Image by Getty

WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) — The leader of a Jewish nonprofit dedicated to ending hunger in the United States and Israel told Congress that food insecurity is a significant problem among military and veteran families.

In testimony submitted Tuesday before the House Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Nutrition, Abby J. Leibman of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, said, “Across the country, service members were (and still are) showing up at food pantries, sometimes in uniform, looking for help in feeding their families.”

Leibman, MAZON’s president and CEO said, “While many emergency food providers have responded by developing specific and innovative programs to assist food-insecure military families, most of these organizations are strapped by increasing demands for services in general and have limited capacity to address this population.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

According to testimony provided by MAZON, there is a food pantry on or near every single naval and marine base in the United States.

Part of what accounts for this food insecurity is federal policies that make lower-ranking service members, especially those with families living off base or in private housing, ineligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, MAZON said. The Basic Allowance for Housing is excluded for calculating some federal programs, like WIC and Head Start, but included for others. MAZON advocates for excluding the Basic Allowance for Housing for the purpose of eligibility for all nutrition assistance programs.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount