EAST WINDSOR: Pizza with missiles

Twin Rivers native makes deliveries in Gaza

By Sean Ruppert, Staff Writer

    When the war between Israel and Hamas began in December, Ken Blum wanted to find a way to support the men and women serving on the front lines for the Jewish state.
    Mr. Blum, 30, was raised in Twin Rivers and graduated from Hightstown High School in 1996 before moving to Israel six years ago. In January, he and several others took a journey toward Gaza to give some Israeli troops a unique luxury on the battlefield, a few slices of pizza.
    “Imagine what it is like for an 18-year-old kid, out there fighting and coming back to what the army has to feed you,” Mr. Blum said.
    He got involved in the effort after hearing the idea, while attending a wedding, from people involved in Livnot, an international community service organization.
    “They said they wanted to buy 30 pizzas and take them to the soldiers,” Mr. Blum said. “But to me that didn’t sound like so much.”
    So he went to his home near the West Bank and sent out a message to every person in his e-mail address book, including friends and relatives in the United States, asking for donations for pizza for soldiers. Mr. Blum said he was able to raise about $1,000, enough for 100 pizzas for the soldiers.
    The pizza delivery group placed an order for 50 pies from a local pizzeria in Sderot, an Israeli city just outside Gaza that has been especially hard hit with rockets fired by Hamas. Mr. Blum said the owner of the pizzeria told them that a rocket had landed about 30 feet from the shop only 20 minutes before they arrived.
    “You realize that this isn’t like going to Chuck E. Cheese,” Mr. Blum said. “It isn’t a conventional war; there is just indiscriminate rocket fire.”
    The group took the pizzas and set out in their car to look for troops, wandering across farmland in no particular direction, just hoping to come across servicemen and women.
    “In the first group we came across was a Russian immigrant, probably 17 or 18 years old,” Mr. Blum said. “I offered him some pizza and he told me that he didn’t have any money.”
    Mr. Blum explained to him that he didn’t need any money, and the soldier was very appreciative. Mr. Blum told the soldier, and all the others that they came across that the money for the pizzas came from people in America who wanted to support them.
    They would eventually run out of pizzas and return to Sderot for another order of 50 pies, and set out again to find troops. Mr. Blum said they had very little trouble approaching the troops to deliver their pizzas.
    “It isn’t like Fort Dix, where if you are going go to anywhere near there you had better have a uniform and an ID,” Mr. Blum said. “All we really had to do was talk to them and show them that we had pizzas.”
    He said the only snag the group hit was outside of what he believed was a command center. Soldiers told them repeatedly that they could not enter the area, but they persisted. After about 10 minutes, a vehicle pulled up with a high-ranking officer inside. The group explained what they were doing, and the officer waived them in.
    At another stop, the pizza deliverers came across a group of soldier firing long distance artillery shells into Gaza, and their commanding officer allowed them to pause the shelling so they could eat pizza.
    “It was like a cease-fire,” Mr. Blum said. “We were able to stop the war for a few minutes.”
Anyone interested in donating to Livnot, which continues to collect money for pizzas, blankets and other items for Israeli soldiers, can visit www.livnot.org.