the need to feed

a source of strength...

We are in unprecedented times, Israel is at war and I cannot put into words the challenges, fear and suffering that is being experienced here, day by day.

This is a country used to national service, reserve duty until the age of 40, and a safe room inside their homes with a steel door, walls of concrete and shatter-proof glass windows. The sound of military planes overhead are not usually alarming, yet the goalposts on these customary ways of living have moved significantly, for everyone in the past week.

In these enigmatic days, food is the sustenance and a comfort; sustaining is the source of strength and becoming comforting. Naturally our maternal instincts overtake us, and the desire to sustain and nourish our loved ones and those in need is overwhelming. It helps with the overriding need to busy ourselves in whatever way we can and food has becomes the focus.

Communities all over the country have been spurred into action and inundated with volunteers to do whatever is needed to help the displaced and grieving families and the thousands of soldiers who have been called up to defend their country. Cafes, restaurants, dining rooms and commercial kitchens have opened their doors and offered their premises as stations to prepare and make hot meals, assemble sandwiches and bake bread, rolls and pitta.

I joined my local community at the beginning of the week, where one of the cafes with a patisserie offered up its locality as a venue for sandwich making, and it is there I have been all week, chopping, peeling, slicing and making thousands of rolls. Each day, there are deliveries of vegetables, fruit, eggs, rolls and fillings, the quantities like you have never seen, and from 07.00 until 16.00, volunteers work tirelessly to ensure no soldier goes hungry.

Kilos upon kilos of large, ripe tomatoes, firm mini cucumbers, plump red and green peppers and leafy Romaine lettuces are bought to the cafe, freshly picked from local farms, and washed in their crates by a hosepipe attached to a single outside tap in the road. Still dripping with water, the tables of volunteers, hands clad in plastic gloves sit ready to remove the ends, seeds and blemishes and slice into large cartons, tossing the unusable bits into bags to be recycled or given to the animals. Dozens and dozens of eggs are placed in large pans, filled to the brim with water and cooked on a large camping gas stove until hard, when they are peeled and sliced. Avocados, with flesh as soft as butter, have their skins and stones removed before slicing and large pouches of tuna are mixed by hand with mayonnaise, onion and sweetcorn, ready to fill the boxes and boxes of freshly baked rolls.

Other fillings including cream cheese, slices of yellow cheese and hummus are ready on more lines of tables with volunteers on either sides, ready to assemble with plenty of fresh salad. This has become a well oiled production line and the permutations of sandwiches are never ending. A one off delivery of home made ‘matboucha’ a spicy Sephardi condiment of cooked tomatoes, peppers and onions appeared, and thickly spread in the rolls with slices of hard boiled egg as a change to the daily menu. Every roll is packed in an individual paper bag, placed in a cardboard box and together with boxes of seasonal fruits of plums, apples and bananas, delivered in cars to wherever there are soldiers in need of sustenance.

I have felt useful this week and part of a vulnerable and anxious community. I have also felt very humbled by the thanks given to us, for our efforts, and it makes me want to do more.

I am a cook, a baker, a caterer and a Jewish mother. I have a number of skills that I can put to good use. I will continue to bake cakes in my home during the evenings and tomorrow I will join a team of cooks making hot meals to take to the bases.

I will carry on until I am told to stop.