An odd couple of Jewish organizations unite to help migrants during cold nights

[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnNEW YORK (RNS) — When night falls, volunteers from two oddly matched Jewish charitable organizations — one Haredi from Brooklyn, the other Ivy League college students from across the country — come together outside a federal office building in lower Manhattan. Their common goal is to feed and warm migrants standing in line to apply for work permits, asylum hearings and U.S. citizenship.Since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star began sending buses from the U.S. southern border to New York in April 2022, 116,000 migrants have arrived in the city and 164,500 asylum-seekers have gone through the city’s system, overwhelming the city’s shelters and immigrant services, not to mention its federal courts.
In mid-December last year, when temperatures dropped below freezing in the Northeast and the numbers of migrants showed no signs of abating, the leaders of Masbia, a soup kitchen chain run by Haredi Jews, and Challah for Hunger, a student anti-hunger organization with chapters on 35 campuses nationwide, decided to combine their resources.
The joint effort has provided hundreds of migrants with coats, blankets and hot food. “We come and comfort them a little bit, a little bit to relieve the cold … just something to alleviate the pain,” said Alexander Rapaport, director of Masbia.
Masbia — “satiate” in Hebrew — runs three soup kitchens in Brooklyn and Queens, where anyone in need can get a hot, kosher meal. Since the crisis began, t …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]