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How the CEO of New York’s largest food bank is inspired by Jewish values
(New York Jewish Week) — At the Food Bank for New York City, one of the largest food banks in the country, the holiday season is crucial to ensuring New Yorkers have enough food to be able to live with dignity.
Since its founding in 1983, the organization has provided over one billion meals to New Yorkers in need — as well as offering free SNAP assistance, tax preparation services and financial literacy programs to low-income residents.
“Our central mission is that we feed people for today, but we have made significant investments in programming that truly helps to lift people out of poverty,” president and chief executive officer Leslie Gordon told the New York Jewish Week. “Because the reason why people are food insecure to begin with is a resource problem. It’s an inability to get connected to networks or resources, because of racist systems or policy issues.”
Gordon, who is Jewish, has helmed the organization since 2020, and in some ways, rose to the role in a way that seemed inevitable. As a child, she loved to watch her grandfather sell meat, produce and other goods from the grocery store he owned in Tarrytown, New York, and deliver food donations to the needy. Her mother, who also grew up at the store, was the executive director at the Hunts Point Produce Market, the country’s largest wholesale produce market.
Prior to joining Food Bank for New York, Gordon held leadership roles at Feeding Westchester, a food bank network in Westchester County and City Harvest, which helps make fresh, nutritious food accessible around New York. Starting her job at the beginning of the pandemic, Gordon has overseen a doubling of the Food Bank for New York’s annual food distribution across the city from 70 million pounds to 150 million pounds.
A fourth-generation Tarrytown resident, Gordon has been a member of the Conservative congregation Temple Beth Abraham her entire life. She lives in the same house that she, her grandfather and her mother grew up in, with her wife, two dogs and two cats.
The New York Jewish Week chatted with Gordon about her background, her favorite parts of the job and the Jewish family values that got her here.
This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for length and clarity.
After leadership roles at two other food banks, Gordon took over the top position at Food Bank for New York City in March 2020. She credits her Jewish family values for helping guide her. (Courtesy)
New York Jewish Week: How have your Jewish values guided you as the CEO of Food Bank for New York?
Leslie Gordon: The thing about my connection to Judaism at the Food Bank is really a personal responsibility around doing tikkun olam. It’s an ever-present, everyday commitment to making the world more just and equal through social action, which is what we do every day at Food Bank — helping New Yorkers across the five boroughs to have the resources they need to be able to have a stable, healthy life where they can thrive and look forward to working on achieving their dreams.
Food is culture. Food is love. Food is history. Food has always been a big part of my personal Jewish experience — whether through holidays or through historical explorations. My grandfather was a butcher. He grew up in a small Jewish enclave in Rockland County called Pot Cheese Hollow [now Spring Valley], which is a sort of a European framing for all things cottage cheese.
You started this job right at the beginning of the pandemic. What was that like, and what was the path that led you to working at Food Bank?
I’ll never forget this: My first day was March 30, 2020. It was a little crazy to be the humble leader of one of the nation’s largest food banks at a time when the need was historically outsized and quickly escalated. It was a little bit of a challenge and, frankly, has been for most of my tenure.
Again, it goes back to my Jewish familial roots. I am carrying on a family legacy of feeding people: My grandfather, Norman Goldberg, was the son of European immigrants. When they came over [to America], and in his growing up years in that enclave in Rockland County, they were really, really poor. One of their biggest assets, believe it or not, was a dairy cow — no running water, no indoor plumbing. He would tell stories as kids that sometimes the only thing he ate in the course of a day was an apple that he picked off a neighboring farmer’s tree.
Fast forward many years into the future, he was a successful businessman, between a grocery store, a butcher store and a wine and liquor store, amongst other pursuits. He never forgot where he came from and he would talk to us about the importance of connecting people with food, and again doing tikkun olam. They would get phone calls from the rabbi at Temple Beth Abraham in Tarrytown, where they lived, because food banks and food pantries didn’t exist back then — the World War II era all the way through the 1950s, ’60s, and even ’70s. They would get a list of people in the community who needed help and [my grandfather] would take my mother by the arm and they would go to the local grocery store and shop. Frequently, as my mom tells it now, they’d end up in a local fourth-floor walk-up apartment building, ring the bell, drop the groceries and go, because you wanted to preserve the dignity of those whom you are helping.
That really made an impression on me. My grandfather was also an avid backyard gardener and was famous for leaving those little brown lunch bags full of excess produce from his backyard garden on people’s stoops.
My mother became the head of the world’s largest wholesale produce terminal, which is based in the Hunts Point section of South Bronx. I caught the bug on logistics and operations in food and really the romanticism of the food system. I’m still of that generation where I feel very connected to my local food system and farmers. I had a very unique growing up experience, where I got to see train cars full of broccoli or potatoes or other amazing produce that traveled through small towns and cities across the United States to land up in the South Bronx. So, I’ve been in the arena of food banking for about 15 years. I couldn’t have predicted it, I call it a happy accident. Of the 10 food banks in New York State, I’ve had the pleasure and honor of leading three of them.
What type of outreach do you do to New York’s Jewish community?
We’re a city of about 8.4 million people, and 1.6 million of them, give or take, are people who just don’t know where their next meal is coming from or what it will be. Ask yourself: Have you ever been hungry for a long period of time during the day? How do you deal with that? Imagine if that was your every day. That is compounded, potentially, by other struggles that you have. People don’t live single-issue lives. So, typically, when you’re food insecure, there are a lot of other issues that you’re grappling with — could be housing issues, could be mental health issues, could be employment or underemployment issues. There’s just a lot going on in the mix. New York City is a particularly expensive place to live. It’s a tough environment.
We’re the heart of a network of about 800 on-the-ground partners across the five boroughs. On nearly every street in nearly every neighborhood, our partners are food pantries, community kitchens, senior centers, shelters, community-based organizations like New York City Housing Authority or a Boys and Girls Club. In the case of the Jewish community, we have relationships with more than 40 on-the-ground agencies that specifically serve observant Jews. Organizations like Masbia, Alexander Rapoport’s restaurant-style soup kitchen that he’s now famous for.
We’re serving one of the nation’s largest kosher observant populations in the U.S. right here in New York City. We’re committed to making sure that kosher-observing communities in Williamsburg, Midwood, Crown Heights, Coney Island, Lower East Side, etc., have access to good kosher food that they can feel good about. The number of Jews in New York City who struggle is just astounding. We have a very large Jewish population, obviously. And so, you know, it’s something that’s on my mind a lot. I’ve had the opportunity to work with the Jewish community in New York now for over 15 years. Studies tell us that more than 10% of Jewish adults, and Jewish adults with kids in New York are food insecure. It’s serious. You’d be astounded, probably, to learn that more than 20% of adults in Jewish households in New York are at the poverty line.
What is your favorite part of the job?
A job as a food bank leader is very, very unique. In the course of a day, I can work on operations, I can work on marketing and communications, I can meet with donors, I can be on the phone with one of our agencies or food pantries on the ground, or I can be working on policy or advocacy. So it’s a really varied position. The most fun part about my job is the people and the stories. It’s the people who we serve who just have really big hearts and deep and interesting personal stories, and they’re just like you and me — moms and dads and families and kids who are trying to live their best life. We take the opportunity to be able to help them along the way pretty seriously.
For me, it starts internally with our Food Bank family. I take that really seriously. The culture in the organization is really important to me. I want people to feel supported and have all the resources they need to do their job, to be excited and energized about the ability and opportunity they have to impact people’s lives. At the end of the day, it’s always the people.
I’m a bit of a builder, and a fixer. It’s just who I am. Why I’m that way, I have no idea. My mother tells me that I’m my grandfather’s granddaughter. I just have a particular affinity for how things work and systems and processes and making things better and more efficient. It’s just part of my DNA, I guess. That is a skill set that really fits well with what’s required to run a food bank.
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The post How the CEO of New York’s largest food bank is inspired by Jewish values appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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California man pleads guilty in 2023 death of pro-Israel protester
The man accused in the 2023 death of a pro-Israel protester will avoid a prison sentence after pleading guilty this week to all charges against him.
Loay Alnaji, 53, was at a pro-Palestinian protest in Ventura, California, in November 2023 when he allegedly struck a pro-Israel counterprotester named Paul Kessler with a megaphone. Kessler, who was 69, then fell, hitting his head on the pavement. He died several hours later, with the death ruled a homicide by blunt-force trauma.
Trial proceedings had been set to begin next week, with Alnaji facing up to four years in prison. But Ventura County Superior Court judge Derek Malan offered Loay Alnaji, 53, a deal on Tuesday that allowed Alnaji up to one year in jail followed by three years on probation.
Alnaji accepted the offer. His attorney, Ron Bamieh, told the Ventura County Star that Malan had determined “two old guys had a dispute and an accident happened.”
Alnaji pleaded guilty to the two counts against him — felony involuntary manslaughter and felony battery causing serious bodily injury — and admitted aggravating factors, namely that he used a weapon and that the victim was particularly vulnerable.
He will be sentenced June 25.
The plea deal was too lenient in the eyes of Kessler’s family — which wanted the maximum sentence, according to the Star — as well as Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko.
“Alnaji should be sentenced to prison for his violent behavior, and our office strongly objects to any lesser sentence,” Nasarenko said in a statement. “While no amount of punishment will ever fully account for the Kessler family loss, a prison commitment underscores the severity of this crime and will deter others from committing similar acts of violence.”
The Kessler family could not be reached for comment.
The guilty plea brings a tragic saga that began in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war closer to an end. Kessler and Alnaji were among 75 to 100 people who descended upon a busy intersection in Thousand Oaks — about 25 miles north of Los Angeles — for dueling protests related to the Israel-Hamas war.
What happened during the altercation remains unclear. Bamieh said Kessler put his phone in Alnaji’s face; when Alnaji swatted the phone away, the megaphone inadvertently hit Kessler’s face. (He also said Kessler had previously been diagnosed with a brain tumor, though the coroner has stated the tumor was not a factor in his death.) After Kessler’s fall, he was bleeding from the head and mouth, but was responsive at the scene and evacuated to a hospital. His condition worsened overnight and he died there early the next day.
Alnaji, who at the time was a computer science professor at Moorpark College, was placed on administrative leave by the school after his arrest and subsequent release on $50,000 bail.
Rabbi Noah Farkas, chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, welcomed the guilty plea for what he called a “heinous crime.”
“While we would have liked a harsher sentence that better reflects the pain of the Kessler family, we respect the legal process,” Farkas said in a statement. “Our hope is that today’s news helps bring closure to his family and gives our community the ability to demonstrate safely.”
The post California man pleads guilty in 2023 death of pro-Israel protester appeared first on The Forward.
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After Beirut Strike, Netanyahu Says ‘No Immunity’ for Terrorists
Rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike that took place yesterday, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, May 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Azakir
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday there was no “immunity” for Israel’s enemies, a day after the Israeli military targeted a Hezbollah commander in its first strike on Beirut‘s southern suburbs since a ceasefire declared last month.
Israel said the attack killed the commander of the Iran-backed terrorist group’s elite Radwan force.
Hezbollah, which controls Beirut‘s southern suburbs, has yet to issue any statement on the strike or the commander’s status.
“He likely read in the press that he had immunity in Beirut. Well, he read it and it is no longer the case,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reignited on March 2 when the Islamist group opened fire at Israel after Tehran came under US-Israeli attack.
Wednesday’s strike raises pressure on the Lebanon ceasefire that emerged in parallel to a truce in the wider Middle East war, with a halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon being a key Iranian demand in Tehran’s negotiations with Washington.
Announced on April 16 by US President Donald Trump, the Lebanon ceasefire has led to a reduction in hostilities: the Beirut area was not struck by Israel for weeks before Wednesday’s attack.
But the sides have continued to trade blows in the south, where Israel has carved out a self-declared security zone.
Netanyahu said the Hezbollah commander, identified as Ahmed Ali Balout by the Israeli military, “thought he could continue to direct attacks against our forces and our communities from his secret terrorist headquarters in Beirut.”
“I say to our enemies in the clearest possible way: No terrorist has immunity,” he said.
LEBANESE PM: TOO EARLY FOR ‘HIGH-LEVEL’ MEETING
More than 2,700 people have been killed in the war in Lebanon since March 2, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says. Some 1.2 million people have been driven from their homes in Lebanon, many of them fleeing from southern Lebanon. According to Israeli officials, the majority of those killed have been Hezbollah terrorists.
Israel has announced 17 soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in three different areas of south Lebanon on Wednesday, according to a tally of Lebanese health ministry announcements.
Hezbollah said it carried out 17 operations against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, while the Israeli military said it had struck more than 15 militant infrastructure sites in the south the same day.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel since March 2.
Hezbollah says it has the right to resist Israeli forces occupying the south.
Israel’s control zone extends as deep as 10 km (6 miles) into southern Lebanon. Israel says it aims to protect northern Israel from Hezbollah terrorists embedded in civilian areas.
The Lebanon ceasefire was announced for an initial 10 days and then extended for an additional three weeks during a meeting between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to Washington, hosted by Trump at the Oval Office.
Hezbollah strongly objects to the Lebanese government’s contacts with Israel, which reflect deep differences between the group and its critics in Lebanon.
Trump said last month he looked forward to hosting Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the near future, and that he saw “a great chance” the countries would reach a peace deal this year.
But on Wednesday, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that it was premature to talk of any high-level meeting between Lebanon and Israel, and said that shoring up a ceasefire would be the basis for any new negotiations between Lebanese and Israeli government envoys in Washington.
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A View From My Campus: Sacrificing Science and Innovation for Political Symbolism
Illustrative: A BDS demonstration outside the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In 2021, then-president of Rutgers, Jonathan Holloway, traveled to Tel Aviv to sign a partnership with Tel Aviv University (TAU) for future research at a cutting-edge facility being constructed in New Brunswick, The HELIX, which stands for The Health and Life Science Exchange.
This project includes collaborations with Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, Nokia Bell Labs, the NJ Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), Devco, and the American Technological University, all aimed at advancing innovation across industries.
The $665 million project offers “premier workspaces & laboratories for both startups and established companies operating across the gamut of healthcare, biotech, pharma, and, most broadly, the life sciences.” According to the NJEDA’s calculations, the cross-cultural development will bring an economic benefit of $340.4 million to the state.
But amongst Rutgers’ anti-Israel student groups, and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activists, there have been calls to terminate the partnership between Rutgers and Tel Aviv University, one of the leading research universities in the Middle East. This opposition came long before Oct. 7, 2023, and the war that followed.
According to these groups at Rutgers, the partnership with “Israeli universities play[s] a key role in supporting Israel’s system of apartheid rule,” and they call for “nothing less than complete divestment from these egregious investments, which drown our endowment fund and university facilities in blood.”
Note that they don’t actually care if this program or TAU connects in any way to the Israeli military or government; treating any Israeli, regardless of affiliation, like a human is apparently beyond the pale.
Notably, TAU was the first university in Israel to establish a Commission for Equity, Diversity, and Community, and has increased the representation of Arab students on campus to close to their proportion in the general population, a feat that is only possible in a place like Israel. It’s also important to note that, like many other universities in Israel, TAU leadership has gone out of its way to advocate for Palestinians.
Yet, somehow in the distorted truth of the BDS movement, TAU is complicit in “genocide.” Morally focused political movements on campus have historically claimed to fight for justice and against discrimination, exemplifying the higher education ideals of open-mindedness and critical thinking. And yet, these groups want to terminate partnerships for research, for innovation, for healthcare-based initiatives, for job and economic growth, and for expanding the academic frontier.
The Endowment Justice Collective, a Rutgers anti-Israel group, sent a letter to the administration claiming, “[a]ny collaboration which serves to bolster TAU’s reputation, provide it with a public platform, or materially support its operations shores up the legitimacy of an institution which aids and abets Israel’s oppression and genocide of Palestinians.”
But what will ending this huge project achieve, apart from a symbolic show of solidarity to a global movement whose priorities seem to obsessively focus on attacking Jews at Palestinians’ expense?
By taking intellectual pursuits such as the HELIX and dismissing them as politically motivated human endeavors, they become the very thing they seek to speak out against. TAU has the Neubauer Fellowship, an initiative specifically for Palestinian PhD students and faculty in STEM fields to provide high-level lab access and funding to elevate Palestinian representation in advanced research. When calls to cut ties like these set a precedent, they put such fellowships at risk as well. Rather than advancing equity, these efforts can ultimately backfire, restricting opportunities for Palestinian researchers and weakening the academic partnerships that make such programs possible.
Academic research and partnerships remain among higher education’s greatest strengths. They drive medical breakthroughs, technological innovation, and cross-cultural understanding. When groups like SJP demand the severance of ties with institutions like Tel Aviv University, they don’t just protest a government, but wall off the very pathways of discovery that benefit all of humanity. On our part, we must reject the close-mindedness of movements that prioritize ideological purity over global progress.
The author is a CAMERA Fellow at Rutgers University. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CAMERA.