Around two years ago, Shomrim and Calcalist published a two-part series of articles about food insecurity in schools, which revealed just how prevalent the phenomenon of hunger is in the Israeli education system. According to a survey commissioned in 2021 by the National Insurance Institute, 16.2 percent of Israeli families – including around 665,000 children – suffer from food insecurity. This broad term covers a spectrum of conditions, from concern about a possible food shortage in the household to long-term hunger. Around half of those children, according to the survey, suffer from severe food insecurity.

While Israeli primary schools have a legally mandated and subsidized feeding program, which provides hot meals for around 500,000 students, secondary schools and high schools have no system-wide solution. The situation is most acute in schools for at-risk youths, where the students tend to come from less advantaged households and often suffer most from hunger. The Education Ministry has now announced that it will expand the project to include high schools for at-risk youths – which are also sometimes referred to as “last-chance high schools.” There are tens of thousands of students enrolled in these schools who are suffering from food insecurity and are forced to depend on ad hoc solutions that rely on donations – or to cope by themselves.

The situation in the Arab community is even worse. Over the past two years, as part of a five-year plan for the Arab community, feeding programs have been operating in high schools for at-risk youths in that sector. Last year, when Shomrim reported on how the program was working after its first year of activity, principals and Education Ministry officials reported that it had been a great success. “Sometimes I would encounter students who looked pale and who said they were feeling dizzy in the middle of the day,” Lilian Hakim, the principal of Na’amat technological school in Nazareth told Shomrim at the time. “When I asked them whether they had eaten or drank anything, they would tell me they had not. I (no longer) see those looks in the children’s eyes – a look that told me that they were hungry but were too embarrassed to ask for food.”

The Education Ministry plans to expand the feeding program to high schools for at-risk children not only in Arab society, however. In other words, the state will start to provide  hot meals to 17,000 at-risk youths in 125 schools – compared to just 25 which were included in the plan until now. The estimated annual cost of expanding the plan is around 80 million shekels.

“I am proud to announce this historical change, which my partners and I have brought to the education system’s feeding program,” said Education Minister Yoav Kisch. For the first time, students in technological education centers will receive hot, balanced and varied meals that will include fresh fruit and vegetables. Food security is not a luxury and a hungry child will not be able to learn even in the most beautiful classroom. Every child deserves the same opportunity to fulfill his or her immense potential. We will continue to do everything to provide Israeli children with the conditions they need to do so.”