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Bracha is a 43-year-old mother of four from Rishon Lezion (central Israel). For years he worked and supported her family with dignity as a secretary in a local business. Then a series of accidents and trauma left her unable to continue. “My health isn’t good, so I’m not able to work,” she explains. Her husband works part time despite his own medical challenges, and several of their children face health and learning difficulties. With no steady income and National Insurance support still pending, the family lives month to month on the edge.
Once a week, Bracha walks into Gishrey Ya, a social supermarket and a Leket Israel nonprofit partner agency. The supermarket looks like a regular grocery store, but families in need can select food free of charge. She moves through the aisles and chooses what her family needs for the week.
For Bracha, these groceries are not a supplement. It is the difference between having food and going without. At the supermarket, she receives dairy products, meat, and basic staples, but the fruit and vegetables, rescued by Leket Israel, are what matter most. Without them, she says plainly, she would not have any fresh produce at all.
“All of the food in my house comes from my weekly shopping here,” Bracha acknowledges. “If they didn’t provide us with these fruit and vegetables, my children would just not have any.” With the rising cost of living in Israel, fresh fruit and vegetables are especially expensive. Bracha shares that while passing a supermarket she saw bananas selling for NIS 16 ($4.50) per kilo in a window display. Apples, tomatoes, eggplant, and avocado, foods most families consider basic, are simply out of reach. “Fruit and vegetables shouldn’t be a luxury,” she says. “But for us, if it’s not from here, we don’t eat them.”
As a mother, this is a painful reality. Together, Gishrey Ya and Leket Israel ensure her children have fresh produce on the table each week. “This place truly saves us,” she says.