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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

