Anyone who has ever watched a YU Macs game is familiar with Joseph Gitler and Leket. Leket has been doing incredible work as Israel’s food bank for the past 20 years. They have rescued more than 66 million pounds of produce and managed the logistics to get that produce to at-risk Israelis throughout the country. Coordinating volunteers to help the crucial agriculture sector is something they’ve been doing for years, making sure the necessary manpower was available to rescue food for those in need. In the past several months, the mission has broadened from rescuing food for the poor to ensuring a healthy crop and functioning agricultural sector for the entirety of the country.
As we all know, the ripple effects of October 7 have gone far beyond that of physical safety for Israelis. The agricultural sector in Israel utilized a combination of migrant (in many cases Thai) workers, Arab workers and students to ensure they had sufficient manpower to work the fields and feed the country. On October 8, much of that manpower came to a halt. Arab workers could no longer enter for security reasons, and many Thai workers began returning home. Further, the domestic workers, such as students, were being called up to serve in the IDF, and many other workers were displaced from their homes. This left a gaping hole in the ability for farmers to complete the work necessary to ensure a proper harvest and to avoid a national produce shortage. This is where Leket turned from Israel’s national food bank to one of the most indispensable organizations ensuring food security for the entire country.
As many others have, I had the opportunity to work on various farms for a week to help with everything from clearing an avocado orchard of weeds, to pruning tomato vines and packing thousands of bags of lettuce for delivery. It is hard work. It is exhausting work. But it is also one of the most impactful things being done right now to help Israel. Each day Meital, Joseph Gitler’s daughter, would set up a chat and notify us of where we would be working the next day. These are often last-minute arrangements because the need is often last-minute as well. There was no grand plan for how to deal with the loss of almost your entire workforce. How could there be? And so, the most acute needs aren’t necessarily known weeks in advance; they become known in the moment, and the fact that the farmers are able to let Meital know what is needed and have volunteers there to help within a day’s notice is an amazing testament to the impact Leket is having.
In addition to dealing with emergency needs, though, Leket’s strategic plan for helping farmers is remarkably detailed and efficient. Their approach sits on three primary pillars: a volunteering initiative, a financial support program for farmers, and food security for the needy.
To date, Leket has distributed 1,200 preloaded credit cards to farmers for purchase of specific provisions and is currently working to create an interest-free loan program. The loss of income for Israeli farmers is one thing, but the loss of hope without a clear path to more normalized expected earnings is another. Leket is working tirelessly to solve these problems by bridging immediate gaps, providing volunteers, and working with the farmers directly so that they know they have a partner who is there to help. Their years of experience with an innovative approach to food security has put them in a position to help in a way few others can.
To see firsthand the unbelievably hard work they are putting in alongside the country’s enormous financial needs was both awe-inspiring and overwhelming. While most of us have probably heard of Leket before, their work is worthy of constantly reiterating to keep them in the spotlight and the forefront of all of our minds as we look for places to allocate money to help Israel. Visit https://www.leket.org/en/# to learn more about Leket and how you can help.
Daniel can be reached at [email protected].
