A few days before Pesach, in the midst of the preparations, public representatives, rabbis, artists, media personalities and other senior figures gathered, together with Chasdei Naomi’s management, activists and volunteers to affix the mezuzah and dedicate Chasdei Naomi’s new logistic center in Tel Aviv.
The center is located in south Tel Aviv and joins five other centers throughout the country, and forty distribution points through which hundreds of tons of food are distributed to thousands of needy families all over the country every week.
The new center will make it possible to receive and sort many more tons of goods each week, and to distribute them quickly to thousands of families throughout the central region.
The many guests who arrived were amazed to see the vast quantities of 642-902 food and the volunteering soldiers who were there at the time and were busy packing thousands of food packages – and they also wanted to help.
And so the singers Yishai Lapidot and Israel Parnas, M.K. Motti Yogev, actor Yehuda Barkan, media figure Shlomi Goldberg (Channel 1) Hagai Harif (Galei Tzahal), Yisrael Fried (Galei Yisrael), Ariel Berman (Kol Hai) and other journalists, bloggers, reporters and media personalities found themselves side by side packing food parcels together with soldiers from the IDF’s planning division.
Hagaon Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, affixed the mezuzah at the entrance to the center. In his following the ceremony, Rabbi Lau spoke of the interesting fact that the first halakha in the laws of Pesach is the obligation to set aside money for wheat for the poor.
“This is the highest form of preparation for Pesach” said Rabbi Lau, CompTIA 220-801 exam and he praised the founder of Chasdei Naomi, Rabbi Yosef Cohen and the tens of thousands of volunteers from all sectors of the public.
“When we read in the Haggadah on Seder night, ‘Let all who are hungry come and eat,’ we know that these words are backed by Chasdei Naomi,” he said.
M.K. Motti Yogev affixed the second mezuzah and expressed his amazement at the vast extent of the charitable work carried out there.
He praised Chasdei Naomi and its head, Rabbi Yosef Cohen, for enabling many thousands of families to celebrate both a kosher and a happy Pesach.
Deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, Rabbi Natan Elnatan, also affixed a mezuzah, and warmly praised the activity of Chasdei Naomi’s staff and the blessing they will bring to the city.
Rabbi Yosef
Cohen
thanked the large audience who attended and said that this was a day of mixed feelings for him, on the one hand joy at the welcome development and that he was able to open a sixth huge logistic center, and on the other hand, Rabbi Cohen said, this is also very sad, as the need is growing and we are unable to keep up with the rate of people who turn to us for help.
“Our eyes weep and our heart is torn when we have no choice and sometimes are unable to respond to all the requests for help. This year before Pesach we are receiving an unprecedented wave of requests. We have increased our aid by thousands more food packages, but it turns out that this is not enough.
“All those who help us are doing a great, good deed, the volunteers who come here to pack and also the people who pick up the telephone and donate; every such person enables us to give to another family so they can celebrate Pesach.”
