In conjunction with a national mobilization focused on poverty issues, the Jewish Community Relations Council and St. Louis University are organizing an interfaith Hunger Awareness Seder to take place at 5 p.m. Monday, April 2 on the SLU campus.  The seder, entitled “Let All Who are Hungry Come and Eat,” will provide an opportunity for participants to learn more about the deep problem of hunger in our St. Louis region and beyond.  Participants also will learn what they can do personally in the fight to end hunger.

“Faith traditions all over the world speak to the importance of caring for the poor and feeding the hungry,” said Bryan Sokol, Director of the SLU Center for Service and Community Engagement, one of the organizations at SLU helping to plan the event.  “We thought it would be particularly meaningful during the season of Easter and Passover to participate in a joint seder meal to raise awareness about the prevalence of hunger and poverty in the United States, as well as to show how interfaith collaborations can effectively combat these social problems.”

Other co-sponsors of the event include student groups participating in SLU’s Interfaith Challenge, SLU’s Interfaith Alliance and Jewish Student Association. Leading the seder will be Rabbi Howard Kaplansky, Rabbi Emeritus of United Hebrew Congregation and Chair of the JCRC’s Michael and Barbara Newmark Institute for Human Relations. Father Paul Stark, SLU Vice President, Mission and Ministry, will provide the invocation at the seder.

Additional support and partial funding for the seder comes from MAZON and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). The April 2 Seder is one of over 40 similar programs being held all over the United States as part of the MAZON/JCPA Hunger Seder Mobilization. The St. Louis Seder is a program of the JCRC’s Bohm Social Justice Initiative.

For more information, contact Gail Wechsler at [email protected] or 314-442-3894.