Celebrity Israeli chef launches campaign for hungry schoolchildren

A celebrity Israeli chef is calling on American Jews and Israeli Americans to help feed hungry schoolchildren in Israel.

Haim Cohen, a TV cooking star and restaurateur known in the United States for his work on the menu of the Taboon restaurant in New York, is the face of a social media campaign for Nevet, founded by the nonprofit Leket Israel in 2006, which provides nutritious breakfasts daily to disadvantaged students at 120 schools across Israel.

“School sandwiches for kids aren’t just two slices of bread with a spread in between – they’re much, much, much more,” Cohen says in a video pitch.

Cohen calls preparing sandwiches for his children to eat at school “one of the most joyful moments for me as a father because I know what it means to them: the power to learn better and to be proud.”

Though Nevet provides breakfasts to 8,000 disadvantaged Israeli students — a total of about 1.3 million breakfasts a year — there are nearly 13,000 more on a wait list, the organization said in a statement.