Touch thousands of lives and bless the poor as God commands

Dear Friend,

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, there are a LOT of them. 

The latest report showed that more than 2,000,000 people, including more than a million children, are living in poverty.

This is not just talking about not being able to buy anything they want. This is talking about not having enough food to eat. 

More than a million precious Jewish children are facing food insecurity. While many of us are thinking about losing the weight gained over the holidays, they 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.

Almost all the food in our house was from the dump. I even went to the dump sometimes to find food. I was always hungry.

One of my favorite things to do was to look for “white chocolate.” That was dark chocolate that had gone bad…but it was something to eat.

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.

It’s hard to believe that 27% of the children in Israel and 12% of the senior citizens are living in such abject poverty, but it’s true. 

A lot of this has happened because of the wars. The elderly are giving up medical treatment due to financial conditions and many are not even able to have a hot meal at least once every two days.

The ongoing war in Gaza has cut the country’s economic growth from 6.5% to 2%. It has impacted the younger generation, who have been called for long periods to serve in the Army Reserves while their places of work closed down. Tourism has ground to a halt, and the restaurants are empty.

The government 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.

Sometimes the need seems so overwhelming that we don’t even know where to start. But when we place what we have in God’s hands, everything changes. 

God does not measure our gift by the size of the impact, but by the state of our heart.

When He was at the Temple, Jesus saw a poor widow who gave two small copper coins, which together were only worth about one eighth of a penny. 

And He said, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had” (Mark 12:43-44).

Jesus knows what it is like to be poor. He was born in a manger and His parents took the poor people’s offering of birds to the Temple for His dedication. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

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 and a half who came to Israel from Russia and Ukraine, many with the help of evangelical Christians. 

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.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee. I will bless them that bless thee. 

P.S. 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 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.