Torah Learning Center (TLC) unveiled a new dairy kitchen ahead of Passover that helped volunteers prepare around 1,000 kosher-for-Passover meals for 170 people during the holiday.

The culinary expansion marks a major milestone in the Overland Park center’s effort to deliver Jewish dishes – along with companionship and conversation – to Greater Kansas City’s most vulnerable Jews. What began in 2013 as a small Meals on Wheels program serving just seven recipients has grown into an operation making nearly 25,000 meals a year for seniors, people with disabilities, Holocaust survivors and families facing unexpected hardships, organizers said.

“These meals bring back memories of childhood and connect people to their traditions,” said TLC Co-Director Rabbi Benzion Friedman. “We’re not just delivering food; we’re delivering a piece of home, a taste of history.”

The herculean task of preparing fresh, kosher-for-Passover meals in TLC’s two kitchens – one meat, another dairy – fell to a dedicated team of about 25 volunteers. The fleet of mitzvah-doers included chefs, meal packagers, rabbis handling kosher supervision and a squad of meal deliverers all working tirelessly for TLC’s KC Kosher Meals on Wheels program.

The volunteer troop had ample provisions for their Pesach mission: roughly 150 pounds of potatoes, 100 pounds of sweet potatoes, 100 pounds of onions and massive quantities of chicken, salmon, fruits, vegetables and other foods — all kosher for Passover.

From handmade round shmurah matzah — a special type carefully guarded from harvest to preparation — to brisket, potato kugel and gefilte fish, each dish was prepared with love, intention and care, said Rabbi Friedman and his wife, TLC Co-Director Esther Friedman.

“We’re not just feeding people,” Esther Friedman said. “We’re providing dignity. Whether it’s a family dealing with a medical crisis, a senior living alone or someone facing financial hardship, we’re here to support them.”

Organizers said TLC’s meals program is more than a food service — it’s a celebration of Jewish community, connection and solidarity at a time of surging antisemitism following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel.

KC Kosher Meals on Wheels recipients from across Overland Park, Olathe, Leawood, North Kansas City and surrounding areas get up to seven home-cooked meals a week delivered to their homes. During Passover, 170 recipients received kosher-for-Passover meal deliveries from TLC, organizers said.

“People love the gefilte fish,” Rabbi Friedman said. “These are raw gefilte fish rolls that we cook fresh. For many of our recipients, it brings back memories of childhood or reminds them of holiday gatherings.”

Aside from Passover delicacies, TLC volunteers prepare an array of dishes for recipients: soups like sweet potato, mushroom barley, butternut squash, and chicken matzo ball along with challah loaves, honey cakes, blintzes, Thanksgiving meals and holiday-specific desserts like hamantaschen for Purim.

The dairy kitchen’s Passover launch was a temporary opening; the facility is expected to be fully operational later this year once the permitting process is complete, according to the Friedmans.

The expansion comes at a critical time for TLC, which opened in 1998 and is funded by donations. Due to rising prices and the needs of an aging population, the demand for supportive Jewish services in the community is immense, the Friedmans said.

TLC’s dairy space will help the center meet that challenge, allowing volunteers to cook both meat and dairy meals – in separate, rabbinically-supervised kitchens – along with vegetarian dishes.

Prior to the new kitchen’s construction, Esther Friedman and a team of TLC volunteers prepared dairy dishes out of the Friedmans’ home – a massive, and often messy, undertaking.

“The number of meals we needed to prepare became too large for our home kitchen… it was becoming impossible to manage,” she said.

Brachie Perl, TLC’s head of programming and one of its most skilled chefs, said the dairy kitchen will provide more room for community members looking to give back.
“People want to volunteer and help, and this allows us the space to do that,” Perl said.

The Friedmans, both children of parents who survived Nazism, bring a deeply personal commitment to community service. Their approach is rooted in a philosophy of unconditional support for those in need that goes well beyond meal delivery.

“Sometimes we’re paying bills, helping with medications or simply providing a connection to the outside world,” Esther Friedman said. “We’ve had people call us at two in the morning just to talk to someone and feel less lonely. We’re there for them any time of day.”

TLC’s improved culinary capabilities have already impressed community members. During a recent event, the center hosted 130 people for a Purim Friday lunch, completely depleting their food supplies — a testament to the growing community interest and support.

Even the military is getting in on TLC’s kosher action: Members of the U.S. Army picked up 30 Passover meals for soldiers at Fort Riley ahead of the holiday, the Friedmans said.

The new dairy kitchen and growing meals program is part of TLC’s larger vision of comprehensive community support; The center offers a complete range of services including a synagogue, a mikvah and extensive programming for both Jewish and non-Jewish community members.

For the Friedmans, TLC’s achievements are the culmination of a lifelong mission of service inspired by their parents’ experiences during the Holocaust, as well as the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (z”l), who the couple grew up following in Brooklyn.

Esther Friedman’s parents lived in Russia and endured brutal conditions under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, she said. Both her grandfathers were rabbis murdered by Stalin’s regime, and her father had two brothers slain in antisemitic violence.

“They had horrific times fleeing Russia and the Nazis,” she said.

Rabbi Friedman’s parents endured their own series of horrors during and after World War II. His mother was from Ukraine and his father from Poland. They fled the Nazis and made it to Russia, surviving devastating famines before migrating to Czechoslovakia after the war.

Working in a displaced persons camp – one of numerous DP facilities where Jews languished for years on the orders of U.S and Allied governments – Rabbi Friedman’s father helped thousands of people, including some 500 children, obtain visas and papers to start new lives elsewhere, the Friedmans said.

The rabbi’s father was imprisoned for falsifying papers in Czechoslovakia and freed only at the behest of U.S. officials, he said.

His parents eventually sailed for America on a ship packed with immigrants, and Friedman made the journey in his pregnant mother’s belly.

“I’m still seasick,” he joked.

The Rebbe sent the Friedmans to Kansas City as Jewish emissaries in 1982 with a mission of helping any person in need, whether materially or spiritually. With five decades of experience teaching, counseling and helping others any way they know how, the Friedmans have contributed to every aspect of local Jewish life, community members said.

“Our parents taught us the importance of giving,” Esther Friedman said. “They came to this country with nothing, learning to speak a new language, and built a life based on community and support. This kitchen is a continuation of that legacy.”

Some of the funding for TLC’s meals program comes from the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, the Menorah Heritage Foundation, and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, the Friedmans said.

Those interested in TLC meal deliveries can go to tinyurl.com/4zshb55j.

Those interested in volunteering with the meals program can visit torahkc.org/koshermeals.

Rabbi Benzion and Esther Friedman with prepackaged gefilte fish meals for Meals on Wheels participants ahead of Passover.