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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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The Iranian People Are Demanding Their Freedom; Where Is the Media?
Protesters demonstrate against poor economic conditions in Tehran, Iran, with some shopkeepers closing their stores on Dec. 29, 2025, in response to ongoing hardships and fluctuations in the national currency. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
“What were the media doing when the regime led by Ali Khamenei finally fell?”
That is the question that will be asked if, as many Iranians now dare to hope, we are witnessing the final days of the Islamic Republic after more than four decades in power. It is also a question the Western press may struggle to answer.
How It Started
The current wave of unrest began in late December, when shopkeepers in Tehran went on strike amid growing fury over Iran’s collapsing economy. The rial hit record lows, while prices continued to soar under crippling inflation. Traders, wholesalers, and merchants took to the streets in protest, initially over economic mismanagement — but anger quickly turned toward the regime itself.
Within 48 hours, demonstrations had spread beyond the capital to major cities including Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Hamadan, Qeshm, and beyond. Videos posted by Iranians showed crowds chanting explicitly political slogans: “Death to the dictator,” “Mullahs must go,” and “This homeland will not be free until the mullah is gone.”
Iranian state-affiliated media have acknowledged several deaths. Independent estimates suggest the toll may be significantly higher. What is not in dispute is that the unrest has rapidly evolved from economic protest into a broad-based challenge to clerical rule.
The Story the Media Barely Told
And yet, on Friday, The New York Times ran not a single front-page story on the protests.
Not one.
This was unrest that — if it succeeds — could reshape Iran, the Middle East, and global security dynamics for decades. A regime that backs Hamas and Hezbollah, arms terrorist proxies across the region, threatens Israel’s destruction, and destabilizes international energy markets was facing its most sustained nationwide dissent in years. Still, the story barely registered.
The New York Times’ near silence was not an outlier. It was emblematic.
When the lack of coverage was challenged on social media, John Simpson, World Affairs Editor at the BBC, offered an almost comical defense: social media videos, he said, must be carefully verified before “reputable outlets” can use them.
That principle, in isolation, is uncontroversial. But its selective application is not.
This is the same BBC that has repeatedly broadcast unverified — or lightly verified — footage and photographs from Gaza. In Iran, however, verification suddenly became an insurmountable obstacle, even as dozens of videos from multiple cities showed consistent scenes, slogans, and patterns of unrest.
When Framing Does the Regime’s Work
Reports by the BBC and analyses from BBC Verify have repeatedly emphasized “cost-of-living protests,” despite verified footage of crowds chanting for the end of clerical rule and attacking regime symbols.
Where BBC Verify has undertaken the “verification” John Simpson said was so difficult, it has drawn criticism for focusing on debunking isolated instances of AI-generated imagery — rather than acknowledging the overwhelming volume of genuine footage documenting brutality against protesters.
Genuinely shocked to see BBC Verify have chosen now to be out there giving an impression we should not believe what we are seeing in #Iran based on one image (of a real event).
Amplification of this intensely organic revolution by Israeli social media accounts is making many…
— Omid Djalili (@omid9) January 2, 2026
Sky News, Reuters, FRANCE24, and others followed a similar pattern — leading with rising prices and economic stagnation while giving little attention to the unmistakably political slogans echoing through Iranian streets.
This framing matters. Protests about inflation suggest reform. Protests calling for the removal of the Supreme Leader suggest regime collapse.
In some cases, Western coverage has gone further, adopting the regime’s preferred framing outright.
When President Donald Trump warned that the United States would respond if Iranian protesters were massacred, Iranian officials condemned the remarks as “reckless.” Several outlets, including the BBC, led with that condemnation, centering Tehran’s outrage and implicitly casting the United States, rather than the Islamic Republic, as the destabilizing force.
Last week, The Guardian even published an opinion piece by Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, under the headline: “You’ll never defeat us in Iran, President Trump: but with real talks, we can both win.”
Put simply, this was The Guardian lending its pages to the propaganda of a senior official from the very regime Iranians are risking their lives to oppose — the same Islamic Republic that beat Mahsa Amini to death for allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly, executed protesters, imprisoned dissidents, and ruled through fear for 45 years.
1/
Western media coverage of Iran’s escalating nationwide protests has been strikingly limited and cautious – despite widespread anti-regime demands across dozens of cities.Why the reluctance, when evidence is abundant?
pic.twitter.com/PWF9hgsdI3
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 3, 2026
So Why Is the Media Reporting This Way?
Western journalists do not lack information about Iran. The evidence is abundant and often supplied at immense personal risk by Iranians themselves.
What appears lacking is not access, but editorial willingness.
Acknowledging an evolving anti-regime uprising would force uncomfortable conclusions: that long-standing assumptions about “stability,” “reform,” and diplomatic engagement with Tehran were misplaced; that the Islamic Republic is not merely flawed but fundamentally illegitimate; and that Western governments and institutions have spent decades accommodating a brutal regime now being openly rejected by its own people.
It is easier — safer — to frame unrest as economic grievance, to hide behind verification rhetoric, or to platform regime voices as “context.”
But if this uprising succeeds, history will not be kind to that caution. And the question will remain: When Iranians were demanding freedom, why did so much of the Western media look away?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Palestinian Authority Police Commit Another Terrorist Attack
Illustrative: Israeli forces gather at the scene of a shooting attack near a Jewish outpost, near Nablus, in the West Bank, December 16, 2021. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
When Palestinian Authority (PA) police officer and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades terror-wing member Younes Walid Shtayyeh shot at Israeli special forces and wounded an Israeli soldier near Nablus, it was not cause for self-scrutiny on behalf of the PA police.
On the contrary, two days later, PA Police Commissioner Allam Al-Saqqa elaborated on the “professional police establishment, which acts as a law enforcement body.” He stressed that the PA police force “maintains security, public order, and morality,” a message the official PA TV reporter summarized by claiming the PA police are “loyal … to the law:”
PA Police Commissioner Allam Al-Saqqa: “[Our progress] emphasizes the integrative relationship between the State Prosecutor’s Office and the [PA] Police, through participation in enforcing justice in the criminal field, which is being protected by a skilled State Prosecutor’s Office that is striving to strengthen the rule of law, alongside a professional police establishment, which acts as a law enforcement body, operates in coordination with the State Prosecutor’s Office and under its supervision, maintains security, public order and morality, and fulfills its role within the framework of the law” … [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV News, Nov. 22, 2025]
According to PA ideology, there really is no contradiction between trying to murder Israelis and maintaining the law. Fatah and Hamas alike glorified the “operation” of police terrorist Shtayyeh, and after he was killed by Israeli forces, social media overflowed with praise for him.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented the double role of the PA police and Security Forces as cops by day — and terrorists by night — many times, recently in the report, Terrorists in Uniform.
Fatah’s terror wing announced with “pride and glory” that Shtayyeh’s funeral was a “wedding” and stressed that the PA police officer died while “fulfilling the duty of struggle and engaging in armed confrontation with enemy.”
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades also used the opportunity to pledge to continue “the path of struggle” until “the removal” of the State of Israel:
Posted text: “A military statement by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades
…
Martyr fighter Younes Walid Shtayyeh — one of the fighters of the Al-Aqsa [Martyrs’] Brigades — Nablus
Who ascended to Heaven as a Martyr on Friday, Nov. 21, 2025 … while he was fulfilling the duty of struggle and engaging in armed confrontation with enemy …
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, while accompanying the Martyr commander to the wedding, pledge before Allah that their fighters will continue … on the path of struggle and resistance, until the removal of the occupation from our land and our occupied holy sites.This is a revolution until victory!
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – Palestine
The military wing of the Fatah Movement
Saturday… Nov. 22, 2025″ [emphasis added][Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Telegram channel, Nov. 22, 2025]
Fatah political officials paid condolence visits to the family, while Fatah’s terror wing described the police terrorist as a “heroic Martyr”:
Posted text: “Fatah Movement Nablus District Secretary Muhammad Hamdan ‘Abu Al-Mutaz’ and members of the district committee in a visit of blessing and condolences on the ascent to Heaven of heroic Martyr Younes Walid Shtayyeh.” [emphasis added]
The terrorist’s father praised his death as a “Martyr,” saying it was “anticipated” and that Allah “chose him”:
Father of terrorist Younes Walid Shtayyeh: “Younes… there is no one who doesn’t love him… May Allah have mercy on him [and] be pleased with him … He asked for [Martyrdom] and achieved it.
We anticipated this … We consider him a Martyr with Allah. .. The [Israeli] army’s special forces besieged the area … He took his weapon and went out, he fought them outside and fell as a Martyr … All this is the decree of Almighty Allah. Our Lord chose him [to be a Martyr].” [emphasis added]
[“Nablus News,” Telegram channel, Nov. 22, 2025]
A Hamas-affiliated network honored the terrorist, sharing a video of him posing with and firing an assault rifle, while a song played in the background:
Song lyrics: “Do not mourn, for eternal life awaits us
Shed no tears, for Paradise is the appointed meeting place
I sacrifice myself to meet Allah, for the sake of life [in Paradise] and [Allah’s] satisfaction”Posted text: “Images of [PA] police officer Martyr Younes Shtayyeh, the one who carried out the shooting operation on the occupation soldiers while they were making arrests in Nablus a few days ago. [An operation] in which he ascended to Heaven while confronting an Israeli Yamam force.” [emphasis added]
[Quds News Network (Hamas), Telegram channel, Nov. 22, 2025]
The “Al-Quds Brigades – Grandchildren of Glory,” Islamic Jihad’s terror wing, posted pictures of the terrorist, pointing out he was a police officer:
Posted text: “[PA] police officer Martyr Younes Walid Shtayyeh, whom the occupation (i.e., Israel) accuses of shooting at its forces during the raid on Nablus yesterday”
[“Al-Quds Brigades – Grandchildren of Glory,” Telegram channel, Nov. 21, 2025]
Other groups applauded terrorist Shtayyeh as a “Jihad fighter” and stressed that he was “a son of the Fatah Movement. A son of the Palestinian Security Forces”:
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this story first appeared.
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An idyllic Jewish village, full of life and hope, just hours before its utter annihilation
A remarkable scene in Ady Walter’s film Shttl takes place in a Jewish Ukrainian village outside of Kiev on June 21, 1941, one day before the Nazi invasion, known as Operation Barbarossa.
The Rebbe, played by the always excellent Saul Rubinek is the voice of reason; he is a thoughtful, complex, contradictory and conflicted character. He does not raise his voice, he takes time to consider what to say as he himself struggles to respond to whatever factionalism arises within the community. His sad eyes are expressive. He repeatedly rubs his thumb across his fingers. This is a master class in consummate acting.
The mostly black-and-white Yiddish language film, currently playing in New York at New Plaza Cinemas, spans 24 hours in the shtetl, whose residents remain clueless of the impending doom despite the presence of the Russian Army that has already infiltrated the village. Nonetheless the cracks are surfacing within the community. Intense arguments abound on such issues as workers rights and whether to abandon religion or commit to a devoted life. One female character espousing the need for women’s rights, anticipates the future struggle of feminism in the face of patriarchy.
At its core, the film explores Jewish identity, unity and survival. The Rebbe understands factionalism yet remains implacable as he urges the townspeople to be Talmudic in their judgments, tolerant and compassionate. He describes true Jewishness as the color gray, allowing for and even respecting differences of opinion, purpose and worldview.
For, the Rebbe, Jews must always remain unified on some profound level. “Unity is the only thing that matters in the battle against evil,” he asserts. His second tenet is faith in God. Doubt can never enter the picture.
The central character, Mendele (Moshe Lobel in a nicely understated performance) is an aspiring filmmaker, who has long since left the shtetl to join the Red Army in Kyiv. But he returns home along with his best friend, a non-Jewish Ukrainian named Demyan (Petro Ninovskyi), so he can elope with his true love, Yuna (Anisia Stasevich), the child of The Rebbe.
But Yuna is already engaged through an arranged marriage to Folie (Antoine Millet), a cruel, autocratic Hasid who, despite his alleged religiosity, is petty, sly, cunning and ultimately violent.
Mendele remains torn between his ambitions embodied by the cosmopolitan outside world and the restrictive, confined shtetl where he is still deeply rooted. And he can’t help but feel connected to his estranged father, whom he holds responsible for the suicide of his late mother who, like Mendele, was also an outlier.
The film was shot in Ukraine in 2021 at the height of COVID-19 restrictions and at the very moment the Russian invasion was looming. The set, including a synagogue, was supposed to be converted into a museum honoring Ukraine’s Jewish past. But in the end, the Russian forces destroyed the whole shtetl set and the land was mined. Now that the president of Ukraine is a Jew at the very same time antisemitism is surging across the globe and Ukrainians and Jews are both under assault, the parallels and irony are almost implausible.
Walter, a documentary film director making his feature debut, has said his mission was to bring the shtetl universe that was totally wiped out during the Holocaust back to life. The title Shttl with its missing “e” references the 1969 novel, La Disparition by Georges Perec, whose mother died in Auschwitz. In Perec’s fictional work the letter “e” never appears in Shttl, its absence mirroring the emptiness, the void, the loss.
In this film, unlike such Holocaust classics like Schindler’s List, The Pianist, Son of Saul, death, despair, and hopelessness are not yet part of the collective experience. This is life prior to the Holocaust in an ethnically diverse community overflowing with purpose and hope for the future. Many Jews and gentiles enjoy camaraderie, and Yiddish and Ukrainian are both spoken.
Shtll’s cinematic technique is evocative, specifically the way scenes of recollection seamlessly morph into color — Mendele recalls his life as a yeshiva boy and the time his gentle mother gave him a baby rabbit as a pet. The colorful flashbacks suggest the past is so much more vivid than the black-and-white present.
Nevertheless, I found the film problematic. Though it has been praised for its one-shot cinematic approach, which purports to make the movie more immediate, real and immersive for the viewer, the set and the inconsistent performances made it feel more like a filmed stage play to me. And, more importantly, the characters don’t seem like actual human beings as they do spokespersons for various political, philosophical,and religious viewpoints. The quirky folkloric figures don’t help. There are two holy fools of various stripes — a beatific deceased mom who appears as a spectral figure, and my favorite, the butcher who has become a vegetarian.
Admittedly, my image of shtetl life is informed by a Fiddler on the Roof ethos and, by extension, the stories of Sholem Aleichem which presents a largely impoverished, insular and marginalized world, even if its residents don’t see themselves as disenfranchised. But in Shtll, the youthful characters are self-confident in their speech, gestures, and especially their wide-stride, swaggering gaits. They seemed jarringly secular and contemporary to me.
In one scene, our three protagonists, including Yuna, are happily passing back and forth a bottle of booze, each guzzling from the communal cap. The provincial virginal daughter of The Rebbe in a 1941 shtetl? Really?
In the end, though, the film makes a 180-degree turn that nearly eradicates its flaws. Mendele, Demyan, and Yuna have spent the night in the forest and have fallen asleep content in their certainty that at sunrise they will be embarking on their great adventure to freedom.
As dawn breaks and the sun begins to emerge over the trees. Mendele hears gunfire and spies the battalions of Nazis entering the shtetl en masse. The obliteration that will follow is clear. The respective politics, philosophies, not to mention petty jealousies, indeed, all the internecine fighting on the one hand and the moments of jubilation on the other have become totally meaningless. The realization is devastating.
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