Today, February 20, 2014, is World Day for Social Justice –
a day on which the United Nations calls on all countries to consider actions to
fight poverty and inequality. It sounds like a day of grand ideas, lofty goals,
global revolution. Which it is. But it is also a day to think of the smallest
child, living possibly right next door or down the street, who does not have
enough to eat for breakfast.
To think of that child’s parents who may be
immigrants struggling to find work or who may be living with a chronic illness
or disability. Or maybe this child has only one parent, a mother running from
an abusive spouse or irresponsible ex-spouse or mourning the unexpected loss of
her spouse.
Maybe this child has an older sibling who is dealing with drug
addiction or mental illness. Or just the stark reality that the current
economic climate isn’t hiring his/her age group.
Maybe this child has a
grandparent who is bedridden and lonely or unable to afford proper care.
Maybe
there was a time that this family was fine – financially secure, healthy,
happy. Maybe not. Maybe they’ve been brought low by the recession or by illness
or by death. Maybe they were reckless and unlucky. Maybe they were just
unlucky.
Either way, this family, this young adult, this mother, this
father, this grandparent, this child – they are now to be counted among the
poor of our planet. They have joined a fast-growing group. Too fast-growing. A
group that includes members from every continent, every country, every ethnic
group, religion, race.
And this child lives in your neighbourhood.
Everyone wants to end poverty but to do so, we need to
recognize poverty in all its forms. We need to recognize it in the faces of
people who live on the other side of the planet and look and act nothing like
us. And we need to recognize it when it is right in front of our faces and
looks exactly like we do.
We don’t always want to acknowledge that there are poor
people in our community. Most people like to think of the Toronto Jewish
community as affluent and successful. And we are. But that is not the whole
picture.
There are people in the Toronto Jewish community who do not
have food in their cupboards. Who do not know how they will pay their rent. Who
live in fear every day. Fear that they will never find work. Fear that they
will become homeless. Fear that someone will take their children away. Fear
that they will die cold and alone. And forgotten.
Some of these people are Holocaust survivors. Some of these
people are refugees. Some of these people are abuse victims. Some of these people
are four years old.
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