Living in the Margins


Food banks, handouts and unemployment are realities for an alarming number of Toronto Jews living below the poverty line By Jordana Divon


Galit Menahem has vivid memories of the night her life dissolved into a nexus of sirens, flashing lights and police cruisers. Te Israeli-born mother of three stood


paralyzed as a flurry of friends and family members tore through her Tornhill home, grabbing whatever they could – clothing, passports, health cards – and stuffing it into garbage bags. “I was in shock, watching my life turn


around in one second,” the striking, hazel- eyed 43-year-old recalls, of that October


32 friday night Winter 2011


night in 2004. “I saw garbage bags flying down the stairs and then people walking out of my house with my babies dressed in white pajamas, sleeping with their mouths open. It’s almost like I was on the outside looking in. And then, all of a sudden, you have no home, you have no marriage. Everything you worked for and you built is gone.” One week earlier, a bruised and shaken


Menahem had walked into the offices of the Jewish Family and Child Services (JF&CS) near Bathurst and Sheppard. Her seven-


year marriage had always been fraught with violence, but her husband’s temper had re- cently grown unstable, and she started to fear for her life. A concerned friend had given her the number for JF&CS, advising her to use it when she was ready. Tat aſternoon, she made the call from a pay phone because she was afraid someone would overhear her conversation. An intake worker told her to come in immediately. Within days, she met with Debra Feldman, director of the Victims of Violence Program.


Photography by credit


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