Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

150 Pounds Of Kosher Food Airlifted To Flooded North Carolina City For Yom Kippur

(JTA) — Jewish families in Wilmington, North Carolina were able to eat a kosher meal before the start of Yom Kippur after the Chabad synagogue in nearby Charlotte was able to arrange the arrival of a helicopter carrying 150 pounds of kosher food.

After days with no contact due to Hurricane Florence, Rabbi Yossi Groner of Charlotte’s Ohr HaTorah was able to speak by telephone to Rabbi Moshe Leiblich of Chabad of Wilmington on Monday. Leiblich requested that he find a way to send kosher food, the Charlotte Observer reported on Wednesday.

A truck full of kosher food sent from Raleigh after the hurricane first hit had been turned away by authorities because of dangerous road conditions.

Groner’s son, Ben Tzion, contacted a friend who is a helicopter mechanic and was able to secure a helicopter for Tuesday morning. It arrived at the airport in Wilmington at 1:30 p.m. carrying kosher chicken and dairy products as well as ready-to-eat meals, which were delivered to families preparing for Yom Kippur, the newspaper reported.

“It was tremendous, and certainly a relief,” Leiblich told the Observer. “It gave us kosher meat until the stores are back to normal.”

The Chabad of Wilmington was expected to be the only one in the city holding Yom Kipuur services, due to the hurricane.

There are between 800 and 1,000 Jewish families living in Wilmington.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.