Needy Jews exist; The Ark helps them: ‘Every single day, they’re deciding whether to purchase food or pay the utility bill’

These columns are news stories, in theory. So I should put the most incredible part first, where you can notice it before you shrug and move on to the rest of the paper.

But deciding what is the most incredible part can be a challenge.

Would it be that The Ark, the 50-year-old Jewish social service organization, exists? That it provides food and counseling, medical aid and employment guidance to needy Jews?

Or is the incredible part that the needy Jews themselves exist? Don’t Jews run the world? Are there really Jewish people right here in Chicago who would fill out paperwork and be assigned a case manager in order to get a cardboard box of tomato sauce and pasta and peanut butter?

There are.

Or is the incredible part that The Ark runs a food pantry in upscale Northbrook, 10 minutes from my house?

Jews are an odd kind of minority group — both successful and oppressed, envied and hated. People believe the slurs. If the college Hillel club shows up at the big campus Oppressed Minority Jubilee, they get hard looks because, being Jews, they’re personally responsible for the wrongs of Israel. Aren’t they?

I still haven’t gotten to the incredible part that prompted today’s effort: The Ark’s “Dinner-Less Dinner” fundraiser. At least incredible to me, because I once was the charities, foundations and private social services reporter. Wandering around the vast Hilton ballroom, eyeballing the big baskets of swag at the silent auction, entertaining the eternal puzzle: Why throw a big party? Why drain away desperately needed money to pay for indifferent chicken almondine, huge floral displays and a 35-minute set by Chaka Khan? Why not put all the money into good works, and as an added bonus, we get to stay home?

That’s what The Ark does. It sends out invitations to a non-event, collects money, but:

“No big gala, no big party,” said Cheryl Wittenstein, director of marketing at The Ark. “Instead, let’s directly affect the clients.”

The Dinner-Less Dinner is an echo of a dramatic moment in the history of Chicago charity. In 1921, Jewish benefactors gathered at the new Drake Hotel for what became known as “The Food-less Banquet” to relieve Jews suffering in post-World War I Europe. Guests actually arrived at a ballroom containing long, empty tables. Serving food would be an “unwarranted extravagance, and in the face of starving Europe, a wasteful crime,” Jacob K. Loeb announced. “For you, the disappointment is temporary and passing. For them it is permanent and lasting.”

That’s a dramatic way to drive a point home.

If all of this sounds familiar, I wrote about this five years ago, which almost kept me from returning now. Then I decided few readers will tap the page and say, “Heyyyy, I read about this in 2018!”

The Ark, serving 4,000 clients, has a new chief executive officer, for instance.

“There was a lot of emergency assistance provided through the pandemic,” said Marna Goldwin, that CEO, noting government support is being cut. “People who get $225 a month could get cut to $50. Every single day, they’re deciding whether to purchase food or pay the utility bill, because heating bills go up, too. Their choices are going to be that much more difficult.”

Clients tend not to be the chronically impoverished, but middle-class people who hit a rough patch — job loss, death of a spouse, addiction, emotional crisis, old age.

I had to swing by the Northbrook pantry and take a look.

“People don’t think there are needy people,” said Robin Karr, director of The Ark’s northwest office. “We’re very busy. There’s need in Northfield. There’s need in Wheeling. There’s need in Highland Park.”

One reason their services aren’t better known is, clients tend not to mention they’re being helped.

“There’s a lot of shame, unfortunately, and embarrassment in coming here,” said Karr.

Besides donations, The Ark is always looking for volunteer drivers to deliver food to shut-ins. Danny Weber, a former commodities trader, started a dozen years ago, driving once a month.

“I was looking to do some kind of charitable thing,” he explained. Now he drives several times a week

“When COVID hit, I decided to amp it up,” he said.

One study shows that 1 in 5 Chicago area Jews could use assistance from a social service agency like The Ark.

“Everyone needs help,” said Weber. “No matter where.”