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Half of their volunteers are not able to work, the demand for emergency food has nearly doubled, and one in six food pantries around the city have already closed. That’s why Met Council urgently opened their warehouse on a Sunday to have an emergency food distribution from their Brooklyn food warehouse. With food running out in stores and the wholesale cost of food rising, America’s largest free kosher distributor of food, Met Council on Jewish Poverty, is trying their best to ensure that the neediest New Yorkers are receiving food during this crisis.

On Tuesday, UJA-Federation of New York (UJA) announced more than $23 million in immediate financial aid to help meet the ever-growing needs of vulnerable New Yorkers affected by coronavirus (COVID-19). The grants and loans are intended to offer immediate relief to New Yorkers facing food insecurity and to provide financial relief to UJA partner organizations so they can continue to provide essential health and human services to their communities.

As COVID-19 spreads throughout the country, Kosher Food Lifeline (KFL), a program of the Orthodox Union – the nation’s oldest and largest umbrella organization for the North American Orthodox Jewish community, launched programs to combat the anticipated significant increase in food insecurity, especially for the Passover holiday. 

Rabbinic leaders and organizations across the Orthodox spectrum have, individually, declared the health threat presented by COVID-19 a mortal threat (sakanas n’fashos).

Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee this week lauded a swiftly collected donation of various Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and other supplies by Queens College’s School of Mathematics and Sciences, including N-95 masks, 30 unopened cases of disposable nitrile gloves, disposable lab coats, and bottles of 70% isopropyl alcohol.

Rabbi Elyakim Getzel Rosenblatt zt”l was a unique individual who left a tremendous impact on so many of his talmidim and on our community. His first yahrzeit was this past Sunday night. The event to commemorate his yahrzeit has been postponed due to the pandemic. Baruch Hashem, we had this incredible gadlus right here in Queens for so many years. There are not adequate words to express his accomplishments and his sterling midos. Woven into this biography are stories about Rabbi Rosenblatt that demonstrate who he was.