New York’s Food Pantries Face An ‘Unprecedented And Extreme Uptick In Need’ | Talking Points Memo

“Passover, one of the holiest holidays on the Jewish calendar and one centered around home-cooked meals…”

I’ve saved a single matzoh from our dwindling rations, along with a chicken neck, a month-old boiled egg, the dregs of a horseradish jar, a desiccated piece of celery, a sad-looking date (for haroset), an orange from the tree in our back yard, and what’s left of the vermouth bottle – so we are gonna be swingin’ come Pesach!

We’ll be dipping in saltwater from our own tears this year.

And hoping the Angel of Death passes over our house.

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Maybe not that great - the wealthy can afford to self-isolate, pay minions to do their grocery shopping, buy wholesale in bulk. People at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, particularly those who normally make their living on hourly wages or piecework pay doing labor that requires their presence in person and can’t be done over the phone or Internet, are the ones bearing most of the hardship.

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An excellent editorial and I am thankful you posted it.

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Stay safe @irasdad

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Are you kidding? I posted that last month.

I weep.

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Ouch. Okay, cheer up - you get the imaginary TPM Gold, as well! :slight_smile:

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This from a man who posted some time back that his humor was unappreciated. sigh.

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A few of us volunteer at the anderson hotel food pantry in san luis obispo, ca. It’s every sunday and we’ve been doing this for years. Now the housing authority has quashed our use of the empty dining hall, and mandated bagged to door delivery.

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Passover. I didn’t make that connexion until right now. I’m not celebrating anything, except for being alive. My brother observes Lent as a southern Baptist to eastern Orthodox convert. We all have the same prayers this year.

I don’t know if I should laugh or cry reading your post. Neither reaction comes easy anyway.

By the description, I’d say it’s about time you cleaned that fridge. That’s an attempt at laughing.

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I might just put lamb’s blood on my doorpost this year, just as an added precaution. If Elijah does come in he better be wearing gloves and a surgical mask if he wants to imbibe on that extra cup of wine.

ETA: Actually my family wants to do our seder this year on Zoom. I had no idea what the fuck that was until I asked my son who tells me its video conferencing. I’m not having a seder via video conferencing. I mean, really? I’d rather eat my bread of affliction in misery like G-d had intended. Freedom, my ass. And yes, in every generation there is a Pharaoh. His name is tRump.

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There is a grocery store here in Tucson that deserves a shout out. Food City. They’re on the west side of Tucson and their clientel is largely Hispanic. I love the place. I volunteer for an outfit called Lend-a-Hand. Our thing is to help poverty stricken seniors. My part is to take veggies and fruit to shut in folks and those who have no money or transport. There are ten teams (two people for each team) in our little operation. We take good quality fruits and veggies to a total of 135 seniors or about 14 per team. We do the deliveries every two weeks. Our funding is very limited and without the overwhelming generosity of the owners of Food City our work would be impossible. So yeah bless the grocers who step up in this time of need because the need is real.

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It’s my feeling that the Pharaoh of the movie Ten Commandments (Yul Brynner) was far more reasonable and rational (sane really) than trump could ever manage to be (stifles 4 page rant).

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It’s time for me to dust off my Caligula comparison, even though that doesn’t tie into the Passover theme very well.

Hitler called it Lügenpresse – lying press.
Trump calls it fake news.

You remind me I haven’t had matzoh with butter in some time.
When I was about 12 our Jewish neighbor would give us a pkg of matzoh during Passover. She implied it was a tradition.

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“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”. – Mark Twain.

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Hubby and I have started having virtual happy hours and virtual dinners via FaceTime with friends. Last evening we had a happy hour with friends in London. It lasted 1.5 hrs, was an absolute blast and ended only because we all got hungry! On Monday we’re having virtual dinner with friends in the Detroit (Grosse Pointe) area (theirs is lunch…) and we have Easter dinner/lunch planned with friends in South Carolina.

I have regular virtual knit-and-chat with a friend, where we knit, catch up on gossip, talk politics, show our current ongoing projects, weather, bitch about our husbands (:joy:), the book she’s writing, and slam the current (mal)administration… Our last session was also a couple of hours along. It turns out to be surprising effective — after a while you simply forget that it’s virtual, especially because we’re doing our knitting while yakking. We’d done it prior to this outbreak but I must say, we are all getting into it more and more as a result of this, and I suspect this will be one thing that actually lasts even after the quarantines and curfews are lifted.

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I read through that piece, waiting for the piece to say the obvious: that Trump should resign, and that if he doesn’t resign, he should be removed, because the cost in lives of his continuing to be President will be severe.

But they didn’t say that. Why the devil didn’t they?

Hope no firewall. NY gets 300,000 of the N95s.

They might be the saviors for now but if the crops aren’t planted and there is no harvest in the Fall food shortages and rationing could be in the future for us all.

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