Inflation Drives Up Passover Food Prices For US Jews

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Moshe Werzberger shops for Passover food and other groceries at a kosher supermarket in the Hasidic Jewish section of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood in New York on April 19, 2022. Some U.S. Jewish families observing the Passover are struggling to pay for matzo, eggs and gefilte fish and worry about how soaring inflation is driving up prices during one of the most important holidays for Jews. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

NEW YORK (AP) — Shopping for Passover on a recent day at a kosher supermarket in the Hasidic Jewish section of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, Moshe Werzberger worried about how inflation is driving up prices during one of the most important holidays for Jews.

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“It affects us very much,” said the 23-year-old, who recently canceled plans to vacation in Florida with his wife and 2-year-old son because of skyrocketing prices. Inflation has become a main topic of debate for worshippers at his synagogue and also in his extended family as they share the celebratory Passover meals, Seders.

“It just keeps on going up and up …” he said as announcements rang out in Yiddish on the store’s intercom. “And at some point it’s going to have to stop, or no one is going to be able to afford to go shopping.”

As households feel the squeeze of surging consumer prices, some U.S. Jewish families observing Passover have struggled to pay for eggs, gefilte fish and the unleavened bread known as matzo, which represents their ancestors’ exodus from slavery in Egypt.

The need is so great that the Met Council, which runs the country’s largest kosher food pantry, expects to supply a record of nearly 3 million pounds of food in Passover packages and $500,000 in emergency food cards among the Jewish community in greater New York City and New Jersey.

“We’ve been doing charitable work for 50 years, and we’ve never seen anything like this,” said David Greenfield, the council’s executive director. He added that there’s “no question” that hundreds of thousands of families are eating less meat during Passover, which this year falls from April 15 to 23.

Grocery prices rose 10% in March on a year-on-year basis — the most in 41 years — driven by higher prices for poultry, fish, eggs, beef and other meats.

The reasons for the surge vary: supply chain snags, unfavorable weather and rising energy prices. The latter, driven by Russia’s war against Ukraine, pushed wholesale prices up a record 11.2% last month from a year earlier. Transportation problems are weighing on food imports, particularly seeds and other items that produce oils.

The only thing likely to put a dent in inflationary pressures is the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates, said Laura Veldkamp, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University. But families suffering sticker shock from shopping for Seders can’t expect a respite anytime soon.

“Last year there were a number of government subsidies and programs that people were able to tap into,” said Yitzy Weinberg, executive director of Flatbush Community Fund, a Brooklyn-based charity. “But this year the COVID subsidies are over, and between that and inflation, it was a double whammy that hit working families when they needed it the most.”

Weinberg’s organization has distributed food, grocery cards and checks to more than 1,100 families this Passover, up from 850 last year.

Diana Kogan, director of Caring for Jews in Need, an initiative of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said inflation and shortages have been “a huge issue” for Jewish groups in Southern California that provide holiday food packages to vulnerable communities including older adults, Holocaust survivors and people without housing.

“Kosher meat, kosher chicken in particular, has been an issue,” she said. “Chicken used to be $1.89 per pound. But this year it’s over $3 a pound. We’ve also seen a 20% to 30% increase in kosher food prices.”

Kogan said groups such as Jewish Family Service of LA and Tomei LA have been stockpiling food since before Passover, buying items when they are on sale. But that has created a need for storage space, freezers and generators.

Meanwhile some organizations that hand out both food packets and gift cards during Passover are finding that people often prefer to get the packets.

“That’s because the prices of items are so high,” Kogan said. “The gift cards don’t go too far.”

Kosher products tend to be slightly more expensive. But Passover products are even costlier, according to the Met Council’s Greenfield, because there needs to be an extra certification that there’s no there’s no leavening or bread involved.

“Passover is the most expensive time of the year for someone who keeps kosher,” he said.

Back at the supermarket in Brooklyn, Eliot Spitzer, perused the vegetable aisle with two of his seven children, 9-year-old Faigy and 11-year-old Abba. His family hosted a Seder for 14 people at their home, and he said high prices have made things tough for everyone this Passover.

“It’s definitely harder,” Spitzer said. “We (Hasidic Jews) have bigger families — average seven, eight, nine kids per family — and it’s not easy.”


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Liam K. Nuj
Liam K. Nuj
1 year ago

Love how they interviewed a 23 year-old about inflation. His idea of the “good old days” is what? 3 weeks ago?

Jay
Jay
1 year ago

Inflation AND the suppliers/distributors/manufactures or you name it drove up the cost of food as well above the cost of inflation! There are folks out there taking big time advantage of the situation and blame everything on inflation.. Yes inflation is real but greed is too! Gut Yom Tov!

Ari
Ari
1 year ago

I dunno, the government says its just 8.5%, but when I shop, and when I pay the bills, it seems more like 30%+.

Minka
Minka
1 year ago

I know people paying 15-25K for one room pesach in hotels and yet people cant even afford food sad.

Me123
Me123
1 year ago

I wonder how much the Pesach hotels have been driving up meat and chicken prices? Just asking…..

Educated Archy
Educated Archy
1 year ago

Bidens America
What can he do?
1) stop dishing out freebies. End food stamps and you’ll see all those who dropped out of the workforce back working which will reduce labor costs
2) end regulations.
3) drill and frack much more oil and gas

Last edited 1 year ago by
Mets counselman
Mets counselman
1 year ago

I wonder how much the government (your tax dollars) in ny and nj were paying for all the chicken in the kimcha dpiskha Boxes that were meant to feed the “poor”. I imagine if it’s like everything else in govt they we’re charging triple the regular price to all the “councils”. So if you want to know where all the chickens went….

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

The AP is hiding the truth, as usual.

“The reasons for the surge vary: supply chain snags, unfavorable weather and rising energy prices. The latter, driven by Russia’s war against Ukraine, pushed wholesale prices up a record 11.2% last month from a year earlier.”

No, the energy price rise was not (for the most part) driven by “Russia’s war against Ukraine…”, as the AP tries to make you believe.

The rising energy prices, up a record 11.2% from a year earlier, began rising this past year long before Russia invaded Ukraine, since the current administration took over and openly declared war on American energy production. But since the AP is essentially the PR arm of the DNC, they conveniently cover that up.

Rats rats DemocRATs
Rats rats DemocRATs
1 year ago

You vote from r DemocRATs that’s what you get. High prices and high crime.

shlomo zalman
shlomo zalman
1 year ago

So this guy thinks that eventually prices will rise until people stop shopping. In the meantime, he can’t afford his Pesach in Florida. That’s the sort of thinking for someone without an education. No sympathy from me.

Go Figure
Go Figure
1 year ago

Inflation is part of the story but this ignores bigger issues like current shortages of poultry products that drove up prices there extraordinarily. As for why Matzah prices were so high, no clue but doubt inflation explains it. Likely overall increased demand as Pesach programs came back online and the resultant price gouging.