16 January 17 • 2019
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roadmap for them to become healthier
and more sustainable through edu-
cation, action and advocacy. Metro
Detroit has 16 participating sites; five
have committed to purchase higher
welfare meat and eggs.
The past three years,
these Hazon sites have
been assisted by Brittany
Feldman, Hazon Detroit’
s
manager of sustainability
and outdoor engagement.
In that time, the sites
have improved recycling
policies, switched to LED
light bulbs, started gardens and began
composting.
“So, naturally, the next step was to
tackle food policies, with the vision to
have the Seal sites consider higher wel-
fare food products,” she said.
Through research and community
outreach, Feldman found Kol Foods of
Silver Spring, Md., the country’
s only
grass-fed, higher welfare kosher meat
processing and distributing plant.
“Once we received the grant spe-
cifically for the purchase of higher
welfare meat and eggs, I connected
with Kol Foods and learned how
they could ship frozen meat in bulk
across the country,” Feldman said. She
reached out to Hillel Day School in
Farmington Hills and other participat-
ing Hazon Seal sites and put them in
touch with Kol Foods directly to set up
purchasing.
HILLEL’
S JOURNEY
Hillel Day School goes through hun-
dreds of pounds of meat per week,
providing breakfast, lunch, week-
ly packaged Shabbat
dinners for students
and their families, and
catering for outside orga-
nizations using Hillel’
s
facility. Scott Reed, Hillel
COO, was interested in
giving higher welfare a
fair try, so they struck a
deal with Kol Foods.
“Making the conscious effort to
choose higher welfare meat — these
are healthy, ethical, kinder Jewish val-
ues, and that’
s what we are all about,”
Reed said.
He says parents have
been 100 percent sup-
portive, and a meeting
is planned with Hazon
to see how the Hillel
families can be more
involved. Ilana Stern, a
West Bloomfield Hillel mom of three,
environmental activist and regional
leader of Moms Across America, buys
Kol Food products herself through a
meat-buying club.
“Stern’
s meat-buying club has grown
with more and more Hillel families,”
Reed said.
“It took decades for us to take a
hard look at the implications all this
meat consumption had on the planet
and human health,” Stern said. “The
kashrut industry has tied itself up with
factory farming, which is unethical.”
Stern points out that just because
something says its kosher, it isn’
t if, as
the Talmud says, the animal was not
treated ethically.
RE-THINKING KOSHER
Daily trips to the local kosher butcher
shop are long gone. In its place, are
factory-farmed kosher slaughterhouses.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Kol Foods right
now faces no competition.
“No one else is producing kosher
domestic grass-fed beef the way we are,
”
said owner Devora Kimelman-Bloch.
Her company not only works with high-
er welfare farmers, but she also supports
farmers that utilize regenerative agricul-
ture techniques. “This is where farmers
jews d
in
the
“Seeing the
openness and
willingness of
our Hazon Seal
sites to learn
about where our
food comes from
and wanting to
put that forward
into the com-
munity gives me
hope for the
future.”
— BRITTANY FELDMAN,
HAZON DETROIT
Hillel COO Scott Reed talks to
Hazon Detroit’
s Brittany Feldman
in the Hillel cafeteria.
Scott Reed
Brittany
Feldman
Ilana Stern
Steve Fryzel, Hillel chef manager, with a tray of
sliders made from higher welfare meat