While governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney refused to allocate an extra $5 a day to provide kosher meals for poor Jewish nursing-home residents. Romney vetoed a measure in 2003 that would have allocated $600,000 for kosher meals, in a move that some predict will hurt his chances in Florida,
the New York Post reported.
Romney had rejected the funding because it would have led to an increased rate for nursing facilities, the Post reported.
“I was outraged,” Jeffrey Goldshine, the retired CEO of a company that operated a kosher facility in Massachusetts, told The Post. “For the elderly Jewish residents of a nursing home that have always been kosher — they should be entitled to continue.”
The Massachusetts Legislature eventually managed to restore the $600,000 to finance the kosher meals. Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov Hikind predicted the issue will hurt Romney in Florida.
“Everybody understands what kosher is,” he told the Post. “You have huge communities of Jews who eat only kosher and you have a huge community of senior citizens, of older people. People are going to want to know why.”
© 2012 Newsmax. All rights reserved.