This year, Black Friday was significantly lightened by more news on the ethical, kosher meat front (and more shoutouts to Hazon, Kosher Conscience, and The Jew & The Carrot) - this time in the Wall Street Journal by long-time Hazon friend and journalist-extraordinaire, Julie Wiener.  Read the article below and find the original text here.

Wall Street Journal
How Kosher Was Your Turkey?
Some Jews demand better treatment for birds.
BY JULIE WIENER
Friday, November 23, 2007

Yesterday, 24 New York City households served turkeys that were not only free-range, organic and raised on a nearby family farm–but also 100% kosher. For that, their guests can give thanks to Simon Feil, a 31-year-old actor who has devoted the past 1 1/2 years to starting Kosher Conscience, a “kosher ethical meat co-op.” The co-op, which 90 people have expressed interest in joining when it begins regular poultry and beef deliveries in a few months, will offer kosher meat that has been treated humanely “at every stage,” he says.

Judaism’s taboos on pork and shellfish, as well as the requirement to separate meat and dairy products, are well known even among gentiles. Yet for many contemporary American Jews the taboos can feel arbitrary, cumbersome and devoid of meaning (only 17% say they keep kosher homes). At the same time, some Jews who do find spiritual meaning in the dietary laws have become frustrated that kosher food production does not always reflect their values.

Amid reports that animals destined to become kosher meat are raised in the same conditions as their nonkosher counterparts–along with recent allegations of abusive labor practices and unsanitary conditions at Agriprocessors, one of the world’s largest kosher slaughterhouses–some Jews are re-examining the laws governing what is “fit” to eat. “We are not in any way changing the traditional meaning of the word ‘kosher,’ but are asking, ‘What does it mean to be kosher in the 21st century?’ ” explains Leah Koenig, editor of jcarrot.org, a blog on Jews, food and contemporary issues. “Food that’s drenched in pesticides or grown with unfairly paid migrant workers, . . . is that consistent with Jewish values?”

The blog is one of many projects launched by Hazon, a Manhattan group at the forefront of what it calls a “new Jewish food movement.” Since 2004, Hazon has helped start nine Jewish community- supported agriculture programs (CSAs) nationwide (and one in Israel), in which individuals buy shares in a local farm in exchange for a weekly portion of the harvest. Hazon’s second annual Jewish Food Conference next month will feature the slaughter of a goat to spark discussion about kosher meat.

All of this has met a groundswell of interest among a range of people, from Modern Orthodox to those who have little other connection to organized Jewish life. Hazon received 27 applications this year from Jewish groups wanting to start CSAs.
Rabbi Hillel Norry, whose Conservative Atlanta congregation started a CSA this spring, says: “For a lot of people kashrut begins to take on more meaning when it’s part of a holistic way of thinking about food.” In that vein, activists in the Conservative movement are working to create a heksher tzedek, or “justice certification,” to assure consumers not only that food is ritually kosher but that its production met other standards, too.

Is “ethical eating” a Jewish value? Judaism’s sacred texts have much to say on the treatment of animals, not to mention employees. “The responsibility for having an appropriate work environment–from hours to pay schedule–are part and parcel of Jewish tradition as much as the laws of kashrut,” says Rabbi Kenneth Brander, dean of Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future.

For centuries rabbis and scholars have puzzled over the reasons for keeping kosher beyond simply that God commanded it. Some have argued that the laws–particularly the ban on pork–were about health, while others have claimed that kosher slaughter is more humane than other methods. Religious leaders and scholars today tend to point to kashrut’s effect on keeping Jews from mixing excessively with members of other religions and on reminding Jews that everyday life is holy.

David Kraemer, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary and the author of “Jewish Eating and Identity,” says kashrut observance has historically reflected the times and places where Jews have lived. For example, while Ashkenazi Jews once waited only one hour between eating meat and dairy, in 15th- and 16th-century Germany and Poland–when, Prof. Kraemer says, Jews were relatively well accepted by the larger society–many adopted longer waiting periods to emphasize their piety and separateness.

Prof. Kraemer applauds the recent efforts to bring ethics into discussions of kashrut: “If this is who we are, people who care about the source of our foods and the way animals we consume are treated–which I think we do–then we will generate eating principles that are expressions of our identity.”

But Rabbi Avi Shafran, the director of public affairs for the fervently Orthodox Agudath Israel of America, is concerned that some people are “subjecting the word ‘kosher’ to a subtle redefinition.” “There may be a plethora of considerations people can, or even should, take into account when buying their food,” Rabbi Shafran wrote in an email. “But kashrut is determined by the Torah’s ritual laws, and is not dependent on whether factory workers were unionized, an animal was hoisted or pesticide traces are above or below a certain parts-per-million measurement.”

Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, supports the effort to bring together “an early-21st-century sensibility with a commitment on the part of some, at least, to a far larger tradition of observance.” But he wonders whether all those aligned with the new food movement are actually committed to kosher dietary laws as “a set of commandments that comes from outside of us and doesn’t always have a rational explanation immediately available to us yet nonetheless we observe.”
Not surprisingly, many officials in the kosher foods industry prefer to stick to a narrow definition. Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the Kashrut Division of the Orthodox Union, the largest kosher certification agency in the U.S., says matters of health, safety and workplace conduct are “not trivial,” but their enforcement is better left in the hands of federal and state governments.

Atlanta’s Rabbi Norry disagrees: “Kashrut has got to mean more than a symbol on a package.”

Ms. Wiener is a columnist for the Jewish Week.