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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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Some of Mamdani’s Jewish allies criticize his use of ‘monsters’ to describe AIPAC
(New York Jewish Week) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday defended his use of the word “monsters” to describe AIPAC at a rally Friday for progressive candidates, as some of his Jewish supporters expressed concern that the term may connote an antisemitic trope.
The war of words came as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is increasingly a target of the progressive movement — including in acts of attempted violence — and as progressive Jews have accused some Israeli right-wing figures of dehumanizing liberal pro-Israel lobbying groups.
“Calling AIPAC and its backers ‘monsters’ casts them as less than human, rather than as human beings who are one’s political opponents,” Rabbi Jill Jacobs, head of the progressive rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, wrote in a Substack post Monday.
“I was taken aback,” Rabbi Misha Shulman, a Mamdani supporter who leads the progressive Brooklyn synagogue The New Shul, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the mayor’s comments. “I didn’t like those remarks. It was a little bit of a flag for me.”
At a press conference, Mamdani said he had been quoting Italian anti-fascist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, whose quote ending “Now is the time of monsters” the mayor had cited at the top of his speech. The rally was intended to boost the mayor’s preferred progressive candidates, including Jewish congressional candidate Brad Lander, ahead of New York’s closely watched Tuesday primaries.
“I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world,” Mamdani told a reporter who asked about the word. He continued, “My use of the term is a broad use that speaks to the untenable nature of a status quo that is quite literally starving people in this city, all in the name of sustaining something that we simply cannot defend any longer.” He did not explain how he saw AIPAC as connected to poverty in New York.
Mamdani insisted he was referring to “not solely AIPAC,” but he singled out the organization again in his Monday remarks to reporters, saying the lobbying group was backing “a status quo for immorality.”
During the rally last week, Mamdani had stated that Gramsci’s “monsters take many forms today,” including “AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s wars.” He added that AIPAC’s “goal” is “to turn us against one another.”
For some of the progressive Jews who have supported the mayor, his comments sounded alarms about the use of dehumanizing or sinister rhetoric to describe Jewish groups.
But Shulman said it was actually Mamdani’s remarks in the same speech painting AIPAC as a “dark money” group that was most alarming to him. AIPAC, a lobbying organization that also operates a political spending arm, does not conceal its donors, unlike the traditional profile of a so-called “dark money” campaign finance operation.
“For me, the question of dark money was the tougher knot,” Shulman said, calling Mamdani’s remarks a “tactical mistake.” In the context of rising antisemitism, he added, “For a left-wing leader to use that phrase, and invite traditional antisemitism into this conversation in that way, was not smart.”
Shulman is a member of Israelis For Peace, a New York-based ad-hoc group of progressive Israelis who broadly back Mamdani. While not speaking on behalf of the group, he told JTA their internal group chat lit up with debates over the appropriateness of Mamdani’s speech.
Jacobs of T’ruah said Mamdani’s remarks were part of what she described as a “disturbing trend” of recent left-wing attacks on the lobbying group, including Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner accusing his GOP opponent of being “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu” because of AIPAC’s donations to her campaign.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has aspirations of higher office, also recently became the first sitting member of Congress to sign a pledge from Track AIPAC, a purported AIPAC watchdog that also targets donations from more liberal pro-Israel groups, including J Street.
Over the weekend, a cafe posted on Instagram that it had rejected a payment from liberal Jewish New York Rep. Dan Goldman, whom Lander is challenging in the primary, because the money was “probably coming from AIPAC.” (Goldman has been endorsed by both AIPAC and J Street.)
While noting that AIPAC “absolutely deserves to be criticized, sidelined, and rejected for its decades of negative influence on American foreign policy,” Jacobs wrote that such critiques should be done “without dehumanizing language, and without hinting at a grand Jewish conspiracy.”
Such pushback from Jews who have worked with Mamdani is rare. JTA reached out to representatives for several of the mayor’s most visible Jewish allies on Monday, including Lander and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who spoke at the same rally. Sanders also criticized AIPAC. Neither returned requests for comment by press time. On social media after the rally, Lander celebrated the event, calling it “a tremendous honor” to rally alongside Mamdani.
IfNotNow and Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, two Jewish activist groups that endorsed Mamdani, similarly did not respond to requests for comment by press time. A spokesperson for Rep. Jerry Nadler, the retiring liberal Jewish Democrat who had endorsed Mamdani’s mayoral bid, also did not respond by press time.
J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby that positions itself as a foil to AIPAC, declined to comment on Mamdani’s remarks. Last month, hundreds of Jewish leaders criticized Yehuda Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, after Leiter called J Street a “cancer within the Jewish community.” Nadler was among the signatories of an open letter that said Leiter “dehumanizes fellow Jews.”
Centrist Jewish groups and figures, already no fans of Mamdani, also bashed his AIPAC comments. “Referring to fellow New Yorkers as ‘monsters’ is outrageous and dangerous, and the impact of your words extends far beyond politics,” American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch wrote on X, addressing Mamdani.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish Democrat representing New Jersey, wrote, “Swap ‘AIPAC’ for ‘Jews’ and it’s the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theory in the books.”
Both posts were reposted by AIPAC, which otherwise did not comment.
The post Some of Mamdani’s Jewish allies criticize his use of ‘monsters’ to describe AIPAC appeared first on The Forward.
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U.K. PM Starmer leaves behind mixed record on antisemitism
(JTA) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who resigned the premiership on Monday, leaves behind a mixed record on fighting antisemitism in the Labour Party that Jewish organizations say will help shape their expectations for his successor.
Starmer announced that he was stepping down outside 10 Downing Street in the morning local time. He made the decision in the wake of mounting pressure from Labour members of Parliament and waning political support after the party’s devastating losses in the May 7 local elections and the success of political rival Andy Burnham in Manchester’s parliamentary election last week.
Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, has emerged as the leading contender after winning a Manchester-area by-election on Friday with 55% of the vote. Burnham has sought to position himself prominently on antisemitism and relations with the Jewish community in his bid to take over from Starmer.
In a post on X, Burnham thanked Starmer for his leadership and said the PM’s decision to resign “marks the beginning of a transition and it is important that this process is conducted in an orderly and responsible way. I will put myself forward as part of this process.”
Starmer confirmed he would remain on as caretaker prime minister until a successor was chosen.
“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” he said. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace.”
The Jewish Labour Movement thanked Starmer in a post on X, noting that two years ago he inherited the party “at its lowest point” from former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, when it was “institutionally antisemitic.” It added, under Starmer, “our party has a clean bill of health on antisemitism.”
However, Starmer’s tenure was still met with plenty of criticism from the Jewish community over his handling of antisemitism, particularly in light of ongoing antisemitic attacks in the country. In recent months alone, four Hatzola ambulances were lit on fire; there were attempted attacks on three synagogues; two Jewish men in the Orthodox neighborhood of Golders Green were stabbed. Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the incidents.
Starmer entered office in July 2024, leading his country’s thorny relationship with Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack against the Jewish and the Gaza war that followed. He angered Israel with steps such as recognizing Palestine as a state and promising to uphold the International Court of Justice’s arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes.
With Starmer’s upcoming departure, focus has shifted to the contest to replace him, bringing renewed scrutiny to candidates’ positions on antisemitism, relations with the Jewish community, and Israel.
Starmer said he would give his successor his “full and unequivocal support,” adding that nominations would open on July 9 and conclude before the parliamentary summer recess on July 16.
Board of Deputies of British Jews President Phil Roseneberg posted on X, “When he took on the leadership of the Labour Party the first thing @Keir_Starmer said he would do is ‘tear out the poison of antisemitism by its roots’. His subsequent actions were transformative within the Party.”
He praised Starmer’s government for providing “unprecedented security funding,” and introducing legislation to proscribe the IRGC.
Burnham, for his part, has spoken out against antisemitism in the wake of violence attacks. Following the October 2025 Yom Kippur attack at the Heaton Park Congregation synagogue in Manchester, in which two people were killed, Burnham said in an official release, “Tonight, our first thoughts are with the families of those who have died, those injured and those traumatised by this – a horrific antisemitic attack on our Jewish friends and neighbours. We condemn it outright.”
He also wrote in a post on X on the same day, “Today we have witnessed a vile attack on our Jewish community on its holiest day. We condemn whoever is responsible and will do everything within our power to keep people safe.”
His positions on Israel and Gaza have also come under scrutiny. In a June 4 interview with The Guardian, Burnham did not invoke the term “genocide” in relation to the war in Gaza, but did say, “I can’t judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester.”
He added, “But I do have concerns about the disproportionate nature of what has happened in terms of the destruction, and there has to be a full process of investigation and accountability.”
Additionally, 10 days after the Oct. 7 attacks, Burnham called for a ceasefire in a joint statement with 10 Greater Manchester leaders. The statement read in part, “We condemn unreservedly the appalling terror attacks on innocent civilians in Israel by Hamas on 7th October.”
The statement also noted that Israel has the right to take “targeted action within international law” to defend itself and to rescue its hostages, but added, “We also have profound concerns about the loss of thousands of innocent lives in Gaza, the displacement of many more and widespread suffering through the ongoing blockade of essential goods and services.”
Referencing his expected leadership bid, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the Jewish News on June 17 that Burnham had a few weeks earlier met with Jewish communal leaders in Greater Manchester.
When it comes to Israel, Nandy said Burnham “believes in justice, so he’s acutely aware of the need for a safe homeland for Jewish people, you know, and the particularly unique historical reasons why Israel came into existence.”
The post U.K. PM Starmer leaves behind mixed record on antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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NY cafe deactivates account after backlash over treatment of Rep. Goldman
(New York Jewish Week) — A Brooklyn café posted on Instagram that it refunded a purchase made by Rep. Dan Goldman, saying that it doesn’t serve “genocide enablers.”
“Do you see how it doesn’t taste like genocide juice?” the post by Poetica Coffee read. “Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference?”
In the post, the coffee shop included a photo of Goldman at the Lorimer Street location of their five Brooklyn spots. “Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away or we would have turned you away,” the post said.
The caption on the post said Goldman’s money is “probably coming from AIPAC anyways” and told Goldman never to come back. The post was accompanied by the song “F— You” by British singer-songwriter Lily Allen.
Jewish community leaders immediately condemned the post, which was deleted when Poetica Coffee deactivated its account Monday.
“Assigning collective blame to Jews or perceived supporters of Israel over disagreements with Middle East policies is the very definition of antisemitism,” Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said in a statement. “It is shameful and hateful, and businesses open to the public do not get to discriminate based on religion, ancestry, ethnicity, or stereotypes.”
According to its website, Poetica Coffee is “rooted in the Uzbek tradition where the guest is sacred, the books are unbanned, and the door is open to everyone.”
Goldman, who describes himself as “unabashedly pro-Israel,” is running for reelection in a contentious election Tuesday against former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, an Israel critic who also identifies as a “liberal Zionist.” Lander’s campaign did not respond to request for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“I am sorry to see this post,” Goldman said in a statement earlier Monday. “The barista could not have been nicer to my 7-year-old daughter and me — allowing her to use the bathroom even though we had not purchased anything. I made sure to buy a coffee in return for her kindness. I hope you at least make sure she gets the tip that she deserved.”
Before deactivating its account, Poetica Coffee said it had been the recipient of multiple death threats, including at least one with Islamophobic rhetoric.
Goldman was refunded $9.82, according to now-deleted screenshots from Poetica’s post.
The post NY cafe deactivates account after backlash over treatment of Rep. Goldman appeared first on The Forward.
