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What does
Jewish Poverty Look like?
It looks like a frightened young
mother - three toddlers in tow - escaping from her abusive husband
in the dark of the night. It looks like the schizophrenic son of
Holocaust survivors living in cardboard boxes under the FDR Drive.
It looks like a family of Jewish refugees from Uzbekistan that was
burned out of their home just as they were getting used to life in
America. It looks like a once middle class widow sitting alone in
her frigid home clutching a sheaf of unpaid gas bills. Now too, it
increasingly looks like a young family who earn too much to be
eligible for government aid, and too little to make it on their own.
Jewish
poverty - not an oxymoron
They are all but
invisible. And their numbers are staggering. Fully 145,000 of New
York City's Jews are so poor that they are eligible for government
programs. At the same time, government programs are disappearing and
the barriers to entitlement grow larger by the day.
To be classified as poor by government standards, a family of four
must have a combined household income below
$16,050!
Another 275,000 New York City Jews are classified as near-poor.
Ironically, the near-poor are often worse off than the poor. They
are not entitled to government benefits. Yet $16,050 for a family of
four does not consider the cost of housing in New York, or kosher
food or day school education.
The Jewish poor have much in common with the general poor, but much
that makes them unique. Like most poor people, they are hungry,
inadequately sheltered and can suffer from every known medical and
emotional illness.
Yet in many ways they are different.
The Jewish poor are not concentrated in slum neighborhoods.
Frequently, they are middle class people who have fallen on hard
times. They may be devastated by bankruptcy or divorce, by
catastrophic illness or the death of a parent or spouse in the prime
of life.
These people suffer in proud,
shocked silence, continuing to live in homes they have always lived
in. Only now, the refrigerators are empty. The utility bills go
unpaid. The doctor and dentist are out of reach. And they are facing
eviction.
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