Hannah’s Kosher Pantry, Brooklyn, NY

There are nearly 48.1 million people in America without reliable access to affordable, nutritious food. Even in New York City — one of the richest cities in the world — about 1.4 million people rely on emergency food programs, like soup kitchens and food pantries for survival, according to Food Bank For New York City. Food pantries, intended to be an emergency source of food, are today a weekly source of sustenance for some people. The populations they serve are mainly women, children, seniors on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, and the working poor.

Beginning in 2012, Food Bank teamed up with photojournalist Joey O’Loughlin to demystify who’s relying on food pantries. Her photos reveal that New Yorkers lining up at food pantries across the five boroughs are regular people – and our neighbors. O’Loughlin has chronicled the various lives of people she’s met on pantry lines.

One focus of her camera: the Jewish community, which isn’t often thought of as one of those struggling to make ends meet. But as with most communities, pockets of concentrated poverty exist.

Within the New York City, Long Island, and Westchester area, Russian-speaking Jews and Orthodox Jews together consist of more than 40% of the diverse Jewish community – and they are also the poorest. In fact, 71% of Russian speakers with a senior in the household, 43% of Hasidic households, 28% percent of seniors living alone, and 24% of single-parent households are affected by poverty, one comprehensive study found. For those struggling Jewish New Yorkers who also must keep to the strict Jewish dietary laws, access to kosher food is of particular concern. Mealtime mandates become increasingly difficult to uphold when kosher food on average costs 30% more than non-kosher food.

These photos, also taken by O’Loughlin, are an in-depth look at everyday faces of hunger within the Jewish community. Hannah Zarzar who runs an official kosher food pantry and one informal neighborhood distribution of challah – the traditional braided bread of the Sabbath– on Fridays, gives us a glimpse at food insecurity within the often-private, predominantly orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York.

These photos were presented as part of a 2016 exhibition called Hidden In Plain Sight: Portraits of Hunger in NYC, which was co-presented by Food Bank For New York City and the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Jewish families pick up bread for the Sabbath at Hannah's informal neighborhood distribution of Friday challah in Midwood, Brooklyn.
Hannah Zarzar, who runs a kosher pantry in Brooklyn, goes to the Pomegranate Supermarket's bakery in Midwood, Brooklyn before sundown to pick up fresh bread that wasn't sold. She then gives it away to Jewish families in need at her informal Friday challah bread distribution. Food Bank, among other advocacy organizations whose mission is to end hunger in New York, organizes the donation of leftover food from supermarkets to pantries, like Hannah's.
New York City's Jewish families are finding it increasingly difficult to uphold their traditions as the cost of kosher food is 30 percent more expensive on average, reports the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.
People of all ages go to Hannah's informal Friday challah bread distribution in Brooklyn. While poverty affects 1 in 5 children nationwide, in the Jewish Community in New York City, 45 percent of children live in poor or near-poor households, according to The Jewish Community Study of New York.
A woman lines up at Hannah's primary location, the Kosher Food Shabbat Foundation Pantry in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, one chilly Wednesday morning. Jewish New Yorkers are diverse, and poverty and hunger do not discriminate across age or ethnicity. In fact, Russian-speaking senior households face the highest rates of poverty in the Jewish community with Hasidic households close behind.
Hannah relies on volunteers to help bag the one week supply of food at her Kosher Food Shabbat Foundation Pantry in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
Natalia Karelshteyn (center) joins scores of people lined up at the Kosher Food Shabbat Foundation Pantry in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. It is open on Wednesdays from 10 am to noon.
Once home, Natalia Karelshteyn unloads her bag of food from the kosher pantry. Natalia is a Russian immigrant with three kids, one of whom is disabled.
Inside her apartment in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Natalia Karelshteyn takes stock of her food supplement from the Kosher Food Shabbat Foundation Pantry for the week. Natalia has to stretch this food to feed three kids. Her husband was an ironworker.
At home in her Midwood, Brooklyn, apartment, Hannah Zarzar prepares fresh food to give away at her kosher food pantry. Hannah and her husband Mike both work as school teachers, but still depend on kosher pantry food to feed their eight kids.
Hannah prepares food in her Midwood, Brooklyn, home for those who rely on her kosher pantry for meals. Repairs, such as the partial ceiling collapse in her kitchen have gone unfixed due to a lack of funds.

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