LIVING IN THE MARGINS


$22,000 per year, or $30,000 for a couple. And since the economic downturn two


years ago, a generous percentage of once middle-class Jews have lost their jobs, homes and life savings. It’s a startling statistic for those who cling to the antiquated and dan- gerous stereotype that all Jews are affluent and therefore “can’t be poor.” Margalit-Faircloth deals with this stereo-


type more than she would care to admit. “When I tell people about the program I co- ordinate, they tell me it sounds like an oxy- moron. Tey seriously ask, ‘Are there poor Jews?’” She shakes her head in disbelief. Unless one is directly involved in com-


munity service, it’s easy to see where a myth like this can begin to take root. In the decades since World War II, a high proportion of Jews have established themselves as hard work- ing, successful and entrepreneurial, placing a premium on education and professional achievement. In Toronto, the Jewish commu- nity is handily represented by lawyers, doc- tors, accountants and business owners, many of whom enjoy a high standard of living. But outside the leafy, manicured neigh-


bourhoods of Forest Hill, York Mills and Tornhill, a somewhat marginalized segment of the community struggles to put Shabbat dinner on the table each Friday night. Tey are recent immigrants, senior citizens, abuse victims like Menahem, or those who suffer from a host of mental and physical health is- sues. Many don’t want the other 90 per cent to know for fear of marginalization. “It’s one of the greatest ironies of life that


Jews who have suffered so much from anti- Semitism and racism tend to have a sort of inborn sense of superiority that makes it very difficult to accept people who are poorer, people who don’t speak their language,” says Margalit-Faircloth. “It’s a sensitizing and an awareness that has to be built in, and I think it’s part of the Jewish communal life respon- sibility to make people aware.” Tat awareness hit Menahem very hard


in the weeks following her plight. Before she leſt her husband, she fit in comfortably amongst the other 90 per cent. “We had money, we had everything we


needed,” she recalls, with a shake of her dark curls. “Everything that a Jewish couple in Tornhill could want, with the cars, and the boat, and the business and the Mercedes. Everything was happening for us and all of a sudden I was homeless with three kids.” Although her husband was ordered to pay child support, he took off to Israel aſter


34 friday night Winter 2011


the verdict, and Menahem has yet to see a dime. Tere is a warrant for his arrest if he ever tries to re-enter Canada. Menahem credits the generosity of the Jewish com- munity for helping her get back on her feet. “Tere is no doubt in my mind that if I did not have the Jewish community behind me my life would have been different.” Inspired by the emotional and financial


support she received, Menahem went back to school and graduated with high hon- ours from George Brown’s Women Abuse Counselor Program. Tis fall, she begins her studies to become a paralegal so she can continue to help other victims of abuse navigate the legal system, and give back to those who have given so much to her. Organizations like JPAG and JF&CS can


oſten act as a buttress between poverty and destitution. Te supplemental financial assis- tance they provide tops up monthly govern- ment social assistance programs, like Ontario Works, which most of the time barely covers basic housing. Simon Kalkstein, a veteran social work-


er who deals with the city’s most impover- ished Jews, says social assistance oſten fails to take big city living into account. “Te maximum they can get, unless


they’re given some special things based on circumstance, is $585 a month. Tat’s not very easy to live on if you think about how little income that is,” he says from his office, where he typically puts in 100-hour work- weeks. “To this day there are people strug- gling with whether to pay their utilities or pay their rent. Tey have to make choices: what do we let slip this month in order to make sure there’s food on the table?” Similarly, Avrum Rosensweig, president


of Ve’ahavta, works with individuals who don’t even have tables to put food on. Tey oſten don’t have any food either. And while the number of homeless Jews is relatively low (official statistics vary), Rosensweig paints a bleak portrait of their struggle to survive. “What I oſten tell people is like this:


think of those times in your life that have been extremely difficult or challenging. You generally multiply them by something very big, and think about what those times may have been like had you not had any support whatsoever,” he says. “Or think about what it may be like to live in a home where the abuse is so bad that it’s better to live in a ravine. Tat’s homelessness.” In his years of social advocacy, Rosens- weig has seen both a Jewish proclivity for


Research compiled by UIA Federations Canada in 2005 put the number of Jewish poor in the GTA at approximately 20,000, representing between 10 to 12 per cent of the population


generosity – or tzedakah – and a tendency to exclude the poor. “Te Torah says you take care of the widow, the orphan and those people who are poor and are in need, but in our society so oſten people seem to feel as though because you’re homeless, you’re a bad person. We correlate the two.” Zipporah Greenberg* has never been


homeless, but she came pretty close. Te 28-year-old was finishing her graduate de- gree in social work when her fiancé woke up one morning, packed his things and leſt, claiming he “needed his space.” Aside from the emotional fallout, Greenberg had been financially dependent on him since she quit her job to go back to school in 2007. “Obviously I was devastated. I thought I


was going to marry this son of a bitch!” she says with her dry sense of humour. “So he moved out and he was paying half the rent, he was making payments on my car. My OSAP (Ontario Student Assistance Program) was about to run out and I freaked out. I couldn’t pay my rent. I didn’t know what to do.” Even if she dropped out of school, she


didn’t have enough money to live on. Tis wasn’t the first time Greenberg had


been abandoned. Her mother disappeared when she was still in diapers, leaving a husband and four children without so much as a goodbye. When she returned six years later, the family learned she had run off to Florida with another man, but at the time all they knew was that she was gone. “It affected us all differently,” she says.


“I’m naturally a depressed person, so I just cried all the time. I just used to cry, cry, cry. Even the teachers would call my dad and say, ‘your daughter is really upset, can you come and pick her up?’” Of course, her father didn’t come to pick


her up. His job as a foreman meant he was out of the house by dawn and home well aſter dark. Zipporah’s 11-year-old sister assumed the role of principle caregiver, doing most of the cooking, laundry and housework until she moved out of the house herself at the age of 16. By then, the children were looking aſter themselves. “My brother and I were walking ourselves


to school when we were six years old,” she re- calls. Her mother returned before Zipporah’s ninth birthday. Within three months, she leſt again – this time to marry a wealthy, but abusive man from Lithuania. “Tat’s my mom,” says Zipporah, tucking a stray blonde hair behind her ears. “I love her to death, but she’s a very difficult woman.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48