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The capital's new Carmei Ha'ir restaurant serves the needy with heart.
Each of the 20-odd sunlit tables at the Carmei Ha'ir restaurant is set with silverware and dressed with salt and pepper shakers and a basket of fresh pitot.
Waitresses wind between tables with piping-hot dishes of pasta, soup, rice, chicken, fish, plates of salad, and jugs of juice. Some patrons are in suits, others are in sweatpants; some eat slowly, while perusing a newspaper or chatting with friends; others eat hurriedly, then run out the door.
Aside from the absence of a cashier, there is no indication that the three-week-old kosher meat eatery at 72 Rehov Agrippas is anything less than a normal restaurant.
But almost every day since it opened, a queue has gathered in front of the new dining hall in anticipation of its noon opening, and by the time it closes at 3 p.m., the restaurant has served meals to over 150 needy Jerusalemites, for whom Carmei Ha'ir has already become their primary source of food.
"There have always been hungry people in Jerusalem," explains co- founder Rabbi Yehuda Azrad. "But over the last three years, the situation has become much more acute."
According to Azrad, the bulk of their clientele consists of people who, prior to the outbreak of violence in September 2000, were fully employed and self-sufficient.
"Even if they qualify, some of these people refuse to accept social security, let alone enter a soup kitchen," he says.
"That's why we decided not to label this place as such; because we wanted to reach those people who are ashamed that they are in need."
Quoting a passage from Rabbi Zushner of Halipol, Azrad points out that he has never seen a man die of starvation.
"But I have seen a lot...