Manischewitz Donates $100,000-Worth Of Grape Juice To New York’s Neediest
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Alexander Rapaport, owner of Masbia Soup Kitchen, is not a fan of “food rescue,” but when a tractor full of $100,000 worth of Welch’s-Manischewitz grape juice pulled up to Masbia’s Queens location, even Rapaport couldn’t deny that this Hanukkah gift was a worthy one. The grape has a sell-by date at the end of January — too soon to be stocked on store shelves — but is in perfect condition.
“Food rescue needs viable economics,” Rapaport said. If someone gives Rapaport a donation of unwanted challah by the end of the week, it’ll be devoured. Give it to him on Sunday and it’ll just sit there.
“The only good way to do food rescue is when a manufacturer has a surplus and he gives it out, pre-expiration date,” said Rapaport. “The idea is often ‘Let’s give the poor all the garbage to eat,’” he said, adding that this went against the biblical concept of giving the first cut, or fatty part, of an animal to the needy. “It’s not dignified to give out something expired.”
Often manufacturers will dump extra, unexpired product in landfills, or they will reserve expired, unsellable products for soup kitchen donations. “Poor people are not garbage cans,” he said.
Shira Feder is a writer. She’s at [email protected] and @shirafeder
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
