Passover dinner will cost Becky Abrams an extra $10,000 this year.
"We have to do it. There's no choice," said Abrams, director of the Squirrel Hill Food Pantry, the only kosher pantry in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Its approximately 500 clients will receive bags next week that include gefilte fish and matzo, or unleavened bread — both traditional Passover foods.
Demand at the pantry has been up sharply in the past six months, as much as 72 percent higher month-to-month compared with last year.
"There have been at least 15 new people coming in each month," said Abrams, a social worker who has been director of the pantry and its $235,000 annual budget for three years.
Managers at all area food pantries are scrambling for funding and donations. Since September, about 2,500 additional households have started using the region's 350 pantries each month, according to Iris Valanti, a spokeswoman for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
Once they have food, workers at most pantries need to look at expiration dates and little else. It's not that simple at the Squirrel Hill facility, where hundreds of items -- nearly all of which cost more -- have to be inspected to make sure they are kosher.
"There's really a lot more to sort through and look at," Abrams said.
Kosher food designation certifies that items comply with an intricate set of Biblical dietary laws focused on the preparation, ingredients and mixing of various food types. Kosher dietary restrictions prohibit certain foods, including shellfish and pork.
Like other pantries, Squirrel Hill's does what it can for clients during holidays -- meaning turkeys at Thanksgiving but also apples and honey at Rosh Hashana and ingredients for latkes, or potato pancakes, at Hanukkah.
Clients of the pantry include many non-Jews, including Muslims, whose dietary restrictions resemble kosher restrictions.
There are 5,900 Jewish households in Squirrel Hill, according to census figures, and Jews form the core of the pantry's clients.
"I eat kosher. In Russia, I did not eat kosher because I thought they would put me in jail for it," said Nina Krimer, 74, of Squirrel Hill, a refugee from Yekaterinburg, Russia, who arrived in Pittsburgh 11 years ago with no money and no knowledge of English.
"I am Jewish, and that made everything in Russia impossible. I am happy that I can now live freely. The pantry helps me out a lot," she said.
Younger clients, such as Dorit Sasson and her family, are typical of the many Americans running up against hard economic times and inadequate income.
"The pantry is a godsend for many families. They provide the minimum and more," said Sasson, 40, who teaches English as a Second Language at the Community College of Allegheny County and whose husband is a manager at the kosher meat and cheese department at Giant Eagle in Shadyside.
The pantry is heavily supported by Jewish Children and Family Services, a nonprofit social services agency. It also relies on business donations.
"We are trying to give where we can, especially in today's economic situation. And the pantry does wonderful work," said Lee Hurwitz, president of Abner & Leff Foods Co., a North Side dairy manufacturer and distributor.
Daniel Berkowitz, owner of Sweet Tammy's, a kosher bakery on Murray Avenue, sends the pantry nearly all of his leftovers.
"Bakeries always bake a little more than what they need. Helping the pantry is our responsibility as a local mom-and-pop business, " he said.
