Following the filing of criminal charges against owners of the kosher meat producer Agriprocessors, the Orthodox Union says it will withdraw its kosher certification of the company within two weeks unless new management is hired.\n\n
An undercover video shot at the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant is prompting new claims that the company engages in inhumane slaughter and misled Orthodox rabbis who visited the plant in July.
The Conservative movement released a policy statement and guidelines for its much-anticipated ethical kashrut certification, outlining the social justice standards companies are expected to meet if their foodstuffs are to qualify for the designation
An interfaith coalition — organized by a Jewish group — is planning to demonstrate next week in Postville, Iowa, in support of justice for workers and comprehensive immigration reform.
Agriprocessor raid\’s effects ripple across the community
Although they live more than 12,000 miles apart, Yosef Eliezrie and Moshe Price have a lot in common. In October 2006, Eliezrie received a bone marrow transplant provided by Price. It was his only hope for survival after a recurrence of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. This month, Eliezrie got the chance to meet Price in person, thank him for his lifesaving gift and embark on a unique new friendship.
With the kosher certification of more than 300 food factories in China, each producing multiple products, America\’s largest kosher-certification company, the Orthodox Union (OU), has more than doubled the number of certifications it does in China just in the past two years.
I was torn between my professional responsibility to attend the most experiential learning moment of the this year\’s Hazon conference and my personal squeamishness.
Certainly, it was noble that Hazon, a nonprofit dedicated to Jewish environmentalism and food sustainability, wanted to connect participants at their recent conference in Falls Village, Conn., to the food they eat and in doing so, to halachically slaughter organically, pasture-raised goats to feed the participants. But would I be able to watch the killing of not one but three goats?
The holidays are over, and I\’m full.I spent a week with family in Manhattan, eating.And when I wasn\’t eating, I was reading a landmark book — about food.
It surprised me that a company well-known for its concern for animal well-being and food safety would deem anything kosher treif, or unfit. Long before Whole Foods was even a glimmer in the eye of the Prius-tocracy, hadn\’t we Jews been telling ourselves and others that we were practicing humane slaughter and thoughtful animal husbandry — embodied in the very laws of kashrut? What did Whole Foods know that I didn\’t?
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