Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, April 5, 2018

Activism through good food

HANNAH HARSHE | COLUMN

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Magdalena Mihaylova

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Alex Satola
Ali Safawi

 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

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We can’t just Passover Palestine

 ALONA HENIG | OP-ED

CARLY BEHRENDT | CONTACT CARLY AT CARBEHR@UMICH.EDU

 BRETT GRAHAM | COLUMN

P

assover is a holiday of 
liberation, retelling the 
story of Jewish slaves 

in Egypt and their exodus. We 
use food to symbolize different 
parts of the story: maror to 
remind us of the bitterness of 
slavery; charoset to represent 
the mortar used to build the 
pyramids; karpas to celebrate the 
welcoming of spring and new life 
with salt water to reminds us of 
our ancestors’ tears; and matzah 
to remind us of the rush of the 
exodus as the bread didn’t have 
time to rise — eat that for a week 
and you’ll be newly grateful for 
any yeast you can find.

Once we were slaves in 

Egypt. Now, we sit together 
and remember our ancestors’ 
hardships and give thanks to the 
freedom we’ve found.

Passover 
is 
one 
of 
my 

favorite holidays, because it is 
always relevant; Jews have been 
persecuted for centuries, and 
anti-Semitism is still alive and 
well. That said, many others 
have been and continue to be 
persecuted, and our suffering 
is 
neither 
more 
important 

nor severe than anyone else’s. 
Yesterday, just hours before 
the first night of Passover, 14 
Palestinians were killed and 
more than 750 wounded by 
Israeli fire on the border of Gaza 
during a Palestinian protest. Just 
hours before the seders began, 
soldiers were dropping tear gas 
over countless civilians fighting 
for the same cause we fought for 
— freedom and liberation.

There are layers upon layers 

of complexity in this issue, 
as 
historical, 
religious 
and 

emotional stakes are very high. 
Similarly, leaving Egypt was no 
small feat and the stakes then 
were very high — that’s why we 
celebrate the story and remember 
it so vividly. Yet on this holiday, 

we continue to violently oppress 
an entire people. Gaza has been 
under an Israeli blockade since 
2007, severely limiting human 
travel and cutting them off 
from medical supplies, food, 
electricity and more.

As Jews, we know the 

importance 
of 
resistance 

and resilience, and if we’ve 
forgotten, this timely holiday is 
here to remind us. So why this 
double standard? Why was our 
fight for freedom, which was 
violent and cruel (a commanded 
killing of a newly born child is 
never warranted), something 
to celebrate while a Palestinian 
protest is something we feel the 
need to suppress? Why is Jewish 
liberation more important than 
that of Palestinians’? It’s not.

My 
grandfather 
was 

a 
Holocaust 
survivor. 
He 

survived a mass genocide of 
his people, and he moved to 
Israel. My family is in Israel. 
My parents are from Israel. I 
identify with Israel. So why is 
this country that is supposed 
to be a safe haven for Jews 
treating others the way we were 
treated? When we think back to 
the tragedies that took so many 
Jewish lives, we say, “Never 
again.” But we turn a blind 
eye to Israel’s oppressive and 
abusive behavior and continue 
to celebrate it without question. 
It’s time to wake up and ask 
these questions!

I am proud of my heritage 

and culture, but how can this 
country that is supposed to 
represent that be so cruel?

I know I will hear arguments 

about the Palestinians starting 
it and throwing stones and 
this and that — I’ve heard it 
all before. But ask yourselves, 
why do children feel the need 
to throw stones? Why are they 
so afraid of an Israeli soldier? 

Is it because they lost a family 
member to the blow of one of 
their guns? It very well could 
be.

As Jews, we understand 

suffering 
and 
displacement. 

We know the hardships of 
being driven from our homes 
and fighting with nothing to 
lose. So where is our empathy? 
Palestinians, 
especially 
in 

Gaza, have been oppressed and 
dehumanized for decades. It’s on 
us to understand the hardships 
that have caused the oppression 
and work to make it better. It’s 
on us to meet Palestinians where 
they are, because if our history 
has taught us anything, it’s 
empathy in suffering.

Israel’s 
oppression 
and 

violence is not acceptable, and 
as Jews we have a responsibility 
to say that out loud. Israel’s 
actions are shameful and not 
reflective of our culture and 
history. It doesn’t need to be 
this way, but it is, and we can’t 
ignore that.

So on Passover, as you eat 

your charoset and drink your 
wine, as you remember the 
10 plagues and sing Dayenu, 
sing it for those in Palestine 
who are no longer able to sing 
themselves. Sing it for the lives 
lost to violent military control 
and do something to change the 
story. We need to question and 
criticize Israel if we care about a 
fair and just Jewish nation.

On 
April 
19, 
some 
will 

celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, or 
Israeli Independence Day. On 
that day, take pleasure in how 
good it feels to be liberated 
and remember that everyone 
deserves that sense of freedom. 
It’s time to free Palestine.

Alona Henig is an LSA Junior.

Pod hold the partisanship

Activism through good food

B

y all accounts, it was a 
pretty standard October 
Saturday. 
Michigan 

football was playing in a few 
hours and I stood on a friend’s 
lawn near the corner of State and 
Hoover streets, watching with a 
red Solo cup in hand as hordes 
of people decked out in maize 
and blue passed by. Then, I saw 
a familiar face in the crowd. And 
then two more just behind it. 
“Friend of the Pod!” I shouted. 
“Friend of the Pod here, can I get 
a picture?”

Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor 

and Dan Pfeiffer were passing 
by on their way to the game, 
having taped an episode of their 
extremely popular podcast “Pod 
Save America” in the Michigan 
Theater the night before. It might 
be hard to believe for some, but 
these former President Barack 
Obama staffers have gained a 
huge amount of celebrity since 
their time in the White House. 
Their podcast reaches about 1.5 
million listeners per episode and 
their live shows sell out theaters 
across the country. They have 
interviewed nearly every major 
candidate for Congress and the 
presidency in 2018 and 2020, 
respectively.

On specs, for progressives 

and liberals at least, the success of 
their company, Crooked Media, 
and its growing list of podcasts 
is cause for celebration — finally, 
an answer to conservative talk 
radio and Fox News! Young 
liberal voices are helping the 
average American contextualize 
the hot mess of current events 
in the President Donald Trump 
era and stay informed. Still, 
long-time 
listeners 
(such 
as 

yours truly) have observed a 
certain shift in tone over the 
past few months that makes me 
think I would not have such an 
enthusiastic reaction if I were 
to see them walking around Ann 
Arbor today.

Co-hosts 
Favreau, 
Vietor, 

Pfeiffer and Jon Lovett, a former 
speech-writer and funnyman, 
have spent hours and hours 
discussing the state of the 
Democratic Party. They have 
rehashed the 2016 primary and 
the relationship between the 
so-called Hillary Clinton and 
Bernie Sander wings. They have 
parsed apart the party’s position 
on health care, immigration 
and gun control to find the most 
progressive or most sensible 
stance. They have interviewed 
countless experts, trying to 
understand how to best fight the 
Trump presidency. They used 
to plainly criticize a number of 
high-profile Democrats. As the 
2018 midterms have approached, 
though, the Pod is sounding 
more and more like a partisan 
rallying cry than the serious 
autopsy that it once was.

I first got this feeling in the 

wake of the Alabama special 
election in December. Obviously, 
Republican 
candidate 
Roy 

Moore’s loss is something to 
celebrate, 
and 
a 
Democrat 

winning that seat goes a long way 
toward liberal politics returning 
to the South. But Democratic 
Sen. Doug Jones is and always 
has been a strong supporter of 
the Second Amendment. He does 
not support single-payer health 
care, which is now enjoying 
almost 
universal 
(no 
pun 

intended) support from liberals 
and 
progressives. 
He 
even 

once celebrated a Confederate 
colonel. He will face a tough 
re-election campaign in 2020, 
and anyone who expects him 
to be a consistent and reliable 
liberal vote in the Senate is 
naïve; he will be looking for 
every opportunity to work with 
his Republican colleagues.

And yet, listening to “Pod 

Save America,” you hear very few 
– if any – of these caveats. None 
of this context. “Someone with 

a (D) next to his name on the 
ballot won, so let’s celebrate!” 
they seemed to say. Now, as the 
midterms approach, listeners 
hear regularly how important it 
is to elect Democrats nationwide 
in November. I would agree, 
with 
one 
slight 
adjustment. 

It is important to elect the 
right Democrats in November. 
Progressive, non-corporate ones 
with vision. A roster of Doug 
Joneses is not going to cut it.

To a certain extent, no one 

can really blame them. They 
are all partisan Democratic 
operatives, not journalists. They 
do not pretend to offer any sort 
of unbiased perspective.

What is worrisome to me is 

that their audience is comprised 
of 
thoughtful, 
progressive 

people who now rely on “Pod 
Save America” for information 
and context. These people are 
looking to mobilize and can 
change the fundamentals of the 
party if given the chance. They 
could 
become 
an 
informed, 

motivated, progressive base that 
not only helps win elections but 
keeps its politicians honest. This 
is only if it is an ideological, 
and skeptical base rather than a 
partisan and impressionable one.

At the end of the day, I’ll 

continue to listen to “Lovett or 
Leave It” regularly and “Pod Save 
America” on occasion. Crooked 
Media as a whole employs 
progressive voices from people 
of color and women (Symone 
Sanders, DeRay Mckesson, Ira 
Madison III) and they deserve 
commendation for that. To my 
fellow listeners, though, a word 
of warning — stay vigilant. This 
podcast is no longer what it was 
and may be transitioning into 
something less than appealing.

Brett Graham can be reached at 

btgraham@umich.edu.

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T

he Lunch Room didn’t 
start with a business plan 
or a value proposition. 

Instead, it started with two 
neighbors cooking food together 
in their kitchens. After eight 
years, three brick-and-mortar 
locations and success beyond 
what 
anyone 
could 
have 

predicted, its origin story isn’t 
hard to believe. Step inside any 
of The Lunch Room’s three 
locations and you’ll instantly feel 
like you’re at home having a meal 
with your family. The Lunch 
Room emanates a casual, almost 
hippie-like vibe, with meals that 
taste home-cooked and posters 
on the wall promoting The Lunch 
Room’s social activism with the 
Youth Justice Fund. In a city 
like Ann Arbor, perhaps those 
qualities alone could account 
for its incredible success as a 
restaurant.

But Joel Panozzo, co-founder 

and co-owner of The Lunch Room, 
hopes his restaurant’s success is 
due to more than just its location in 
a notoriously community-focused, 
activism-centric city.

“I’ve been wanting to think 

that it’s possible for businesses to 
do the things that we’re doing, even 
not in Ann Arbor,” Panozzo said in 
an interview at The Lunch Room’s 
Kerrytown location. “That’s what 
my personal longer-term goal is — 
to be an example that a restaurant 
can do these things. A restaurant 
can pay its employees a livable 
wage, it can provide health and 
dental benefits, it can provide gym 
membership reimbursements, it 
can farm its own vegetables, it can 
work with formerly incarcerated 
adults, it can work with people 
recovering in the community, 
regardless of what town you live in. 
It helps that a community like Ann 
Arbor identifies with those things, 
but I’m hoping that it grows further 
from there.”

Panozzo’s sentiment may be 

more controversial than it initially 
sounds; how many diners do you 
know that pay their employees a 
livable wage? However, it seems to 
be working for The Lunch Room. 
This past summer, The Lunch 
Room opened its third location, 

Detroit Street Filling Station, which 
is right across the street from its 
original location in Kerrytown.

“You’ve probably seen what it’s 

like when (The Lunch Room) gets 
super busy and there’s a line down 
the hallway,” Panozzo said. (For 
the record, I have seen The Lunch 
Room that busy, just about every 
time I’ve been there). “It turned 
into be an issue. I would run into 
our regulars on the street and be 
like, ‘Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen you 
in so long, what’s been going on?’ 
And they’d be like, ‘Yeah, I don’t 
come anymore cause it’s so busy, it’s 
crazy.’”

Not many restaurants have 

this 
problem, 
and 
Panozzo 

acknowledged “it’s a good problem 
to have, but it’s still a problem.” 
When space opened up across the 
street, Panozzo and his co-owner, 
Phillis 
Engelbert, 
immediately 

jumped on it.

What put The Lunch Room in a 

position to be so successful that it was 
forced to open another location? It 
appears that Panozzo and Engelbert 
don’t view most of their decisions 
as business decisions, but rather as 
opportunities to provide the highest 
quality of service. First and foremost, 
this means good food. The Lunch 
Room is an all-vegan restaurant, 
meaning it doesn’t use meat, eggs or 
dairy (like cheese) in any of its menu 
items. According to Panozzo, this 
isn’t to hit the niche market of vegans 
in Ann Arbor. Rather, it allows them 
to create the highest quality of dishes 
that other restaurants may not be 
capable of creating.

“When you are using really 

heavy creams and cheeses and 
animal fats, it can kind of mask a 
lot of the other things that you have 
going on in your food,” Panozzo 
explained. “When you’re using 
entirely plant-based ingredients, 
it’s like an opportunity to find other 
spices, herbs, crazy vegetables. It’s 
an opportunity to actually make 
something that hits a flavor palette 
that somebody has maybe never 
tasted before. Or a flavor palette 
that could be there, but then it’s got 
melted cheese is all over the top.”

The 
Lunch 
Room 
doesn’t 

hesitate to give back to its 
community. Recently, The Lunch 

Room began a partnership with the 
Youth Justice Fund, a nonprofit that 
works with formerly incarcerated 
youth in the Ann Arbor area.

“That kind of grew out of a 

separate program that we were 
running,” Panozzo said.

The Lunch Room used to 

have a 10 percent giving program, 
where each month it promoted a 
particular nonprofit. On Saturday 
nights, 
the 
nonprofit 
would 

advertise The Lunch Room to 
its donors and employees, and 10 
percent of the restaurant’s sales 
would go to that nonprofit. Over 
time, The Lunch Room used this 
program to partner with local 
prisoner-rights 
attorneys 
and 

create the Youth Justice Fund.

This form of charity appears 

to be a no-brainer for Panozzo. 
When I ask him to explain it 
further, 
he 
emphasizes 
the 

need for such a nonprofit in 
the 
community, 
rather 
than 

explaining why it helps The Lunch 
Room as a business. This attitude 
is characteristic of Panozzo; he 
views The Lunch Room as an 
opportunity to make the right 
life decisions, not necessarily 
the right business decisions. The 
business success follows, almost 
as an afterthought.

As for long-term goals, Panozzo 

doesn’t plan on expanding any 
further. “I imagine us starting to 
work more on an advocacy level, 
where my business partner and I 
would start stepping out and maybe 
teaching other businesses how to 
do what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s 
great that we’ve been able to do 
the three places that we have been 
able to do, but like I don’t think 
more locations is like necessarily 
… we’re feeling very content with 
the amount of craziness that three 
locations entails.”

As for Panozzo, The Lunch 

Room is still the place that he began 
cooking in his neighbor’s kitchen 
back in 2008.

“Yesterday, I was cooking on 

the line for like eight hours,” he said 
with a laugh. “It would be nice to 
just step back a little bit.”

Hannah Harshe can be reached at 

hharshe@umich.edu.

