Dad and this other guy, they row out. They toss one net. Then, a Syrian shot my father right between the eyes,” Ziva says, pointing a finger at her own forehead. “He fell into the boat. That was it. He was already dead.”

With five young daughters to care for, Ziva’s mother was a widow. It was a terrible struggle, each day, to keep the family clothed and fed.

“The mentality then was, you didn’t get remarried,” Ziva says. “You must also realize that in those days, the Israeli government didn’t think of the person who killed my father as a ‘terrorist.’ He died, that’s it. It wasn’t until 1973 that the government finally began to recognize the significance of deaths like my father’s, and started giving financial support to people who died from terrorism.”

Did this experience make her more sensitive to others in need? Does she think this is why she’s come to work full-time at Meir Panim?

If Ziva is insulted by my armchair psychoanalysis, she doesn’t show it. In fact, for a
long time, she did not respond at all. When she did speak again, my questions were
politely ignored.

“Sometimes, we take people in to work here that no one else will. We try to help everyone. As you can see, we don’t coddle these boys. We want them to understand that they’re coming here to WORK! For some, this message gets through. After they leave, they come back to see Varda and me. If they have a wedding, they call us. They kiss us, and show us pictures of their babies. For other people, though, they can’t learn to come on time, or to show up at all, and they are sent back to prison. I feel terrible for them.”

“They are all so young!” I exclaim.

“Yes, and that’s when you make mistakes in your life … when you are young,” she replies.

A few of the earliest diners have begun arriving. It’s now 11 o’clock, and Ziva begins serving lunch from behind the counter.

And then, completely without warning, a loud argument breaks out between Ziva and a young woman (is she a “criminal,” too?) who is ladling out bowls of vegetable soup. Whatever caused the disagreement is a mystery, as the women are yelling in Hebrew. What I can understand, however, is once the altercation starts, neither is willing to back down. Both keep trying to get the last word, which only starts the argument up again. Ziva continues to hand out plates of food; the girl, bowls of soup. All the while, they take potshots at the other. Their bickering goes on and on. It dies down. Then, reignites. Finally, it flickers out. Then, it really, really, begins to rage. Ziva and the girl are standing toe to toe, their faces quite literally inches from one another’s as they scream wildly, and at incredible volume.

One of the young men rushes to separate the women, trying to establish peace, as he interposes himself between them. But they simply scream over, through, and around him. It never becomes physical. There’s no shoving or slapping. It is strictly a war of words. But what a battle it is! This is, by a wide margin, the most raw, full-throated fight I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen rival gangs of teenagers threatening each other on the New York City subway system. This skirmish was much scarier.

Finally, a delicate truce begins to settle. It feels fraught, though, as if it may not last. My heart is racing, and behind my eyes, there’s a sharp pang of pain due to the tension I’ve experienced by eavesdropping on this dispute.

What amazes me, then, is the non-reaction of the other guests at Meir Panim. There must have been thirty or so people, eating lunch, or being served food, while this shouting match raged, and no one seemed to take any particular notice of it. I guess when you live in Israel, you exist with the constant possibility of terrorists attacks, or sniper fire. When you live in Israel, your house is legally required to have a bomb shelter, which must be equipped with water, tinned food, and an air-filtration system, where you are to hide when nuclear or biochemical weapons fall on your country. When you live in Israel, you’ve seen worse than a couple of women screaming at each other.

I haven’t, though. My life is largely free from such overt hostility, and even being a bystander to it has upset me deeply.

A few minutes later, Ziva stops by my table, and asks me if I want to have some food. The salmon is very good, she suggests. I look up at her, surprised. Only a few minutes ago, her face was contorted in rage, and she was producing sounds I scarcely knew the human voice was capable of. Now, she was purring with the sweet concern of a grandmother.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I guess I’d better go.”

I gave her a hug, and went to say goodbye to Varda, too.

Then, I got in my car, and drove away. I was still shaken, and traveled for quite some distance, unaware of anything but my thoughts. Gradually, though, I began to notice a smell. Ziva had insisted on giving me a plate of food before I left Tiberias, which was wrapped in foil, and sitting on the back seat. It was baking in the afternoon sun coming through the car’s window, and beginning to stink. Seeing a trash can, I pulled off the road, and threw the plate away.

Back on the highway again, I began to feel guilty. I’d wasted perfectly good food that might have been eaten by someone who was hungry.

After the unsavory scene I’d just witnessed, however, I didn’t have much of an appetite.

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