Colel Chabad is Israel’s officially designated NGO responsible for food security among the poor in southern Israel.
As such, Colel Chabad’s extensive network of United Soup Kitchens and home food delivery programs provide for the nutritional needs of thousands of indigent Israelis daily – senior citizens, widows and orphans, dysfunctional families, recent immigrants and Holocaust survivors.
With the onset of Operation Pillar of Defense against the chronic rocket attacks from Gaza, Colel Chabad’s United Soup Kitchens has been tasked with the responsibility for delivering fresh-cooked meals to an additional 1,600 elderly men and women in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Sderot, Kiriat Malachi and Beersheba – the areas hardest hit by incoming missiles and rockets by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. These 1,600 senior citizens would not normally meet the extreme poverty criteria to make them eligible for food delivery.
However, owing to the frequency of the inbound rockets, they are both too frightened and too limited physically to go out and shop for food at this time. Hence the need to provide for their nutrition until the crisis blows over.
The food deliveries are being prepared at the United Colel Chabad Soup Kitchens commissary in Ashdod.
Deliveries are being made by employees of the local municipalities as well as by a large cadre of Colel Chabad volunteers.
Following rocket attacks in the Chabad neighborhood of Kiryat Malachi, Israel on Thursday, causing the deaths of three local residents, Colel Chabad has assumed guardianship of the Smajda family, whose father was one of the victims.
As of now all the material needs of this bereaved family, including his widow, twin 10 year olds and a 10 month old baby, whose home was totally destroyed, have been assumed by Colel Chabad.
On Monday, at the request of the Jerusalem Municipality, Colel Chabad has been tasked with providing for the nutritional needs of Israelis fleeing the south to the safety of Jerusalem.
Concerned friends of Israel are invited to help shoulder this burden by sending a tax-deducible gift to Colel Chabad earmarked for emergency aid to the elderly.
The most efficient way is by logging on to: www.colelchabad.org
Established in 1788 by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi – founder of Chabad-Lubavitch – Colel Chabad is the oldest continuously operating charity in Israel and provides a broad range of nutritional and social services to the needy regardless of age, gender, or degree of religious observance.
