I found this in my inbox today - a little note from Kosher Today (the kosher industry’s spokes-organization) that indicates exactly how little they care about anything except whether “its good for the Jews.” Be forewarned, gentle readers - if you have a sensitive stomach or any sort of soul, the following passage will leave you feeling queasy.
Kosher Community Looks Beyond Agriprocessors Raid
“New York…For most retailers around the country, the recent raid at the Postville Agriprocessors plant is about supply and price, but otherwise they do not see any repercussions for the industry as a whole. For the most part, retailers say the supply has been virtually uninterrupted and prices have stayed the same. Agri products are featured in many ads in advance of the holiday of Shavuos (June 9-10) and most retailers say that they have not seen any change in consumer habits as a result of the federal raid in Postville. There is no evidence of any boycott of Agri products whatsoever, they say.
Mendy Bauman of Glatt Mart in Flatbush told Jewish journalists that virtually none of his customers even bothered to ask which of his meats were from Agri. Sources in Postville say that Agri has been adding laborers and stepping up production with every passing day.
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Yesterday, Hazon organized a conference call with Rabbi Morris Allen for our staff, board, and volunteer leaders of our food programs. Rabbi Allen is the founder of Hekhsher Tzedek, and and just came back from visiting Postville, Iowa along with his daughter, fellow Rabbi, Harold Kravitz, and his daughter, and the chair of Allen’s synagogue’s social justice committee.
We asked him to brief us on the current situation with Agriprocessors, the mood in Postville, and the Jewish response - from an on-the-ground perspective.
This is what he saw and reported: Read more »
Here’s a roundup of the latest from the Agriprocessors scandal:
Take a hike, son. Amidst the recent flurry of calls from Jewish communal leaders to boycott Agriprocessors’ products (including the Uri L’tzedek boycott, which Hazon is supporting), the company’s founder Aaron Rubashkin started looking for a new CEO to replace his son, Sholom. Read the full story at The JTA here.
Dancing with Sholom. One of the most interesting articles I’ve read since the raid is writer Ben Harris’ account of his personal interactions with Sholom Rabushkin, as noted on The JTA’s blog, The Telegraph.
Uri L’tzedek. Read the full text of Uri L’tzedek’s call for boycott below the jump. It’s pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.
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In February and March I worked on an industrial pig farm in Israel, which was mentioned on Jcarrot back in February. In a way my time there was a bizarre, self-inflicted, extended identity crisis - but it was also a fascinating and challenging experience for me as both a kosher Jew and a believer in non-factory farmed meat.
I spent time on the “other” side and just recently wrote an article in The Forward, called “On Israel’s Only Jewish-Run Pig Farm, It’s the Swine That Bring Home the Bacon,” which expresses and reflects my own experiences on the farm, the many contradictions of this particular kibbutz, as well as the contradictions within myself.
You can read the full article here.
The blogosphere has been buzzing with fake news stories for April Fool’s today (because we need more incorrect information on the internet?) including announcements that Al Gore announced his presidential bid, and Jewish philanthropist, Michael Steinhardt, started a network of kosher cannabis clubs.
Our friends over at Ethicurean really got us giggling with this gag:
Caca-Cola: The National Pork Producers Council and Coca-Cola have announced a joint venture to build facilities that will carbonate soft drinks using CAFO-sourced methane. The partners call the project “a dynamic, environmentally conscious approach to eliminating factory farming odors, which of course were never really a problem in the first place.” (CartelWatch.org)
Hmmm, well honey from bees (a treif insect) is kosher, but soda made fizzy with pig gas? Kosher-keeping Jews, and really everyone else, might decide the join the Pepsi generation after all.
The Jew & The Carrot {hearts} Aitan and Adva Dairy. Thanks to Nextbook for producing a wonderful podcast and feature one of our favorite Jewish goat farmers - yes, there’s more than one!
“Goat Days”
Nextbook 2.25.08
By: Jesse Graham
(Listen to the podcast)
There’s a growing movement among environmentally conscious observant Jews to rethink kashrut. Its adherents place less emphasis on the official kosher stamp, and more on where their food comes from. They want locally and organically grown produce, and if they are meat-eaters, they want to know that the meat they’re eating comes from farms that treat animals humanely.
One devotee of this movement is an unassuming thirty-year-old named Aitan Mizrachi, founder of the AVDA Dairy, a small-scale goat dairy farm in northwestern Connecticut that produces organic, kosher raw milk yogurt and cheeses.
Read more »
Here’s the newest article about kosher, ethical meat…this one I wrote for American Jewish Life (Those of you who read this blog religiously might already be well-versed on the subject - but for the non ethical food-obsessed Jews out there, it’s definitely still hot news.)
Conscious Carving
American Jewish Life
By: Leah Koenig
February 25, 2008
Early on a Friday morning this past December, 70 Jews gathered in a frost-covered field in rural Connecticut. Some of them huddled in small groups, talking in hushed tones and blowing on their frozen fingers. Others stood at a distance, quiet with thought. They were all there for one reason — to witness three goats being slaughtered for meat, in accordance with Jewish law.
No, these people were not part of some underground Jewish cult. They were attendees of a food conference hosted by the New York-based non-profit, Hazon (which, for full disclosure, is my employer). The purpose of the ritual slaughtering, was to “enable people to have a more direct understanding of where kosher meat comes from,” said Hazon’s Executive Director, Nigel Savage. In this case, it would be the same meat that many of the participants would eat that night for dinner.
Read more »
Last week The Jew & The Carrot posted an article about the ”shackle and hoist” scheitah (kosher slaughter) methods used to produce much of the kosher meat imported to Israel. Yesterday, YNet reported the response from The Israeli Chief Rabbinate and OU Chairman. Thanks to The Jew & The Carrot reader, Joshua, for bringing this article to our attention.
Rabbinate: Import Meat Only if ‘Morally Slaughtered’
YNet - 2.20.08
By: Neta Sela
PETA and the Torah? Following the lead of The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to animals, which has long protested against cruel “lift and bind” slaughter techniques practiced in many United States and South American slaughterhouses, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has also decided to work to eliminate such techniques.
At a recent conference involving the Chief Rabbitate’s Kashrut Committee as well as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, a decision was made to only sanction meat imported to Israel as having undergone a kosher shechita (ritual slaughter) if the animal was killed utilizing the relatively more humane “boxing” technique.
Read more »
Today, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an above-the-fold, front page article about our newest source of mystery meat - cloned cows.
In the article “Consumers May Not Be Able to Avoid Cloned Food,” the Chronicle reported that the Orthodox Union has publicly stated that food items derived from cloned animals are kosher. Rabbi Menachem Genack of the O.U. stated that cloned animals would be kosher as long as they belong to a single kosher species, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.
Given the highly uncertain health effects of eating cloned meat, and the biological manipulation necessary to create cloned animals, I call on rabbis from across the denominations to speak out on this issue.
How can an animal production technology, which is proven to be cruel to the animals it creates, be kosher?
Animals can be cloned from the tissue of a dead animal. Would that cloned animal be kosher?
The principle of Kelayim requires the separation of species - what does it say about the replication of species?
What about the fundamental notion of eating food in its natural state, as God brought it to us. Does the biological tinkering with the DNA of life disturb our respect and awe for the divine manifestation of the natural world - in the food we eat?
I think the O.U.’s statement is wrong - I’d like to hear what others think, particularly our Jewish legal scholars.
With Love for Hashem, and Love for its divine manifestation in Food.
Z
By the way, for more information, check out my previous post, “Is Milk or Meat from a Cloned Animal Kosher?“
Yesterday, the California-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Company issued the largest beef recall in history - 143 million pounds. According to the NYTimes, the recall:
“…comes after a widening animal-abuse scandal that started after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts to force them to walk.
The video raised questions about the safety of the meat, because cows that cannot walk, called downer cows, pose an added risk of diseases including mad cow disease. The federal government has banned downer cows from the food supply.”
In other words, the meat itself was not necessarily tainted. Instead, the recall was largely a precautionary (and perhaps futile) measure to safegaurd the American dinner plate from the irresponsible practices of the meat industry. A precautionary measure that sent 143 million pounds of meat to the trash heap.
If ever there was a modern-day example of violating bal tashchit, this is it.
Read more »
Here’s the newest “kosher meat industry article” from Nathaniel Popper over at The Forward. This time he covers Israel’s South American meat fetish - as in South America where he reports that most cows are killed using the controversial “shackle and hoist” slaughter method that is largely banned in the US. (In comparison, the folks at Agriprocessors are given a relative ”kudos” by PETA for using alternative methods.)
Is anyone else just getting bored by our (meaning Jews, meaning Americans, meaning Israelis etc.) collective ignorance and/or defiance about how the animals that give their lives to feed us are treated? Also, is anyone else kind of shocked - and I learned this in the article - that Congress passed a Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act in the early 20th century? I imagine it must have been Upton Sinclair fallout (let me know if you know otherwise), but considering the state of things today, what a joke!
Widespread Slaughter Method Scrutinized for Alleged Cruelty
The Forward
By: Nathaniel Popper
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According to PETA, their Kentucky Fried Cruelty advertisement - which focuses on the fast food industry’s blind eye towards animal cruelty - was denied commercial air time on Super Bowl Sunday.
On the one hand, PETA should have equal right to advertising. On the other, the ad does not exactly fit into the Super Bowl’s family-friendly image. What do you think - should the ad have been allowed to play?
(Warning: PETA’s ad depicts graphic violence, so watch with caution.)
Thanks to Maria Russakoff for this guest post, originally printed in the Arizona Jewish Post. It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything about Hazon’s Food Conference or the controversial goat schecting, but this piece is worth sharing.
The handwritten sign over the shiny percolator reads: “Chai tea - made lovingly with raw goat and cow milk, brewster honey, sadeh hot peppers, blackstrap molasses, black tea and ginger.” I haven’t the faintest idea where brewster honey comes from or what makes hot peppers “sadeh,” but I know from the first sip that I have come to a place that will nurture my stomach, mind and soul for the next three days. I breathe a contented sigh of relief, happy to have made it in one piece from sunny Arizona to the Connecticut Berkshires in the dead of winter, happy to be back at the Hazon Jewish Food Conference in its second year.
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The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Jeff Yoskowitz, has been on hiatus from the blog for a little while - but he has a darn good excuse. He is currently living on a kibbutz in Israel. On the one hand, like many kibbutzim, internet access is spotty so posting frequently is a challenge. But Jeff’s situation is a little different. Jeff is currently researching the (painfully ironic) pork industry in Israel. His kibbutz happens to house an industrial pork feed-lot, which means he’s spending most of his time hanging out with animals he’d never personally eat.
The little bit of time Jeff’s not researching pigs, he’s logging in his experience at his personal blog The Wet Sprocket. And while we understand his need to prioritize his web time, his stories are just too interesting not to share. To find out more about Jeff’s extraordinary daily experiences check out his blog, and read a few key (and quite graphic) excerpts below:
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