As the federal government shutdown stretches into its fifth week, Ben Yehuda Pizza in Silver Spring, Md., announced a buy now, pay later program for furloughed federal workers.
“We try to avoid politics at Ben Yehuda,” the eatery stated on social media. “We try to support the pizza party, but that’s as far as we go.”
Owner Josh Katz, who has run Ben Yehuda Pizza since 2012, told JNS that the idea came from a conversation with “a friend impacted by the shutdown who has five kids” and needed “to give his family a sense of normalcy.”
Katz said that his restaurant tries to “be people’s easiest meal,” whether a night off from cooking or something that will satisfy picky children.
Furloughed workers can sign up for meals on a Google form and agree to repay within 30 days of receiving back pay.
The response has been overwhelming and surprising, according to Katz.
“It’s not a charity. It’s a business. Tons of people are emailing me saying, ‘How can we contribute,’” he told JNS. “They are doing it as a charity. For them it’s totally selfless.”
When Shuli Tropp, executive director of the Hebrew Free Loan Association of Greater Washington, got wind of Katz’s statement, she asked him to refer furloughed workers to the association’s no-interest loans.
“He’s truly a mensch,” Tropp told JNS of Katz, with her children who were home early from school in the background of the call. “My kids love his pizza the best.”
While the shutdown began Oct. 1, the “first missed paycheck was last week,” Tropp told JNS. Her organization has approved almost 10 loans so far, with more pending. She expects there to be “a pickup” of applicants.
The shutdown, triggered by a budget impasse in Congress, has furloughed roughly 800,000 federal workers nationwide.
