Volume XXII, Issue VII | www.thejewishvoice.org Serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts
SENIORS
22 Adar II 5776 | April 1, 2016
Temple to honor friends who have cooked minyan breakfast for decades BY ARIEL BROTHMAN
The memorial in Brussels
Brussels: A frightening place BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ JTA – Growing up, trips to stay with my Jewish family in Brussels were a taste of freedom. In my native Israel, waves of Palestinian terrorist attacks kept me under constant maternal surveillance and fear of bus bombings limited my excursions to
biking distance. On the tranquil streets of the Belgian capital, by contrast, I could wander at will amid the mix of medieval architecture and glass-andsteel skyscrapers. Even riding the tram with my cousin Eli BRUSSELS | 7
CRANSTON – If you were to look at a seed without knowing it could eventually blossom into a flower, tree or another type of beautiful plant, you would probably pass it by without a second thought. Why pay attention to something so small? This example of the value of small things was among those brought up during a discussion of the Torah portion on March 26 at Temple Sinai’s weekly minyan breakfast. Some might say that these breakfasts, organized every week for more than 30 years by Stanley Horovitz and Donald Wexler, are another example of something that started small and became beautiful. The breakfasts have become a staple of Shabbat services at Temple Sinai where 20 or so members gather every Saturday morning for coffee, orange juice, bagels, challah, French toast, eggs and oatmeal. The oatmeal, says Horovitz, is the moneymaker (metaphorically speaking,
Longtime friends Donald Wexler, left, and Stanley Horovitz. since the breakfast is free). “Ariel, you shouldn’t have this oatmeal,” Horovitz warned me with a smile. “You’ll never be able to have anyone else’s!”
When I asked for the recipe, he laughed, and said he couldn’t give it to me because he had no idea what he was doing. HONORING | 16
Poverty among R.I.’s senior citizens is a large and growing concern BY EMILY JONES Last month, a group of seniors at Temple Sinai’s Senior Kosher Cafe, in Cranston, shared their experiences and perspectives in a roundtable conversation about economic issues here in Rhode Island. One woman, age 87, described a particularly difficult time when her rent, $865, wasn’t
much less than her heating bill, which had spiked to $637 for one month. The combined sum was simply unmanageable on her retirement income, she said. Fortunately, she was able to work out an arrangement with the energy company that allowed her to pay down her bill slowly, over time. This woman is far from alone.
Many Rhode Island seniors struggle with income insecurity. Other seniors who participate in the Jewish Family Service of R.I.’s Senior Kosher Cafe, in Providence and Cranston, have expressed similar worries. Another senior participant voiced the issue bluntly: “Everything’s going up. What if I live another 10 years?”
As our state population ages, poverty among senior citizens is a growing concern. In Rhode Island, about 11.3 percent of older women and 7.3 percent of older men have incomes below the federal poverty line. Many others struggle with “living on the edge”– which led to the Jewish Alliance’s initiative of the same name. The 2013 Living on
the Edge report found that one in five R.I. Jewish households, of all ages, lived in or near poverty.
Hunger in R.I.
Food security is a tremendous concern. The Louis & Goldie Chester Full Plate Kosher Food Pantry, in Providence, served POVERTY | 22
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