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In Our Roots

Hazon debuts Michigan Jewish Food
Festival at Eastern Market.

Vivian Henoch | Special to the Jewish News

W

hat is Jewish about our
food?
How is the Earth beneath
our feet sacred?
Can insects be kosher to eat?
Who is Michael Twitty and how is he
related to Detroit’s own Larry Mongo of
Cafe d’Mongo Speakeasy?
For answers to these questions — and
so much more in a delectable sampling
of Jewish Detroit’s hottest farm-to-table-
to-culinary trends — bring your family
and friends, your curiosity and your
appetite to the Michigan Jewish Food
Festival from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday,
Aug. 28, at Shed 5 in Detroit’s Eastern
Market.
It’s a one-day taste of Detroit’s Jewish
Food Movement — a day for foodies
and food trucks and food for thought, a
day for connections and community for
kosher vegans, omnivores and everyone
in between.
Shed 5 will be packed with more
than 60 entrepreneurial food ven-
dors, environmental and food justice
groups, activities for kids, fresh produce
stands and more. More workshops
and seminars will be announced soon.
NEXTGen Detroit brings the music.
Feet on the Street will provide a guided
tour through the Jewish history of the
market.
Additionally, the Jewish Food Festival
will host 36 of Metro Detroit’s syna-
gogues and other organizations.
“We are so moved by the level of
participation across all denominations
in this first-ever Michigan Jewish Food
Festival,” said Sue Salinger, director of
Hazon Detroit, which is presenting the
festival. “It’s encouraging to know so
many people in this community are
interested in coming together around
our common traditions of food and
food justice.”
A uniquely Jewish eco-conscious
community, Hazon has taken root and
is starting to grow in Detroit. Hazon’s
mission is to create a healthier and
more sustainable Jewish community —
and a better world for all.

16 August 11 • 2016

SOME FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:
Meet Michael Twitty, celebrated food
historian, Afroculinaria food blogger and
author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey
through African-American History in the
Old South. A Judaic studies teacher from
Washington, D.C., Twitty, 39, has been
“chasing culinary memory and identity”
throughout his life. At 22, he converted
to Judaism and began his journey into
the history and politics, the cultural
tastes and flavors and diasporic wisdom
of being black and Jewish. As the keynote
speaker, Twitty will launch the festival’s
inaugural lecture on the topic “Kosher
Soul: Black and Jewish Identity Cooking”
in the Demo Kitchen, Shed 5.
Meet local celebrity chef Jared Bobkin,
executive chef at Bayview Yacht Club in
Detroit and a finalist featured on Hell’s
Kitchen on Fox TV.
Hear from health and family experts:
national blogger Zen Honeycutt from
Moms Across America; Dr. Joel Kahn,
cardiologist and founder of GreenSpace
Cafe; and Jeffrey Cohan, national execu-
tive director of Jewish Veg.
Explore food justice issues with
Detroit urban farmers, including Do It
for Detroit’s recent grant winner, Atieno
Nyar Kasagam of the Detroit African
Women’s Coalition for Liberated Land.
Learn more with Rabbi Alana Alpert
and Detroit Jews for Justice about fair
wages in the food and restaurant indus-
try.
Find “What’s Spiritual About Food”
with Rabbi Rachel Shere of Adat Shalom
Synagogue in Farmington Hills and
check out an interfaith panel on sacred
eating with Rabbi Herschel Finman of
Jewish Ferndale.
The food festival is supported by the
William Davidson Foundation, the D.
Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation, the
Ben N. Teitel Charitable Trust, the David
Farber Family Foundation and the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
For the full schedule of events, cook-
ing demos, family activities, music and
entertainment, visit hazon.org/calendar/
michigan-jewish-food-festival-2. *

Ex-JCC Staffer Pleads
Guilty To Distribution
Of Child Pornography

Ronelle Grier | Contributing Writer

M

atthew Kuppe, the former
Jewish Community Center
Day Camp counselor
arrested last year for taking nude
photos of young campers and posting
them on a foreign website known to
be frequented by pedophiles, pleaded
guilty to distribution of child pornog-
raphy on Aug. 4 in the federal court-
room of U.S. Eastern District Judge
Avern Cohn.
The other five original
felony charges against
Kuppe, including the more
serious charge of production
of child pornography, will
be dropped as part of the
plea agreement reached last
month between Kuppe and
Matthew
federal prosecutors.
Dressed in a dark suit and Kuppe
tie, Kuppe was accompanied
by his parents, Richard and Linda
Kuppe of West Bloomfield, and his
attorney, Walter Piszczatowski. When
asked by Cohn whether he distributed
child pornography, Kuppe answered,
“Yes, your honor;” however, the judge
did not require him to describe his
actions regarding the crime he claimed
to have committed, as is often the case
when defendants plead guilty to a
felony charge.
According to the plea agreement,
Kuppe acknowledged posting photos
of three boys, ages 5 and 6 at the time.
In the photos, taken in the JCC locker
room, one of the boys was completely
nude, one was nude from the waist
down and one was shown urinating in
the bathroom.
While the distribution of child por-
nography charge carries a penalty of
five to 20 years, the plea agreement
stipulates a prison sentence of 10 years
followed by at least five years of super-
vision after release, a special assess-
ment of $5,000 and possible restitution
for the victims. Kuppe will also have to
register as a sex offender according to
state and federal guidelines.
According to the plea agreement, if

Judge Cohn hands down a sentence of
less or more than 10 years, either the
prosecutor or the defendant can nullify
the agreement.
Cohn said he would take Kuppe’s
plea under advisement and ordered a
pre-sentencing investigation along with
a psychiatric evaluation. A sentencing
date has not been scheduled.
Kuppe was arrested on Aug. 12,
2015, and charged with six
felony counts of production,
distribution, receipt and pos-
session of child pornography
after an investigation by the
U.S. Department of Homeland
Security revealed he had
allegedly taken and posted
nude photographs of three
JCC campers on a foreign
website under the username
“JCCLOCKERROOM.” One of
the campers had been identified by
name on the site.
Kuppe has been living with his par-
ents since last fall, when Cohn released
him on bond despite protestations
from Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara
Woodward that he posed a danger to
the surrounding community. Kuppe’s
release included several conditions,
such as an electronic tether, 24-hour
monitoring by a parent or other adult
and no internet access via computer,
cell phone or other device.
In the weeks following Kuppe’s
arrest, three members of the JCC day
camp administrative staff, including
the camp director, were fired for not
taking action the previous summer
when another counselor made com-
plaints about Kuppe’s allegedly inap-
propriate behavior with some of the
male campers.
A subsequent investigation by the
Oakland County Prosecutor’s office,
which included interviews with the
three boys as well as other campers
who had spent the summer in proxim-
ity to Kuppe, did not reveal evidence
that any of the boys had been sexually
molested.

*