Jo Ellen, who is a good colleague of mine who I respect greatly, portrays us oddly:

Hazon is becoming an “institution” on its own, with paid staff and programs. Yet it is a new kind of institution for the Jewish world, as it has neither a clear niche within organized Judaism nor a primary goal to become a national organization that will challenge and change the Jewish world. Hazon’s leaders are essentially uninterested in the organized Jewish world. That is something very new for American Judaism.

True? False? Is the Jewish environmental movement disinterested in in the organized Jewish world?  Weigh in on Jewschool, or in the comments below.

Hazon has been invited to join a group of Faith-based and Community organizations to support Michelle Obama’s recently launched Let’s Move campaign. The meeting in DC tomorrow will provide organizations with tools and information to help combat childhood obesity in their communities. Judith Belasco, Director of Food Programs, is headed to the Capitol to represent Hazon!

According to� Judith, “Hazon is always looking to expand our support of healthier lifestyles as meaningfully as we can. Already North America’s largest faith-based supporter of CSA‘s, we provide healthy living education through our Jewish Food Education Network (JFEN) and annual Food Conference. We look forward to engaging the Jewish community and beyond in support of Let’s Move.”

According to Joshua DuBois, White House Director of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Parnerships, The Let’s Move campaign will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, and mobilizes public and private sector resources. Let’s Move will engage every sector impacting the health of children to achieve this national goal, and will provide schools, families and communities simple tools to help kids be more active, eat better, and get healthy.

“This is the first time we’ve been invited to the White House, and being able to speak directly to Michelle Obama’s staff and a diverse group of other faith-based organizations will provide us new ways of celebrating and promoting healthful lifestyles,” said Judith.

The faith-based and community groups will learn about Let’s Move and the resources made available by the Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, Department of Heath and Human Services, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. Hazon and other attending organizations will be encouraged to share their input on the materials intended to promote Let’s Move within faith-based and community organizations.

Stay tuned for updates from Judith’s experience at the White House by following us on the Hazon Twitter!

The Des Moines Register, headquarters located a few blocks away, has reported that despite Mr. Rubashkin’s 163 charges and maximum life sentence, his son Getzel has said that [Rubashkin] has prepared for trial “intensely, but also with the peace of mind of a man who knows he will be, G-d willing, fully exonerated…He has been the source of strength and encouragement for those around him, instead of the other way around.” Mr. Rubashkin maintains that he is innocent of the 91 fraud-related charges for his first trial, which begins in Sioux Falls, SD, moved from Cedar Rapids, IA to account for any media to which potential jurors would have been exposed, according to the NY Times.

According to the Register, one of the fraud charges arises from violation of a provision in the 1921 US Packers and Stockyards Act, which requires cattle providers to be paid within 24 hours of sale, according to a 2002 order by the U.S. secretary of agriculture. Although a legal scholar interviewed by the Register thought this was a new application of the law’s provision, it speaks directly to one of the most severe problems with the US food system, which is informed by Jewish law.

Anyone who is familiar with the the status of labor rights in Jewish law will recall the requirement for laborers to be paid on time. Based on research by Mary Hendrickson, who presented at the CFSC conference last night, it is clear that one of the biggest challenges in the industrial food system stems from the lack of control and power among livestock producers, due to the increasing horizontal concentration among companies which purchase livestock. This concentration creates non-competitive environments which perpetuate the lack of worker rights, land degradation, animal cruelty and inability for livestock producers to move to more sustainable methods of farming and ranching.

While it is clear that the worker, immigration and other violations of which Rubashkin has been accused are not unique to Agriprocessors, they are representative of common practices in the industry, including lack of respect and prompt payment of livestock producers. As people concerned about our food system, we must work to strengthen the ability of the US Justice system to enforce all of the provisions of the Packers and Stockyards Act, through mechanisms such as upcoming anti-trust listening sessions around the country organized jointly by USDA and DOJ, which will begin in January 2010.

In parallel to the trial of Rubashkin’s actions relative to US law, we must think about the actions taken by Rubashkin and other Agriprocessors managers in the context of Jewish law, which many of their acts also violate. One wonders if Rubashkin was able to stand with the same peace of mind that he would be exonerated, as he stood in repentance before God and his community last month. As his community, we are responsible for holding him and others with power in our food system to account for acts which violate both US and Jewish law.

Thursday, October 8 at 3:00 pm the New York City Health Department visited the fruit stand on 89th and Broadway in Manhattan.  Apparently his fruit stand was too big, extending a foot or so outside the designated area.  The police were summoned  as was a New York City garbage truck.   The police proceeded to deposit crates of fruit and vegetables into the garbage truck.  They threw perfectly good fruits and vegetables away! A homeless woman literally kneeled down begging for the food.  The officers ignored her request. The bystanders were astounded.  As  pedestrians called various state and local officials, as well as news reporters,  the garbage truck closed and the police ceased to haul any more crates of food into the garbage truck for fear of negative publicity.  The supervising police officer said, “We are just following health department protocol.”

The following facts abut this incident have been confirmed to be true: 1) While the health inspector claimed that the food was spoiled the people who had just purchased fruits and vegetables demonstrated that the produce was fresh and edible; 2) The proprietor of the stand has had other violations for the size of his stand; 3) The proprietor has a long history in the neighborhood of generosity toward the poor and homeless; 4) There is a school on the block whose parents and children are glad the healthy snack alternative exists steps from the school’s doorstep. I am shocked the NYC has a policy of destroying edible food, particularly fruits and vegetables.  Additionally, given Scott Stringer and Mike Bloomberg’s sustainability agendas it seems shocking that such a policy would be tolerated.  Is sanctioning a fruit and vegetable proprietor really in keeping with Stringer and Bloomber’s health agenda? Finally, this guy is well-liked and respected in the neighborhood, and earns meager wages from this job. It is hard to imagine what the city gained by sending 8-10 police officers and a city garbage truck to dispose of edible food.  So far, no comment from either Stringer or Bloomberg’s office.

So why am I violating Shabbat by posting on The Jew and the Carrot today? I should explain that my personal level of observance allows me to use my computer on Shabbat, but I do try to create a separation between how I spend my time on Saturdays and what I do the rest of the week. It’s one way I make Shabbat different and special, even if I don’t adhere to the traditional prohibitions on work.

So what’s such a big deal that I choose not to wait til tomorrow to write about it? Taking down Monsanto. You think I’m being funny? I’m as serious as a heart attack. IMO, Monsanto is currently one of the most dangerous companies operating on the planet, for innumerable reasons. Here are some:

• The folks at Monsanto gifted us with Agent Orange, aspartame (otherwise known as NutraSweet) PCBs and bovine growth hormone, among other products.

• Monsanto controls 90% of the soy, 65% of the corn, and 70% of the cotton market, and has a rapidly growing presence in the fruit and vegetable market. That’s just in North America. Their influence in developing nations like India is even greater (check out this 2006 article in the New York Times about Indian farmer suicides for a direct link to the need for pikuach nefesh). India Together, an independent online news outlet based in India, reports that there have been 182,936 farmer suicides in that country since 1997. Other news outlets and blogs, including The Daily Mail and The Ethicurian, attribute these suicides directly to debt incurred when the farmers were urged by the Indian government to plant GM crops, like those engineered by Monsanto. (In the interests of balance, here’s a different take on this issue in a study cited in The Guardian, which suggests the farmer suicides are a result of lack of financial support rather than GM crops specifically.)

• Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada, whose canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen blown by the wind from a nearby farm. Monsanto said it didn’t matter how the contamination took place, and demanded Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto’s genetically engineered products). Monsanto outlined their request for patent infringement seeking damages totaling $400,000. Click here to learn more about Schmeiser’s case.

• In order to be productive, the entire line of Monsanto’s seeds essentially require the use of Roundup herbicide, forcing all of their customers to purchase it. Roundup is owned by Monsanto.

• In the middle of a recession, while farmers’ incomes are dropping, Monsanto recently announced a 42% price hike on its most popular genetically modified seeds. In many areas of the country, seed distributors carry only Monsanto’s GM seeds.

Can you spell M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y, boys and girls?

CREDO Action is calling for a federal investigation of Monsanto for violation of anti-trust and monopoly laws. They’re circulating a petition to be sent to President Obama’s antitrust chief Christine Varney. If you’re interested, you can sign it here.

I’ll be the first to admit that an online petition is a relatively spineless form of activism, but it’s a start. Shabbat shalom.

This comes as no surprise to us, of course. Emily’s talents and dedication to her craft make her a natural choice. Fortune points to Emily’s “year-long stay in Israel on a kibbutz…that changed her taste for organic food and farming.” Emily will be joined by other organic aces at this year’s Hazon Food Conference in December.

I presume the days when people don’t know they’re on a parody show are past, surely Steir knew what he was getting into. Presumably he thought this was the only way to get a hearing out there. But the entire segment me cringe. How embarrassing:

I’m going to state the obvious that his wearing a kipah doesn’t help after Agriprocessors, and so I’d like to publicly say for anybody reading out there: this man does not represent my people. He represents a lobby. Possibly it’s just his job. I don’t want to assume too much (the economy has been hard on everyone, after all). But not only has Steir seriously stretched food health logic to an extreme, he’s openly made a mockery of himself and his lobby. (All for the better, I suppose.)

But has he also made a mockery of his people? Has Jeff Steir opted to become a modern court Jew? Can we get the Anti-Defamation League on the phone — maybe “Abe Foxworthy”? — and defend our good name?

Good God, what a shande.

My parents’ shul and rabbi are mentioned in this article, which should make the notion of an intentionally eco-Kosher Shabbat meal seem that much more normal.  But it doesn’t.  Every meal I host, like nearly every meal my friends host, is vegetarian, with special emphasis placed on organics, etc, during the “food tour.”  This, too, should make it all seem so normal, but it doesn’t.  I have vegan friends (and was vegan myself for 6 years) who host with or request water challahs, no hard-boiled eggs in the cholent (the best part, if you ask me, or most people, judging by the fighting that sometimes happens over them,) etc.  I think the reason it doesn’t seem so normal is that it’s not really.  Are my friends and me, Jews who do the whole Shabbat/Kosher/observance thing and do it in this way, a subculture within a subculture?

I’m bringing my Introduction to Judaism students to shul tonight where we’ll have services and dinner together, along with my shul members.  It’s the “standard” chicken, brisket, etc, fare.  I’ll have to accommodate my own and some students’ special dietary needs on my own, as soon as I’m done writing this post.  But in a way I’m glad that the menu is what it is.  This is an Introduction to Judaism course and for some of the students (Jewish and Gentile) this will be their first Shabbat experience.  I kind of what them to experience what Judaism is in most places in the world.  Or do I?  I guess it’ll make for a lively dinner conversation.

As Mia Rut’s recent post mentioned, this weekend’s Brooklyn Food Conference was a rip-roaring, inspirational, 1000+ person success – a true testament to the power of grassroots organizing and the vibrancy of the sustainable food world.  For those folks who missed the conference, or are – for some odd reason – looking for even *more* reasons to be inspired, look no further than the recent article in Jewish Woman Magazine, which introduces readers to more than a dozen amazing and pioneering women who are changing the face of the Jewish environmental movement, from the ground up.

The line up includes several Hazon staffers, volunteers, and friends (like farmer, Emily Freed and food activist, Devorah Kimelman-Block, pictured above.)  Read the excerpt below, and check out the full article here.

“The green movement is increasingly devising ways to address such practical needs as healthy food, energy-saving buildings and sustainable small business. These efforts join the movement’s traditional concerns, from the toxic chemicals Rachel Carson warned of in her pioneering 1962 book, Silent Spring, to wildlife conservation and the air pollution now seen as driving global warming. Across this environmental spectrum, Jewish women are leading innovation at local, national and international levels.”