Below is the full text of Friday night’s keynote at The Hazon Food Conference.  The keynote was given by Nati Passow, co-founder of The Jewish Farm School.  It’s a long post, but definitely worth the read - even if you have to print it out (on recycled paper of course!) and take it home.

(Nati’s on the right, next to Simcha Schwartz.  Photo by Sabrina Malach.)

Hazon Food Conference
December 6-9, 2007
Keynote Address: Nati Passow 

Thank you Nigel. Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach. It is a great honor to be here with you all tonight. Nigel suggested that I begin by sharing my story with you, my connection and relationship to food, which I think is a great way to begin this talk, because one of the things I like most about food is that sitting down to a meal is a great excuse to spend time with friends and listen to each other’s stories. So here is a little bit of mine.

Seven years ago I took a Sabbatical. I left university for the year and traveled in Israel. I studied in yeshiva, toured the country and then settled into an apartment in Jerusalem. After having little success finding a job, I decided to enjoy my sabbatical for what it was time to just be present. This was when I discovered good coffee, which for any honorable coffee drinker is a moment you never forget. An older friend of mine sat me down and said that if I was going to drink coffee everyday, I should make it good. Buy whole beans, grind them myself and brew something delicious.

The coffee was my gateway drug to the world of slow food.

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5-Spoke Creamery - As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, 5-Spoke Creamery is the place to look if you’re looking for raw milk, artisanal, amazingly delicious, and kosher certified (Kof-K) cheese.  Now, it seems event the New York Times agrees.  Hazon was blessed to have Alan, Barbara, and their kids serving up samples of their delicious cheese - including their recently released, Tumbleweed variety (see left) - at the Food Conference.  Click here, to find out where you can get your hands on some.

Lantern Books Essay Contest - Lantern Books - publishers of books on animal advocacy, religion, social justice, and environmentalism announced its 2007 essay competition. The aim of the competition is to allow new thinking to emerge on the key subjects of Lantern’s publishing program and to encourage new voices to step forward to shape the debate for the future.

The first prize is $1000. There is no entry fee. Essays should be no longer than 1500 words. The deadline is December 31, 2007.  For complete guidelines, as well as prior years’ winning essays, click here.

The personal responses to last Friday’s goat schecting were varied and intense. Thanks to Joti Levy for sharing her reflections in this guest post.

Friday morning I woke at my regular 6 am. The difference was that everyone else in the house also woke up, and more people were gathering. It felt like the cozy feeling of going on a road trip with people you love, except the road trip was down the block to the sadeh (field) to slaughter the goats.

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This photograph was taken by Sabrina Malach at The Hazon Food Conference.  Aside from just being gorgeous, I think it perfectly captures the essence of the conference.  Note the snazzy glass mug every participant received when they arrived.  Also note the bicycle menorah.  Pretty rad.

This past weekend, Hazon had the wonderful fortune of having Sharon Lebewohl - daughter of Abe Lebewohl who founded the (closed, but soon to re-open) 2nd Avenue Deli in New York City - attend The Food Conference. When I asked her how the plans for reopening were going, she told me that she was not working on the project…turns out, her 25-year old cousin, Jeremy is charged with task of reinvigorating one of New York’s most beloved delis. The interview with Jeremy below was originally published in New York Magazine.

You Can Take the Deli out of Second Avenue
New York Magazine
By Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite

It seemed like the whole city went into mourning when the deli closed. What made it so special?
You have other places in Manhattan that have good deli cases. But our kitchen—and I say this very confidently—nobody can touch. I won’t take away the counters from them, where you can get a good sandwich. But there aren’t that many places where you can get good soup. We have chicken fricassée, goulash, all these things that come from the kitchen. There’s not a single deli in Manhattan that can compare.

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In this post, Leah spoke about the shechting of the three goats.  Towards the end, she writes,  “I began to wonder at what point during the process did the beautiful goat transform into “meat?”  I am not sure that I can answer that question any more conclusively than Leah, but I want to pick up the story where she left off, as I had the privilege to witness the entire process needed to make the meat kosher, and how it was prepared for cooking.  I also was able to discover what happened to all of the parts that we did not eat for dinner - bones, skin, and the rest of the meat.

As one can imagine, this process involved a lot of work.  Many people asked me about the details, which I am happy to provide here.  At time however this description can be a bit graphic.  Continue below the jump for those that want to read on.

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My previous post laid out the reasons why – while the tzedek hekhsher and ethical kashrut are wonderful intentions – the business practicalities beg answering. Indeed, it’s an open question if our little 2% of the meat market will make an impact on the greater meat industry.

But this post is hopefully “the other hand,” and at the very least inspiration as to how working with kashrut authorities might indeed yield a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community — one which leads to a healthier and more sustainable world for everyone.

Our shochet was amazing. Rabbi Yehuda Benchimhoun, an Algerian-descended French Jew of Lubavitch conviction, is a reluctant but intense shochet whose story and words impressed us all here, but above all his kavannah, his incredible intentionality with the animals he shechts. More than just being a six day a week vegetarian, he impressed us all with the seriousness with which he approached his duty to honor the life of animals. He was deliberate, he was careful, he was precise. And his respect for the letter of the law alongside its intent was phenomenal.

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In all honestly, I’m not completely sure I’ve fully digested the goat schecting enough to talk coherently about it, but here’s a first attempt.

About 70 people gathered at 7:00am, bleary-eyed and shivering (this time, because of the cold), to catch one of the shuttles down to the sadeh (Adamah’s field) a mile away from Isabella Freedman.  Once there, everyone huddled into small groups, wiggling their frozen toes and talking about the goat.

The shochet –dressed in shirtsleeves and a furry hat - prepared his knife.  Meanwhile, the mashgiach explained the process and answered participants’ questions, stopping to check that the knife was sharp enough by running it lightly along his fingernail. 

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It’s Saturday night and for those who haven’t read so, the goat shechting has come and gone which as Leah said was a truly amazing experience. I had the questionable honor of video taping the entire process — from braying to dinner plate — the initial details of which I’ll save for my fellow brave compatriots on this blog team.

But of all the parts of the goat shechting, this Friday at Hazon’s Food Conference, I was less moved by the shechting itself and much, much more so by the moshgiach and shochet, Rabbi Mendel and Rabbi Yehuda respectively.

The overseeing moshgiach was none other than the head of the Orthodox Union’s (OU) kosher products division, the honorable Rabbi Seth Mendel. Rabbi Mandel answered tough questions about kashrut and humane treatment for over three hours straight.

Listening to Rabbi Mandel, I realized I was hearing words and concepts I’d not heard since business school. Rabbi Mendel spoke less frequently about Hashem, Torah, and tradition and more about competitive advantage, market share and consumer price pressure. It suddenly made sense that there are two primary forces at play in modern kashrut: not just God’s word but Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.

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The sun is waning quickly - actually, it’s fully concealed behind the grey clouds as a soft blanket of snow falls on Isabella Freedman.  Still, I’ve been running around all day and Shabbat is only a few minutes away, so a full post of today’s conference highlights will have to wait.

But today was, in a word, incredible - from the truly holy experience of the goat schecting this morning, to a talk about Congress’s role in the Food Bill, to a hands-on session where participants made their own urban-worm composting bins, to a discussion of the shmitta year from the farmer’s perspective, to a presentation of the changing symbolic role of bagels in American Jewish life, to a keynote presentation by Chef Dan Barber (yep, my fave ethical celebrity chef) about food miles and changing the way we eat from the community outward.

Now, as the snow continues to fall, the energy is shifting - the Chanukah candles are coming out (for those of you who want a visual, imagine four long tables lined with foil and covered with an assortment of glowing, flickering menorahs), and people are readying themselves for Shabbat and two more days of delicious food for thought.

Thanks to everyone for your comments on the first Food Conference post - I look forward to updating you tomorrow night!

Happy Chanukah and Shabbat Shalom!

What does healthy and sustainable Jewish food look like?  

We asked participants of the 2007 Food Conference (and other flash-popping foodies) to submit their original photos for a special showcase at the conference.  The submissions ranged from gorgeous zoom-ins on dinner, to political statements, to celebrations of life on a farm.  It is a truly delicious collection. 

Here are four photos from the exhibit to whet your appetite.

Photo Credits: 1. Miriam Rubin 2. Ian Hertzmark 3. Dory Kornfeld and Leah Koenig 4. Jackie Topol

Prints are available - contact editor@jcarrot.org for more information

This is the first of a series of updates from the Hazon Food Conference today through Sunday.

I spent much of tonight shivering.

Part of that has to do with being up in the Connecticut Berkshires, in December where 17 degrees is a normal morning temperature. But the shivering started in earnest when I walked into a conference session called, “Lifting the Cellophane Veil: Shecting a Goat.” The session was mandatory for anyone who is thinking about attending tomorrow morning’s schecting.

The Food Conference is, of course, not simply about the goat - we have four days crammed with sessions and a collection of 240 amazing people here at Isabella Freedman. But the schecting tomorrow will be - for me, and many participants - a once-in-a-lifetime and emotionally-charged event. The hope for tonight’s session was that, by introducing the key players (the goat farmer and caretaker, organizer, shochet,-ritual slaughterer, mashgiach-kashrut supervisor, and lead educator), the participants would be able to enter the space tomorrow morning aware of the process and feeling prepared (as much as possible anway).

I think the session served it’s purpose. The educator, Dr. Shamu Sadeh, and goat farmer, Aitan Mizrahi started off the conversation explaining the importance of getting a closer to our food choices - particularly where meat comes from, giving a history of the goats and explaining logistics. By the end of the night, about 70 of the 100-ish people in the room raised their hand to indicate they would wake up early tomorrow, get on a shuttle van, and weather the cold to witness the schecting.

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Hazon is T-1 day away from The Food Conference!

For the last three days (not to mention weeks and months) the Hazon staff and our wonderful volunteers have been organizing, calling, emailing and blowing many kisses at our poor, overworked copy machine.  The advance crew is currently up at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center turning it into a winter foodie wonderland, and the first group of people start trickling in tomorrow afternoon.

We’ll be posting live updates from the Food Conference throughout the weekend - check back to get your taste of the inspirational sessions and panels, cooking and pickling demonstrations, and spirited Shabbat and Chanukah celebration!  To view the full schedule, click here.

Multiple people have raised the idea that schecting goats, as Hazon plans to at the Food Conference next week, doesn’t really expose participants to the true horrors of conventional animal slaughter. What would really be effective, they say, is to show a film that conveys the brutality of factory farming.

They have a point - the way in which the Food Conference schecting will happen is not by any means a mainstream practice. But that’s exactly the reason why we’re doing it and also why showing a film just isn’t enough.

Factory farms are one of the worst and most infuriating things I can think of, and they’re a huge part of the reason I’m a vegetarian.  And Hazon has no intention of hiding the realities of the conventional meat industry during the Food Conference.  Quite on the contrary, in fact.

But there are people - including a growing number of people in the Jewish community - who are seeking out the ethics and practices of responsible and ethical meat eating.  They are certainly not mainstream, at least not yet.  But to say that the work they’re doing is not part of the “real world” denies them the potential to - God willing - influence the larger Jewish community to eat less meat and to eat it with more kavvanah (intention) and respect. 

Perhaps its time to move beyond our outrage towards factory farms and start ”being the change” we want to see in the Jewish community - or at very least, supporting the people who are.

Below the jump, Adamah Program Director, Shamu Sadeh, talks about the realities of “Animals, Life and Death on the Farm.”

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