Check out this amazing article about our first ever Jewish Food Education Network  pre-conference track from Hazon’s supporters at The Covenant Foundation.

This year The Covenant Foundation made it possible for all members of our Jewish Food Education Network, JFEN, to attend the entire Food Conference, including a special pre-conference track designed specifically for those involved and  interested in the field of Jewish Food Education.

“I feel really positive about the energy and engagement here,” said [star educator Vicky] Kelman, who presented a session on the centrality of family mealtime in Jewish culture and consciousness. “There is tremendous commitment and passion around JFEN and Jewish food education.

Okay, so the job market is pretty lousy right now, but I got this job posting via email and though I’d pass it along.

Sales and Operations Manager

KOL Foods, LLC puts kosher meat and ethics on the same plate so consumers can feel good about the meat they eat. KOL Foods sources and sells grass-fed, non-industrial, healthy lamb and beef and pastured poultry directly to individuals. Since its foundation in 2007, the interest in KOL Foods’ products has grown rapidly, and, consequently, they are now available in the East Coast and the Midwest primarily through our website. As demand is increasing KOL Foods is seeking to expand in the Eastern United States and, in the near future, nationwide.

KOL Foods is unique as it operates differently from industrial kosher meat businesses. As a values-based business, our mission is to produce food that is in harmony with nature, neighbors and tradition – all the way from farm to fork.   For further information on KOL Foods, please go to:  www.kolfoods.com .

The  Climate Change Bus Tour, a joint project of The Teva Learning Center and Hazon,  is now in its final leg of the their cross-country tour!

It has been an incredible journey so far. Hundreds of Jewish students, teachers, and families have engaged with environmental education programs and activities. Many have also signed the Jewish Climate Change pledge committing themselves to sustainable action and advocacy.

Check out the latest video of the bus tour’s Chanukah out west and the latest press in The Jewish Exponent.

Thanks so much to Aryeh Pelcovitz of Uri L’Tzedek for this great guest post.

In July of 2009, Uri L’Tzedek began a small project in New York to change the way the (Orthodox / Jewish) community approached its food. Modeled after Israel’s Tav Chevrati, the Tav Hayosher, ethical seal, would certify that a kosher eating establishment was meeting legal and ethical standards in the way it treats its employees. Uri L’Tzedek granted the Tav to kosher restaurants and supermarkets after confirming that their employees were paid at least minimum wage, overtime, were granted appropriate breaks,  and work in a healthy and safe environment.

FROM THE BAY TO THE GULF – Do you live in the California Bay area, are in your 20’s or 30’s and interested in important food issues?  Take your social justice passion down to New Orleans.  Join Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ) and the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA) for a week of service, learning, and activism.

You will travel to New Orleans from Jan. 13-18, 2010 to work with The School at Blair Grocery.  Participants will learn about issues around food and sustainability and explore the connection between local Bay Area concerns and local New Orleans concerns.

Did you know that twenty-five thousand people die of malnutrition each day? It’s true and it’s unconscionable. Our world’s so-called “food crisis” is not, in fact, the result of food shortage. Rather, it stems from a deep flaw in our global economy that prevents food from reaching everyone — what we call a food insecurity crisis. How can we fix this?

American Jewish World Service (AJWS) recently launched Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up, a campaign to mobilize the Jewish community to help end global hunger.

The other night we had a most unusual guest in our sukkah — a three-inch-long praying mantis.  We didn’t know they even thrived in our eastern part of the United States.  It landed on the cornucopia my husband had placed on the table and it was moving its mouth like it was praying (or most likely, chewing its prey).  It was very appropriate for our Chinese sukkah, as the praying mantis is prominent in Chinese folklore and martial arts.  For us, the praying mantis and the Biblical Yitzhak were among the ushpizin (guests) for the second night of Sukkot.

Before the onset of Sukkot, I’d attended the Pennsylvania HIAS’s annual luncheon billed, “A Matter of Faith: Embracing Immigrants and Refugees.”  HIAS was established over 126 years ago as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and it has an illustrious history of assisting Jewish refugees from all over the world.   In recent years, HIAS has merged with the Council Migration Services and their clients are now refugees fleeing political or religious persecution from places such as Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and Eritrea.

Hazon’s friends and partners in Food Justice, Uri L’Tzedek, have been busy. They’ve just  launched a new website Utzedek.org. You can find Torah sources and articles, activist resources, hundreds of volunteer and campaign opportunities, social justice events, opportunities to contribute, and much more!

Among Uri L’Tzedek’s important work is the Tav HaYosher (ethical seal) – a local, grassroots initiative to bring workers, restaurant owners and community members together to create just workplaces in kosher restaurants.

What if you knew that the organic vanilla that you were using in your recipe was not only kosher, but was grown by farmers who would not, under any circumstances, work in their gardens, harvest their trees or deliver their crop from 18 minutes before sundown on Friday until tzeit hakochavim (the appearance of three stars in the sky) on Saturday—with the same applying to all Jewish Festivals.

What if you knew that these farmers live in the deepest regions of  sub-Saharan East Africa in the area Mbale, Uganda, and that their farming cooperative consisted of Jewish, Muslim and Christian members called Peace Kawomera?

What if you knew that these farmers were being paid two and a half times the fair trade price for their beans, because a volunteer organization run by a hazzan (cantor) in Los Angeles removes the middle-man and makes every attempt to allow the farmer to receive the most that he/she can?

What if you knew that this organization, Uniting Jewish Communities and Products, UJCP, is attempting to do this for as many communities as possible throughout the world, helping them become self sufficient, providing clothes, housing, health care and education.

UJC/The Jewish Federations of North America, collectively among the top 10 charities on the continent, announced last week the launch of the First Annual Jewish Community Hero Awards, which celebrates the selflessness and courage of individuals who are bettering their communities through service and outreach.

The initiative — to-date the largest-ever Jewish social-networking effort — will honor one Jewish Community Hero of the Year, who will receive $25,000 to put towards his or her work, and also recognize four additional finalists. About 50 partner organizations are supporting the initiative, in addition to Jewish Federations across North America.

Any individual or group can nominate a hero through an open, online submission process. After screening, each nominee is posted on the Jewish Community Heroes Web site, where people can vote for their favorite Jewish heroes.

Thanks Nina for posting the trailor of Food, Inc. last month and for folk’s comments.

I recently had the fortune to join a group of community members from Boston’s Moishe/Kavod House Food Justice Campaign for a screening of the film. Here’s my review of the film–the good, the bad, and the ugly:

• I was first struck that the film would make an excellent education tool for students in grades 5-12 and beyond. Robert Kenner divides the film into chapters that do a nice job framing and connecting the dots on the key industries in our current food system–livestock issues, genetically modified organisms (GMO), the hidden costs of food and the ubiquity of corn. Showing this in health, science, political science or other classes would be a great way to provide students with a primer on where food comes from as well as a powerful, if at times graphic, illustration of what’s wrong with it.

A reminder to all who have not done so to please participate in the food poll to aid The Jewish Museum of Maryland in their research for a Jewish food exhibit!

The traveling exhibit is tentatively titled “Chosen Food: Cuisine, Culture and American Jewish Identity.” The exhibit will be accompanied by a catalog and an exhibit-related website, all of which will look at a huge range of questions about Jews and food, including the type of issues that the Jew and the Carrot and Hazon are interested in.

Yeah, so we talk about our vegetables a lot.  Last week after I picked up my CSA share I thought about blogging about taking my veggies out on the town (I had participated in the New Israel Fund’s event Love, Hate, and the Jewish State – vegetables in tow). I ultimately decided against it.  But others have been more forthcoming with their CSA adventures.

Each week Rebecca Tanen, one of the Jew and the Carrot Associate Editors, has been sharing her weekly adventures in her CSA box as a “CSA Newbie.”  And the Hazon CSA in Chicago (Tuv Ha’Aretz Chicago) has even started their own blog.   Anyone else have any more stories to share?

You are invited to apply (by June 15!) for a highly subsidized five-day Tour of Israel (November 15-19, 2009), from the unique perspective of: food!