Alef: The NEXT Conversation

An Ample Harvest

It can be easy to forget some of what it means to be an American,  and what it means to be Jewish. The inscription on the Statue of Liberty tells us – “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, while the Jewish concept of “tzedakah” or “charity” comes from the root “tzedek” meaning  “justice.”  As these next few weeks bridge the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and American  holiday of Thanksgiving,  we at Alef wonder – Just what compels people to take action and transform that action into a movement?

Gary Oppenheimer, founder of AmpleHarvest.org, gives us his story:

“Two years ago, I faced a dilemma when my own garden in West Milford, NJ produced a prolific crop–far more than we could use, and more than I could give away (there are only so many cucumbers you can give to friends and have them still call you a friend).  The notion of simply throwing the extra produce away was unacceptable.  I’ve known too many people who were hungry in the past, including my mother-in-law who spent five years hungry in the Soviet Union during WW II.

I decided to deliver 40 lbs of produce to the local battered women’s shelter.  The woman who took it thanked me, and then commented that it would be good to finally have fresh produce.  That comment stayed with me.

Click here for the rest of Gary’s story

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Between Sukkot and Thanksgiving be on the look out for other stories on food issues in our own communities.  Learn more about Harvest to Harvest here. 

Photo by LexnGer, Licensed under Creative Commons.

Posted by Emily.Comisar@birthrightisraelnext.org, Thursday, October 8th, 2009, 5:11 pm, Harvest to Harvest.