Galit Menachem, who lives with her three children in subsidized housing.


“I remember nothing of that conversation


except for one thing,” Menahem says. “Debra said, ‘Galit, we will not let your kids go hun- gry.’ Tat’s the only sentence I remember be- cause I was so emotional and crying. I was devastated, but now I knew there was a way out and my kids would not starve.” Another phone call – this time to the


local police – secured the presence of sev- eral officers who made sure she was safely escorted to her sister’s house. For the next year, she and her three children would share


Photography by Geoff George


a single mattress in a tiny basement room bordered by garbage bins, while the family waited for subsidized housing. Her future would be littered with food bank coupons, handouts, and a five-year court battle aſter her bank accounts were blocked and she was leſt without a cent. But at that moment, safe from her husband’s unyielding fists, all she could do was jump up and down on her sister’s driveway and shout, “I’m free! I’m free!” into the cool autumn air. Menahem’s history of abuse adds another


tangled layer to the undercurrent of Toronto Jews living in poverty. Demographic re- search compiled by UJA Federations Canada in 2005 put the number of Jewish poor in the Greater Toronto Area at approximately 20,000, meaning anywhere between 10 to 12 per cent of the population. Dalia Margalit-Faircloth, who heads the


Jewish Poverty Action Group (JPAG), says of that 10 per cent, at least 2,000 could be considered the “working poor:” people who have jobs, but are still living on less than


Winter 2011 friday night 33


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