What does Colonel Stephen Bernstein in the US Army have in common with two women in Rockland County, NY?

Colonel Bernstein is one of the many recipients of Kosher Troops, an organization founded by Sara Fuerst & Ava Hamburger. Sara & Ava, have been sending food and holiday baskets to US soldiers for the past couple of years.

What started out as a small Bat Mitzvah project turned into a full time organization that reaches a few hundred troops and service members around the world. Each holiday Ava and Sara collect money, food and letters from the local schools and carefully pack them and send them to Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea or wherever else a Jewish Soldier might be stationed. The packages not only contain food, but siddurim, mezuzot, tzitzit, popcorn makers and coffeemakers. They even sent a Tallis & Tefillin to a soldier in Pakistan.

The funding for most of the items comes from friends, neighbors and other generous members of the community that hear about this worthy project and want to be part of supporting the troops. Companies like Labriut, JRKelly, King Zak, Amazing Savings and Franczoz have donated cases of products as well. As word gets out that there is a source for kosher food and Jewish-related articles their list of service members grows.

Recently, Sara & Ava were more than pleasantly surprised when they opened a package postmarked “Iraq”.  Colonel Stephen Bernstein and the Soldiers at Camp Taji sent Ava & Sara each an American Flag that was flown over the skies of Baghdad as a token of appreciation for the support that Koshertroops has given them over the past couple of years

 To spread the word and share what they do they have set up a website http://koshertroops.com/ They are preparing for the High Holidays and invite individuals, businesses, schools and communities to visit their website and partner with them in this great Mitzvah.

(YWN Desk – NYC)