It seems my earlier pessimism about the threatened value added tax (VAT) on fruits and vegetables was premature. For now, fruit and vegetables will remain tax-free commodities in Israel.
Was it concern for our health or the state of Israeli agriculture that prompted this turn-around? Not exactly. The Byzantine ins and outs of coalition politics are what saved the day. The Shas religious party, a member of the governing coalition, decided to press the issue, and they refused to accept the offered compromise in which the tax would start low and gradually increase over several years.
In the daily inundation of political scandal, violence, government infighting and general economic and social mayhem that we Israelis can’t seem to live without (judging by our consumption of news media), a proposed new tax on fruits and vegetables has garnered little public outcry.
Until now, fruits and vegetables have been exempt from the 16.5% value-added tax (v.a.t.) placed on nearly every other consumer item. But foods like tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and eggplant had been considered basic daily necessities, like bread and milk (both of which are still price-controlled).
Ever since the right to privacy went down on sheepskin, there’s been a cornucopia of confusion about whether or not American law should regulate personal choices, and what those “personal choices” are. As law makers get more and more worked up over “the epidemic of obesity”, and their constituents’ new interest in food, they look to legislate people’s eating habits from both the consumer (taxes on soft drinks, calorie counts in fast food) and the producer ends. As I listen to pizza makers bemoan the loss of transfats, community activists struggle to increase access to fruits and vegetables in poor neighborhoods, and local curb-sitters mark the price of a smoke in NYC, I get to wondering where all of this interest in our personal habits comes from, and whether the government really has the right to legislate it in the first place.
I asked my brother, the recent law school grad (though not yet lawyer) to dispel some of the mists of obscurity surrounding civil rights in general. What follows is a highly simplified version of his explanation, as filtered through my not-too-legal mind.
Among the numerous food-based scares that have surfaced lately (Salmonella from Spinach! And peanuts! And pistachios! Mercury in HFCS!), this one takes on a different flavor: An infiltration of Israeli produce into enemy territory?!?
Fear and outrage spread recently in Tehran after Iranian authorities discovered that certain citrus fruit being sold there were marked as Israeli-grown Jaffa Sweeties. Never heard of the Jaffa Sweetie? Click here to learn more. Basically, It’s a deliciously sweet white grapefruit-and-pomelo hybrid, and is considered a citrus delicacy of sorts in some circles.
However, possessing, selling and certainly eating Israeli fruit in Iran is apparently assur (prohibited). According to the BBC News, Hossen Safaie, the head of the Tehran Fruit & Vegetable Distribution center, was outraged at the presence of the fruit in his city and said his organization “will not allow those who want to make a profit ignore the Iranian citizens’ religious and revolutionary learning”. Ouch.
But wait…the saga continues with an interesting twist! Read more after the jump…
Recently, the food section of Ynet (Internet site of Israel’s largest daily newspaper) had a list of the 10 best hummus restaurants in Israel. I was amused, though not surprised, to see that one of our local hummus joints in Ramla — Halil — was listed. Its closest competitor, Samir, whose place sits just across the road, was not.
Congratulations and Yasher Koach to Dan Kestin on his selection as one of the Jewish Week’s “36 under 36!” No one knows better than Hazon and The Jew & The Carrot just how talented and generous Dan is. Read the full story here and shep naches (feel joy and pride) with the Hazon family.
This week White Castle treated us to yet another problematic fast food burger commercial. The commercial features a person in a full body pig suit performing a highly sexualized dance on the stage of strip club. You can view the ad in all its BBQ-sauce money shot glory on whitecastle.com. You can channel your discomfort by reading this interesting article on the relationship between meat and gender issues, with some specific studies from, of all places, Israel.
by
Jeff · April 27th, 2009
Cross-posted from The Wet Sprocket
Since pig is forbidden, and ultra-Orthodox Israelis want secular Israelis to refrain from eating the animal, wouldn’t the outbreak of “swine flu” be welcome news? It could build the negative association between worldwide pandemics and swine, and make pig-breeding really unpopular, right?
This new Israeli government didn’t quite see it that way. Instead the swine flu outbreak was just another opportunity to politicize eating in Israel.
Sometime during all of the Agriprocessors brouhaha I heard that there had been a kosher meat boycott in 1902. I didn’t know anything about it until I just stumbled upon this article from the Jewish Historical Society: Bravo, Bravo, Bravo, Jewish Women! The Kosher Meat Boycott Of 1902.
The boycott was because the price of kosher meat had gotten too high, so Jewish women banded together, influenced by the labor and union strikes of their time, and organized to boycott kosher meat. Here’s how it went down:
On Ynet today (the website of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper) is an article on European rabbis who are gearing up to fight a possible new European Union ruling on meat production that would require animals to be stunned before they are killed. According to the rabbis, this requirement would effectively prevent kosher meat from being produced in Europe.
The article only appears in Hebrew (though it could be in the process of translation for the English Ynet site). I did, however, find this article on Kashrut supervisors in Tiberias who will apparently be issued lasers for zapping bugs on vegetables in the open market.
On Thursday night last week the Obamas held what is known to be the first seder at the White House. Read articles on the event from The New York Times and Haaretz.
Come spend a year with Hazon as an AmeriCorps* VISTA! Join the Hazon Food Program team and work on food justice issues in the NYC-area. Apply to serve as a full-time AmeriCorps* VISTA member, starting June 2009.
Applications due April 10, 2009, click here to download.
Red meat in moderation is okay, but you probably shouldn’t chow down on steak every day. That’s what conventional dietary wisdom says. Now, a National Cancer Institute study suggests, the distinction between moderation and daily intake has become a matter of life and death.
In the study, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 545,653 people ages 50 to 71 were asked about their eating habits and then tracked over the next 10 years. During that time, a little over 70,000 died.
