Slowly but steadily, a small movement
called eco-kashrut is gaining momentum — and a voice.
WRITTEN BY LYNNE MEREDITH SCHREIBER
Grocery shopping is no easy task for Elaine Kahn. The Oak Park resident
cares as much about keeping kosher as she does about not harming the envi-
ronment with too much plastic or being sure to buy free-trade coffee and
chocolate.
Kahn, who buys organic produce, grows her own gar-
den and searches for eggs from chickens that were raised
humanely, says it's a Torah obligation. "It's a recognition
of, Was this chicken given a regard for its life? Am I
participating in slavery in some foreign country with little
children working in the field, beaten with a stick, to buy
this great cup of coffee?' I believe it is a God-directed
quality to live our lives with consciousness," she says.
Kahn is part of a nationwide movement known as eco-
kashrut, which means incorporating awareness of the
world with the age-old traditions of Torah. The practice
of caring about more than just whether a food item is
approved by the right rabbis was a founding principle
of the Renewal Movement in the 1960s launched by
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. A huge part of liv-
ing Jewishly, he argued, was caring about our impact on
the world, including how food is produced, picked and
treated before slaughter.
"He asked the question something like, 'Is nuclear power kosher?'" recalls
Arlin Wasserman, principal consultant at Changing Tastes, a St. Paul,
Minn.–based consulting firm that advises food companies, foundations and
government agencies on trends in the food sector around health, culture,
demographics and ethics. Watching the eco-kosher movement develop,
Wasserman says it's still more a personal issue than a systemic one.
"You can't buy eco-kosher food the same way you can buy kosher food,"
he notes. "There is no certification." And for most people, a valid heksher
is as far as their concern goes. But folks can buy produce from local farms
or choose coffees and chocolates marked with a heksher and a free-trade
symbol. They can and do shop at farmers' markets and buy from vendors
who pay field workers a respectable wage. And kosher organic meat can be
found at two local markets: Whole Foods Market on Orchard Lake Road in
Farmington Hills carries a small but fresh supply of organic chickens raised
humanely in upstate New York and processed by Wise Kosher Natural
Poultry, and One Stop Kosher on Greenfield in Southfield sells frozen
organic chickens, flanken and steaks.
"What you're trying to do is bring the values that weren't at the fore-
thought of thinking in the 11th century into your [21st-
century] diet," says Wasserman.
Eco-kosher is a vocal, if small, movement. Wasserman
estimates that 1-2 percent of kosher-keepers also care
about eco-kashrut. But as the Orthodox Union dia-
logues with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals) about standards for kosher slaughter, the ideas
of the movement are catching public attention, he says.
Hechsher Tzedek grew out of such conversations.
The year-old Minnesota-based initiative backed by the
Conservative movement seeks to award already hekshered
products for being humane and ethical. "For much of the
world, in terms of kashrut, we have been more concerned
about the smoothness of a cow's lungs [which is required
to call meat glatt] than we have about the safety of the
worker who prepares the food we eat," says Rabbi Morris
Allen, who founded Hechsher Tzedek on his Beth Jacob
Congregation pulpit-in-the-round overlooking leafy wetlands last Yom
Kippur eve.
"Judaism is not simply a religion of ritual," says the St. Paul, Minn.–based
rabbi. "It should frame how we act in the world. When we think about the
holiness in the act of eating, transforming the mundane into a sacred act
— a sacred act that exploits another is not a sacred act."
Lots of people — Jewish and otherwise — e-mail and call Allen, con-
gratulating him on his efforts. "It's probably the first time that a major
denomination has ever said, 'We care, from a religious point of view, how
food is produced,'" he says.
And it is a religious issue, says Kahn. For her, it all came together when
she learned that Jewish law forbids mixing species of plants during cultiva-
tion. It's not enough to just eat kosher, she says. It has to be mindful.
"Everything is to have its own honor, its own space," she says. "What an
amazing world it would be if people actualized that. It's worth the work."
"Judaism is not
simply a religion
of ritual," says
Rabbi Morris Allen.
"It should frame
how we act in
the world."
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• DECEMBER 2007 •
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