heeb'n'vegan

The Retirement of heebnvegan

2010-08-27T00:01:00.005-04:00

Dear Readers,

On August 27, 2005, I started heebnvegan as a vegan voice in the Jewish blogosphere. I've accomplished more with this blog than I ever expected, but after five years, I have decided to retire the blog.

To some readers, heebnvegan is nothing more than the sum of its parts: a collection of more than 360 individual posts. While I am certainly proud of many of the posts exploring the intersection between Judaism and animal protection, among other issues, heebnvegan has become so much more to me.

Thanks to heebnvegan, I have furthered my knowledge about Jewish and vegetarian issues. heebnvegan has been a vehicle for me to grow my Jewish identity and understand my compassion for animals in greater depth. It has given me a platform to write op-eds, letters to the editor, and guest posts and to speak at a synagogue, a university's religious studies class, and another university's Hillel. heebnvegan has put me in touch with bloggers and other people who are doing great work in the Jewish community and given me the opportunity to interview the world's foremost Jewish vegan, musicians I admire, and people who devote their lives to making this world a better place. It has given me a great conversation-starter for academic and professional networking as well as numerous social situations. It's allowed me to feature voices that deserve to be heard through guest posts, and it's enabled my ideas and writing to be quoted from and referred to on other blogs and Web sites. And I certainly appreciate all the complimentary books, CDs, and admission to events I've received along the way.

As some readers know, I have undertaken an exhaustive reevaluation of my dietary habits of late. This quest has led me to eat processed foods less frequently, and it has reaffirmed my decision not to eat fish. As I question my dietary habits and come up with slightly different takes on the same overall picture, I'm left with one cardinal rule that I've hammered home time and time again: Tza'ar ba'alei chayim (unnecessary animal suffering) is the norm, not the exception to the rule, in modern animal agriculture. The best way to avoid causing animals unnecessary suffering is to stop consuming the products of cruel animal agriculture.

Thank you to everyone who read heebnvegan and helped keep this blog alive for so long. Thanks to The Jew & The Carrot, Failed Messiah, Jewish Vegetarians of North America, and VeggieJews for inspiring and informing the plurality of heebnvegan's content. And last but not least, Baruch Hashem.

Sincerely,

Michael Croland
Editor, heebnvegan

New Web Site Hosts Updated List of Veg-Friendly Kosher Restaurants in the NYC Area

2010-08-26T21:35:00.004-04:00

Last year, I blogged about a list of vegan, vegetarian, and vegetarian-friendly restaurants in the New York City area that have kosher certification. Cathy Resler, organizer of the NYC Jewish Veg*ns MeetUp group, has created a Web site featuring an updated version of her list. It's now quite easy to navigate through the myriad options by alphabetical, geographic, or cuisine-based sorting.

As I mentioned in my previous post, "If you're looking for a kosher establishment with plentiful vegetarian and vegan options, there's no need to check both vegan and kosher restaurant guides when you can check only one list."

While I personally feel comfortable from a kosher perspective if I know that food is vegan, I respect that other people look for a hechsher regardless in their efforts to keep kosher. For them (and for people trying to pick a restaurant to meet them at), this list is an invaluable resource.

I listed about a dozen of the restaurants that I'd been to in my previous post, but it's worth noting that Buddha Bodai, Peacefood Cafe, and Sacred Chow aren't just places I've been to once or twice. I probably have gone to those three restaurants more than any other in New York City, and I highly recommend each of them.

Vegetarian Food and Kosher Meat in a Kosher Nation

2010-08-26T19:41:00.003-04:00

Sue Fishkoff's Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America's Food Answers to a Higher Authority (Schocken Books) doesn't come out until October, but I was lucky enough to get a galley in advance. Frankly, what I enjoyed most about the book were topics I don't have any particular reason to blog about: the true meaning of kosher wine, the globalization of kosher certification, how far people will go to make sure that insects aren't in their food, and the life and times of a mashgiach. Fishkoff also has a great deal to say about the connections between vegetarianism and kashrut as well as kosher meat.

I might not agree with everything Fishkoff has to say, but she didn't write an opinion-based eater's manual. She's a journalist who presented a very compelling, enlightening look at the scope of kashrut in 21st century America, and it's a must-read for anyone interested in Jewish connections to food issues of any kind.

Vegetarianism and Kashrut
Prior to reading Kosher Nation, I generally felt that my vegan diet was kosher by default, despite some possible exceptions that people might point out. By learning more about how far people go to adhere to kashrut, I realize that the list of "exceptions" is greater than I previously realized. At the same time, I feel more confident in my own stance. Fishkoff explicitly says that "most Conservative Jews" "consider all vegetarian food kosher," and as a Conservative Jew, I thought that felt right and and that she'd affirmed what I've long suspected and pieced together on my own. Fishkoff explains that prior to the tipping point of monumental growth of kosher certification in the 1980s, many Orthodox Jews in the U.S. kept "kosher by ingredient." This means that if all the individual ingredients in a food were kosher in nature, then the product would be considered kosher even if it didn't bear a hechsher. Fishkoff notes that this system "fell out of practice among Orthodox Jews" but "continued among Conservative Jews." It's what intuitively seems right to me.

Despite my personal stance, I now appreciate just how instrumental kosher certification can be for vegetarian foods. Fishkoff recounts that the country's first food to be certified kosher on a national level was Heinz Vegetarian Beans in 1923. Eighty-five years later, in 2008, Jelly Belly sought national kosher certification, with the company's president quoted as saying that this would bring in business "not just from Jewish consumers, but vegans and others who look for a kosher symbol." I personally don't think that too many non-Jewish vegans look for kosher symbols, especially considering that pareve foods may contain fish or eggs, but Fishkoff claims that the kosher market includes "vegans who look for the pareve, or neutral, kosher symbol, indicating food that contains neither dairy nor meat." I'm sure Jelly Bean and Fishkoff are right that kosher certification does make a difference to some vegans, even if it's to a very limited extent.

My favorite part about Fishkoff's passages on connections between vegetarianism and kashrut comes in the prologue: "How we sow, how we harvest, how we slaughter, how we prepare our food, how and when we eat—Jews are hardwired to link our food choices to moral and political beliefs, which is probably why so many Jews are active in the organic, locally sourced, and vegetarian movements. What we put in our bodies has a lot to say about who we are and what we value." This drives home the point that being Jewish and vegetarian are not utterly distinct identities but rather interrelated, consistent facets of a person's outlook on food.

Kosher Meat
I learned a few tidbits of information I hadn't known about kosher meat production, but I think that Fishkoff by and large left out a big piece of the puzzle: what it means for animals. In an entire chapter about AgriProcessors and its downfall, only four sentences dealt with the PETA investigations at AgriProcessors and the Rubashkins' Local Pride plant and AgriProcessors' multiple violations of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.

Furthermore, when Fishkoff did present information I didn't know, I was left to connect the dots myself. Fishkoff notes that animals who do not meet kosher standards at slaughter, as well as the back halves of kosher animals (at least in the U.S.), are sold as non-kosher meat. I knew that, but I was blown away by the statistic: Fishkoff says, "Up to 85 percent of the meat produced in a kosher plant ends up being sold as non-kosher." Separately, Fishkoff says that the shochet will check his knife for nicks (the idea, at least in theory, is that a knife with no nicks will make the sharpest cut and end an animal's life more quickly and less painfully, as is required by kosher law) "between every large animal, and every fifteen to twenty minutes when slaughtering poultry." Fishkoff explains:

There is no law prescribing this; it’s purely a financial consideration. If a nick is discovered in the blade, every animal slaughtered since the previous check is no longer kosher. Fifteen or twenty minutes’ worth of chickens is a lot less expensive than losing even two head of cattle.

The implications here are startling. Defenders of shechita contend that when it's performed correctly, it's humane. But in practice, kosher meat plants are producing meat that is not consistent with correctly performed shechita on a massive scale. Up to 85 percent of the meat produced in kosher facilities isn't kosher, and it's no big deal (and "purely a financial consideration") if "up to twenty minutes' worth of chickens" are deemed trayf. It's one thing to have a high ideal that aims to look out for animals' welfare, but in far too many cases, that ideal is not being met in practice.

Fishkoff's last chapter focuses on the new Jewish food movement, and her last five paragraphs in particular refer to the movement's leaders and the Orthodox Union's Rabbi Seth Mandel to drive home a key point: Mandel says that the movement's few supposedly humane kosher meat suppliers are "valuable as education, but not economical." As I've put it in the past, they "inherently can't operate on a large enough scale for their meat to be a viable alternative in the kosher market." So if the practices of large-scale animal agriculture are the chief problem, the likes of KOL Foods and Mitzvah Meat are not much of a solution. Fishkoff concludes, "And it will take more than goat shechting in Connecticut or turkey slaughter on a California farm to change that."

Note: Quotations used in this blog post were taken from an uncorrected bound galley. When looking to use quotations from Kosher Nation, please refer to the published book, not this blog post.

Etc.

2010-08-24T23:24:00.003-04:00

Update on the Proposed Fur Ban in Israel
It appears that a vote is forthcoming on the proposed Israeli fur ban. One potential hurdle to the bill's passing was the opposition of Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, but according to the International Anti-Fur Coalition, Ben-Eliezer formally withdrew his opposition to the bill on Sunday. On its Web site, the organization notes that "the path is open for the ban to be voted [on] at the committee meeting to be held at the Knesset on September 2nd when the bill comes up for its 2nd and 3rd reading."

NewKosher.org Coming Soon
I've written a fair amount about PunkTorah, and I'm happy to announce that this nonprofit organization will soon be launching the Web site NewKosher.org. Says PunkTorah CEO Patrick Aleph, "NewKosher.org is an effort by PunkTorah to create a true Kosher Lifestyle based on the ethical, moral, environmental, and mystical principles of kashrut." I've submitted a few posts connecting kashrut and vegetarianism, and I expect that they'll be posted shortly after the site goes live.

Tens of Thousands of Chickens Die in Israeli Heat Waves
Yesterday, Haaretz reported that "just" 20,000 chickens had died in a recent Israeli heat wave. This was viewed as a small death toll relative to the hundreds of thousands of chickens who died in a heat wave two weeks prior. The paper reported, "The reason less battery hens died this time around is that the poultry farmers improved the cooling systems in chicken coops, according to Kanat, the Insurance Fund for Natural Risks in Agriculture." It's questionable enough when animals are raised and killed to be eaten, but it's a shonde when they suffer and die from heat and aren't even used for food.

Opposition to Unsanitary Conditions for Kapparot
Last week, Failed Messiah noted that a New York newspaper had reported that the Rockland County, N.Y., health commissioner is speaking out against unsanitary conditions for kapparot. The Journal News reported:

The Rockland Commissioner of Health directed officials today to find out where a Jewish group was planning on holding its annual chicken ritual [kapparot] and to meet with organizers to try to prevent the unsanitary conditions that have led to fines in the past. . . .

A Monsey man who organizes the ceremony for Ramapo's large Jewish population has been fined three years in a row for not adequately cleaning up chicken entrails, feces, carcasses, feet and blood in kapparot ceremonies in Monsey.

Much of the previous years' fines remain unpaid, health officials said.

Members of the Rockland Department of Health said they have met with organizers in previous years to explain the sanitary code requirements and suggest ways to perform the ritual while still complying with regulations.

Those meetings have had little effect, health officials told [Rockland Commissioner of Health John] Facelle.

"We meet with them ahead of time and explain what they have to do," Thomas Micelli, director of environmental health, told Facelle. "And it's still awful."

Index of Guest Posts

2010-08-19T23:05:00.003-04:00

Since I started heebnvegan in 2005, it's essentially been a one-person operation. Nevertheless, I've had the opportunity to feature 10 guest posts through the years, and I am grateful for the way that each of them has added a fresh perspective.

The Passover and Rosh Hashanah guest posts have contributed recipes and cooking inspiration. Rina Deych's and Boris Dolin's pieces have shined the spotlight on new projects of interest to heebnvegan readers. And I frequently refer to Jackie Topol's guest post from three years ago to illuminate how even if there were a realistic best-case scenario for animal welfare, veganism is still the best option.

Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos (Rina Deych, August 2010)
Nut-Based Cuisine: The Definitive Source of Plant Protein on Passover (Zel Allen, March 2010)
A Story About Challah Making (Celia Harary, November 2009)
Passover From a Living Foods Perspective (Robin Silberman, March 2009)
Rosh Hashanah Guest Post: Raw Jewish Foods—What's That All About? (Robin Silberman, September 2008)
Vegan Passover Guide for Hungry Jews (Jenny Goldberg, April 2008)
Introducing ShalomVeg.com! (Boris Dolin, December 2007)
My Experience as a Farmer and Why I've Decided to Go Vegan (Jackie Topol, July 2007)
Cooking Up a Vegan Passover (Isa Chandra Moskowitz, March 2007)
heebnvegan's Very First Guest Post (David Perle, November 2006)

2010 List of Jewish Punk Bands

2010-08-19T22:33:00.002-04:00

Below is the most recent update of the list of Jewish punk bands I've written about along with a link to an article or blog post in which each is mentioned.

The categories are somewhat arbitrary. The last three categories shouldn't be thought of as comprehensive.

Punk Bands With a Significant Jewish Focus/Identity
7SEVENTY (Florida)
CAN!!CAN (Georgia)
Clockwork Allen (California)
Di Nigunim (California)
Electric Menorah (New York)
Fear of a Blue Planet (Illinois)
Gefilte F*ck (California)
G.I. Jew (California)
The Groggers (New York)
Jewdriver (California)
Jews From the Valley (California)
The Jiddische Hitlerjugend (Holland)
Johnny Cohen and the Jewish Defense League (Holland)
Kohane of Newark (New York)
KOSHER (Maryland)
Mensch (New York)
Moshiach Oi (New York)
The Schleps (Massachusetts)
Shabbos Bloody Shabbos (New York)
The Shondes (New York)
Sons of Abraham (New York)
Steve “Gangsta Rabbi” Lieberman (New York)
Total Passover (Iowa)
White Shabbos (New York)
Yidcore (Australia)

Klezmer/Folk Bands With a Punk Edge
Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird
Farbrengiton
Golem
Josh Lederman y Los Diablos
Juez
Mr. Julian Gaskell & His Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
The Klezmatics
Luminescent Orchestrii
The Murrays
Pitom
Polka Madre
Zydepunks

Similar bands include Charming Hostess, Charming Hostess Big Band, and Kletka Red.

Punk Bands From Israel
Chaos Rabak
Friday Night Sissy Fight
Make It Rain
Monotonix
Not Kosher
Retribution
Shenkin Punx
Sinat Hinam
Ubacore
Useless ID

To learn more about the Israeli punk scene, check out Liz Nord’s documentary Jericho’s Echo: Punk Rock in the Holy Land.

Punk Bands With Jewish Members
Bad Religion
Black Flag
Bleach Battalion
Blondie
The Clash
The Circle Jerks
Cobra Starship
The Dictators
Gogol Bordello
Hard Times
Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
New Found Glory
The New York Dolls
NOFX
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Serge Gainsbourg
The Sleepies

To learn more about Jews’ involvement in punk rock, read Steven Lee Beeber’s The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk.

Kosher Veganarchy in the U.K.!

2010-08-17T21:57:00.005-04:00

Last month, the Redwood Wholefood Company, a vegan food manufacturer in Britain, issued a press release announcing "one of the first times that a UK manufacturer of vegetarian and vegan products has undergone the kosher certification process." Celebrity animal rights advocate Heather Mills, who owns Redwood, said, "Achieving kosher certification is an endorsement of the care and attention we give to the sourcing of ingredients and to the manufacturing of our products."

Perhaps a press release should be taken with a grain of kosher salt. While it is commendable that Redwood has reached out to clientele seeking a hechsher, kosher-certified vegan food is likely not a total anomaly in England. The press release highlights the rarity of kosher certification for companies that chiefly focus on vegetarian and vegan foods, but surely there must be a fair number of kosher foods that are vegan in the U.K. I took the below photo last year to show off the kosher section of a London supermarket, and I'm guessing that at the very least, the matzos that my friend was holding were both hechsher-bearing and vegan!

My friend Will modeled some of the kosher offerings at a Sainsbury's supermarket in London in August 2009. I am so pleased to find a constructive use for this photo.

Photo by Michael Croland

I don't mean to detract from the point that growth in the number of heeb and vegan foods in England is worth celebrating. Here's something else that's worth celebrating: With Rosh Hashanah right around the corner, the all-vegetarian British company Manna is selling two vegan gift boxes that are certified kosher: "Dark Magic" and "Vegan Rosh Hashanah."

The Vegan Rosh Hashanah gift basket includes date honey, apples, wine, and chocolate. Manna Gifts notes, "Some Jewish scholars suggest that the 'honey' from the biblical 'land of milk & honey' referred to the abundance of sweet date and fig syrup in the Land of Israel. This beautiful gift box offers a jar of this biblical date honey as a delicious kosher and vegan alternative to traditional bee honey, making an original, delicious and symbolic Rosh Hashanah gift."

Manna founder (and member of the tribe) Shelley Caro realizes that there might not be a huge market of kosher-keeping consumers seeking explicitly vegan products in the U.K. Nevertheless, she points out, "Gifts are about giving as well as receiving. While there may not be many Jewish Vegans in the UK, I believe that those living abroad with friends and family in the UK & Europe will want to send Rosh Hashanah gifts that are consistent with their ethical choices. I would be delighted if they did so through us!"

Caro does see a connection between selling products that cater to both the kosher and vegan niches. "From a product perspective, there is often a large area of overlap between kosher dairy & pareve products and those suitable for ovo-lacto vegetarians and vegans," Caro says. "Kosher dairy and pareve products will be generally be free of meat-derived additives, but since fish, eggs and honey are considered pareve, for example, we need to be as thorough as possible in checking the ingredients and additives used."

Let's hear it for kosher veganarchy in the U.K.! British Yiddish vegans, I leave you with the out-of-context vision of the Sex Pistols: "Your future dream is a shopping scheme!"

Enter to Win a Copy of Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Eating Animals'

2010-08-17T20:04:00.007-04:00

Update (8/24/10): This contest has now ended. The winners will be notified via e-mail.

Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals is now available in paperback, and you can enter to win a copy from heebnvegan!

This blockbuster book was first published in November, and it's already gone a long way toward getting the media and the general public talking about factory farming and vegetarianism. Foer has become a leading spokesperson for vegetarian advocacy, and after watching his interviews and seeing him speak in March, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone who's a better fit for the job.

Here's an excerpt of my review from when Eating Animals first came out:

After being an on-and-off vegetarian for much of his life, Foer set out to explore where meat comes from when his wife got pregnant with their first child and he had to make decisions about eating animals on someone else's behalf. The search that follows is part memoir, part journalism, and it delves deeply into the issue of where meat comes from. With Foer's revered knack for storytelling, Eating Animals takes readers on a journey that will make them find factory farms nothing short of repugnant. All this is done in a style that is very accessible to the general public and never too preachy or pushy of Foer's viewpoint.

Enter to win a free paperback copy of Eating Animals! To enter, leave your name and e-mail address as a comment in response to this post by Monday, August 23. No purchase is necessary. Up to five winners will be selected and notified via e-mail. Only U.S. and Canadian residents with addresses other than P.O. boxes are eligible to enter. The winners will receive books mailed directly from Hachette Book Group, and heebnvegan is not responsible for lost or stolen copies. This contest is subject to the terms and discretion of Hachette Book Group.

Etc.

2010-08-12T20:24:00.002-04:00

Matisyahu Supports Israel's Proposed Fur Ban
Readers may recall that in April, heebnvegan featured an exclusive interview with Matisyahu. In June, he wrote a letter on behalf of PETA speaking out in favor of Israel's proposed fur ban. Matisyahu told government leaders, "I hope you will agree that the way that animals suffer and die in the fur trade violates the fundamental principle of tza'ar ba'alei chayim, which forbids gratuitous cruelty to animals."

Recommended Reading on The Jew & The Carrot

A Victory for Factory Farming Opponents in Ohio (August)
At Vegans' Weddings: Beef or Tofu? (August)
How My Dog Turned Me Into a Vegetarian (August)
A Review of 'Gristle' (July)
'Oy'-Free Cooking (July)
Is the New 'Humane' Kosher Label Humane Enough? Or Too Humane? (June)

Guest Post: Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos

2010-08-01T21:09:00.003-04:00

The following guest post was written by Rina Deych, a registered nurse, animal activist, and vegan who lives in Brooklyn. She first learned about the use of chickens for kaporos from her Orthodox grandfather, Joseph Levine. Levine was one of the first kosher butchers in Boro Park in the 1920s, and he considered the practice inconsistent with the Jewish mandate not to harm animals.

Kaporos (“atonements”) is a custom preceding Yom Kippur in which chickens are ritually sacrificed by many Orthodox Jews. The person “swings” the chicken, by holding the legs or pinning the bird’s wings backward, around his or her head while chanting about transferring one’s sins symbolically onto the bird. The chicken is then slaughtered and may or may not be given to the poor. Prior to the ceremony, the chickens are packed in crates, and birds not used have been found abandoned in their crates when the ceremony was over.

The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos (AECK) seeks to replace chickens in kaporos rituals for three principal reasons:

The use of chickens as kaporos is cruel. They suffer in being held with their wings pinned backward, in being swung over the heads of practitioners, and in being packed in crates, often for days without food or water leading up to the ritual, which violates tsa’ar ba’alei chaim, the mandate prohibiting cruelty to animals.
The use of chickens is not required by Jewish law. It is not a mitzvah but rather a custom that originated in the Middle Ages.
There is an acceptable substitute that not only avoids cruelty but also can help reduce hunger and show compassion: Money can be used as a non-animal alternative. Funds raised can be given directly to charities that provide food for the poor and hungry throughout the year, including 13,000 Jewish families living at or below the poverty line in New York City.

For more information on the custom of Kaporos, please see Jewish Vegetarians of North America president Richard Schwartz's article. Please also see United Poultry Concerns' Karen Davis' excellent resource page as well as AECK's YouTube channel. The AECK Web site, which is under construction, will be EndChickensAsKaporos.com. Please join our Facebook group. If you would like to be added to our mailing list to be informed of our upcoming demo and petition, please email me at rrrina@optonline.net.

Vegan Marries Jew in 'Wedding of the Century'

2010-08-01T17:05:00.002-04:00

This post should not be seen as condoning intermarriage.

Last night, in what was billed as the "wedding of the century," a vegan married a Jew. I don't think of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky as the biggest celebrities in the land, but I would have loved to have gone to the event to cover it for heebnvegan!

Rev. William Shillady, a Methodist minister, and Rabbi James Ponet, the head of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, co-officiated at the ceremony. A blogger for the Forward called the wedding "the most high-profile interfaith ceremony in American history."

Mezvinsky wore a kippah and a tallis, and the couple stood under a chuppah (canopy) and in front of a ketubah (wedding contract). Friends and family reportedly recited the traditional blessings of the sheva brachot. The Los Angeles Jewish Journal pointed out, "No word on whether the bridegroom shattered a glass, or whether President Clinton yelled, 'Mazel tov!'"

Clinton has reportedly been vegan since she was a teenager. Although the menu apparently did include organic grass-fed beef, the affair reportedly included significant vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options, including a vegan, gluten-free wedding cake. Some are speculating that the high-profile wedding could lead to a spike in the volume and creativity of vegan and gluten-free options at weddings and elsewhere.

My Interview About Judaism and Vegetarianism on Our Hen House's Podcast

2010-07-25T23:20:00.001-04:00

My interview from earlier this month was featured on Our Hen House's podcast this weekend. We talked about Torah teachings about compassion for animals, how well Judaism and vegetarianism mesh together, kosher slaughter, the new Jewish food movement, and vegan versions of traditional Jewish foods.

To listen to the podcast, click here. My in-depth interview starts about a third of the way into the podcast. I encourage this blog's readers to listen to the whole interview, but here's an excerpt:

There is a lot of foundation for compassion for animals and vegetarianism and veganism in the Jewish faith. And I feel proud to be Jewish knowing that Judaism is one of the forebears of animal welfare in Western civilization.

And I feel that my views on whether you want to call it animal rights, animal welfare, animal protection, what have you, can really be summed up by a Jewish term, it's in Hebrew, called tza'ar ba'alei chayim, which means unnecessary animal suffering. That is, we should prevent causing animals any unnecessary suffering.

How you interpret that could be deemed, on the one hand, as treating animals humanely with animal welfare and just trying to minimize their pain. Or it can be, in my case, saying that if we don't need animals for meat or for other ways in which they are exploited, we're better off without meat and without circuses and rodeos and leather and fur, etc. So if that kind of animal use is unnecessary and suffering is inherent in causing those products to be produced, then, in my mind, it's tza'ar ba'alei chayim, or unnecessary animal suffering.

The Nation's Biggest Night of the Year for Air Guitar

2010-07-25T21:13:00.009-04:00

With 2008 world champion Hot Lixx Hulahan

I attended the 2010 U.S. Air Guitar National Finals on Thursday, and after years of participating in competitions, this was my first time going to an air guitar show as a spectator. I expected to stand in the crowd and take in a normal concert experience (normal, that is, except for the lack of physical instruments), but I wound up getting quite immersed in it all.

I started off in the audience. Bjorn Turoque, the emcee and the author of the book To Air Is Human (which I'm mentioned in twice), began the show by rocking out to Styx's "Come Sail Away." He then got two fans to come onstage and join him and 2008 world champion Hot Lixx Hulahan (a vegetarian whom I interviewed for heebnvegan around the time he won the world championship) for an air band demonstration. Bjorn Turoque and Hot Lixx Hulahan had airness up the wazoo as they rocked out together, and it seemed that the night's actual contestants would be hard-pressed to top the sport's legends.

I thought the best performance of the night was given by The Bride of Rock. Her new husband, 2005 U.S. champion The Rockness Monster, took the stage and blew into a conch shell to call out to his bride, who crowdsurfed from the back of the concert hall to the stage in a wedding gown. She had great stage presence, and she dominated Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade." Shreddie Mercury and two-time U.S. champion William Ocean blew me away with hard rock covers of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," respectively. One contestant came on stage staring at his Blackberry and eventually threw it out to the crowd. Lt. Facemelter established himself as an air guitarist to pay attention to in the years ahead.

Toward the end of the first round, I spotted someone in a bear costume with a pink bow tie. I immediately recognized the bear, nicknamed Air Bear for the occasion, as Jacob Calle. heebnvegan readers may recall my 2008 post about how Calle, a vegan activist in Houston, broke his leg in an air guitar competition as well as follow-up posts about how he trotted along the shoreline in a bear suit in front of a news crew during Hurricane Ike. Calle was initially shocked that anyone in New York would be shouting, "Are you Jacob Calle?" upon seeing a bear, but once he figured out who I was, he gave me a big hug and was able to get me backstage. Before you knew it, we'd made plans for him to stay with me his last night in town.

Getting backstage meant I got to talk to quite a few of the contestants, retired air guitarists, and a judge: Jewish, vegan comedian Myq Kaplan, whom I interviewed for a heebnvegan post earlier this year. I'd been out of the air guitar world for a few years, but it was great to be back for one night only. For the second round, I got to watch the performances from the side of the stage! For the compulsory routine, the remaining contestants all had to perform to Guns N Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle," the same song I sang and air guitared to at an Amsterdam coffee shop last summer, when I was pronounced the best air guitarist there (even though there was no air guitar competition as part of the karaoke event). And I was just a few feet away from the competitors for the air-off (featuring The Cars' "Just What I Needed"), in which Romeo DanceCheetah defeated Dreamcatcher for the championship belt and the right to represent the US of A in Finland.

Following the air-off, the contestants, the air guitar legends, and audience members packed the stage to air along to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird." It was a larger-than-life experience getting to rock out next to Hot Lixx Hulahan and Romeo DanceCheetah (as one photo below shows) as well as other accomplished veterans of the sport.

Last night, Calle stayed at my apartment, and he seemed to prefer my couch to when he used William Ocean's knee-pads as a pillow a few nights earlier. It was surreal to chat with someone who shared interests in veganism, animal protection, mascot costumes, and air guitar. He said he thought that Romeo DanceCheetah was a fitting champion based on his first-round performance of Daft Punk's "Robot Rock." I pointed out that Michael "Destroyer" Heffels of Holland had won the 2005 world championship with the same song and that Romeo DanceCheetah's rendition was inferior. I thought it stood a poor chance of winning the gold in front of Finnish judges and fans who'd seen the same thing, but with a better gimmick, five years ago. To settle the matter, we watched (and at times rewound) YouTube videos of the performances and compared the two. In the end, we had to agree to disagree.

With emcee (and To Air Is Human author) Bjorn Turoque

With Air Bear (aka Hurricane Bear, aka The Golden Ghost)

Looking out at the audience over the shoulders of 2010 U.S. champion Romeo DanceCheetah and 2008 world champion Hot Lixx Hulahan during "Free Bird"

For more information about the history of air guitar, check out Thursday's article from Time.com.

Spreading the Message Beyond heebnvegan

2010-07-16T14:33:00.002-04:00

The heebnvegan message is not limited to this blog. Here are some of the other venues in which I have talked about Judaism and/or vegetarianism in the last month.

The Jew & The Carrot
Although I had been submitting guest posts to Hazon's blog, The Jew & The Carrot, for several years, I became a regular contributor in January. Most of my writings on The Jew & The Carrot are simply cross-posted from heebnvegan. However, there have been some original pieces.

Last month, when I wrote about Sholom Rubashkin's federal sentencing on both blogs, the post on The Jew & The Carrot set off a firestorm of comments. Some commenters still rushed to Rubashkin's defense and claimed that AgriProcessors had not inflicted unnecessary suffering on animals (tsa'ar ba'alei chayim). When my comments in response were not sufficient to persuade other people, I wrote an entire post outlining a history of tsa'ar ba'alei chayim at AgriProcessors and Local Pride, which had also been owned by the Rubashkin family. I noted, "This information is not new for many readers of The Jew & The Carrot, but demands for it arising out of last night’s post are."

Vegbooks
On July 9, I had a post featured on Vegbooks, a blog about books and movies with animal-friendly and pro-vegetarian themes. I wrote about "the apparent inconsistency between feeding animals to children and teaching them to do the right thing by using animals as models for good behavior," as was discussed in a recent article in The Horn Book. I also linked to letters to the editor that the original article generated.

Movie Screening and Discussion
In March, I noted that holistic health counselor Jackie Topol and I had led a movie screening and discussion at the Forest Hills Jewish Center's Tuv Ha'aretz/CSA. On Sunday, we had a similar event, featuring the movie King Corn.

One part of the movie talked about how cattle in industrialized animal agriculture are fed a corn-based diets (as well as antibiotics to make them accept it) even though nature intended them to eat grass. I was reminded of a comment on this blog from earlier this month, in which someone said, "I recently heard a report that corn-fed cows are destined to die within six months of when they are slaughtered, because corn causes the animals serious stomach disease. This, of course, brings up an even more pressing question: does kosher meat fall under the category of a treifa, which would ultimately mean it is not kosher at all?" I don't think that this situation actually renders the meat treif, but it's a fair point that is worth considering in its own right.

Our Hen House
On Tuesday, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan of Our Hen House interviewed me about the conncections between Judaism and veganism. The interview will be featured in Our Hen House's podcast next Saturday, and I'll put up a separate post when the podcast goes online.

Can!!Can's JDub Debut Packs a Punch

2010-07-07T21:05:00.003-04:00

I don't want to take anything away from the religious and other messages in Can!!Can's songs, but their brand-new album, Monsters & Healers, doesn't warrant a cerebral review. These are songs that become sheer anthems to shout along to over time, even if you don't know what all the words actually are or why "El Paso" deserves to be screamed many times over. This is a hard-rocking album for which you're supposed to crank the volume up to 11 and thrash around your body in ways you didn't know it could move. This is a band whose music is best appreciated by going to a live show and pumping your fists in the air, screaming along, and dancing like a man possessed a foot away from their frontman as he leaps on and off the stage. I know from experience.

Because the Georgia-based trio's larger-than-life live sound is so integral to what Can!!Can is all about, it's a big deal that the sound quality on the group's first JDub Records release packs such a punch. Mary Collins' guitar is fierce yet intricate, Josh Lamar's drums are pounding yet not cacophonous, and Patrick Aleph's vocals are commanding. The sound is crisp and engaging, far better than on their previous release, All Hell. The improvement is most noticeable in "Recoaxed" (formerly "Coaxed") and "Victim" (formerly "Victim Fashion"), which appeared on All Hell but were rerecorded for Monsters & Healers.

Is that sound Jewish, punk, or Jewish punk? I've heard Patrick, the only band member who is a member of the tribe, give different explanations depending on the context. When I interviewed him last summer, he said, "It's hard to label it. ... But definitely, punk rock has influenced me a lot. I think you can see it mostly in the show. In the music, I think I would call it more experimental rock, heavy rock maybe."

While the band might avoid the Jewish "label," the album was released by a Jewish record label. For his day job, Patrick runs a nonprofit called PunkTorah. The Jewish connection is there and pervades Patrick's life and music, even if it doesn't define Can!!Can's music. Still, as Patrick repeatedly yells "Hashem reigns over us" over a raucous bridge in "Devil in the Night Sky," my Jew-punk heart is aflutter. You don't have to pigeonhole Can!!Can or their music, but no matter how you slice it, they're landtsmen.

Red, White, & Blue Vegan Shabbat Dinner

2010-07-05T16:16:00.004-04:00

Photos: Lauren Krohn

The last time I hosted a vegan Shabbat dinner for friends, I planned it a couple of weeks in advance. Although I only came up with the idea of hosting this past Friday's dinner four days earlier, there was still an "agenda." First, I wanted to rely chiefly on produce purchased at the Union Square farmers' market earlier in the day. Second, I wanted to use some red, white, and blue foods, as Independence Day was just two days away.

The week before the dinner, I attended a "Cooking With Seasonal Vegetables" class at B'nai Jeshurun, a synagogue in Manhattan. Event organizer Melissa Tapper Goldman explained, "I wanted to help support the members of BJ's new Hazorim CSA [community-supported agriculture program] to transition into CSA living: learning to cook flexibly with the bounty of the season. This is different from supermarket (or even farmers' market) cooking because the variety and quantity are set by the land and the farm rather than by your preferences." Victoria Sutton, who runs the company Catering by Victoria, led about 10 people in making a mixture of roasted and cubed red and golden beets, a dish involving the beet greens (the edible leafy greens that are on the end opposite the beet bottoms), and quinoa.

On Friday, I found that the greens from the two different types of beets were surprisingly different from each other in texture and color. I made a stir-fry that included both varieties of beet greens, seitan, green pepper, onions, and garlic. It was probably the centerpiece of the meal, and the leftovers have long since been devoured.

I had never cooked beets before, but the roasted beets came out great. I actually only thought of my red, white, and blue plan after I'd done my shopping, so I thought it'd be nice to present the beets over a bed of thinly sliced, baked "chips" made from blue potatoes. It turned out that the juice from the red beets interfered with the color scheme I had in mind, but the cubed beets and the chips still turned out well individually.

I thought the raspberries and blackberries would complement the red and white beets for the red, white, and blue collage pictured above. Of course, had I thought of the color scheme prior to shopping, I would've purchased blueberries instead of blackberries!

I also served dal (using lentils, onions, and garlic I still had left over from my friend's Veggie Conquest 4 adventure), charoset (made legendary by my Veggie Conquest 3 adventure), carrot salad with scallion microgreens and parsley, and wild rice. I decided to use store-bought pita instead of homemade challah, as the latter just didn't come out too great in my last few baking attempts.

I managed to make a scrumptious vegan Shabbat dinner that relied heavily on fresh produce from the farmers' market, getting more mileage out of beets than I would've thought possible. It goes to show that vegan meals don't need soy foods to get by. Why have "Killer Tofu" when The Beets rock so much?

Eggs in Knesset Eateries and The Free-Range Myth

2010-07-05T13:48:00.003-04:00

Last week, YNet reported that Israel's Knesset is considering using free-range eggs in its on-site eateries. YNet noted:

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin is considering banning the use of factory-farmed eggs at the parliament's eateries and instructing them to use free-range and organic eggs instead ....

The Knesset speaker told Anonymous [an Israeli animal rights group] that he has instructed Dan Landau, the Knesset's director-general, to check whether the change to free-range eggs can be made during the signing of the next contract with the owner of the parliament's eateries.

While Rivlin seems well-intentioned, it's debatable whether free-range eggs are substantially less cruelly produced than conventional eggs from hens in battery cages. In the U.S., labels like "free-range" are poorly defined, and well-intentioned consumers aren't necessarily buying what they think they are. If a huge shed houses thousands of birds in tight quarters and has a tiny door that allows a small fraction of the birds access to an outdoor fenced-in area, an American egg producer can label eggs from those birds as "free-range." This might be better than the horror of battery cages, but I avoid eating all eggs because a seemingly better alternative isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I didn't want to assume that the situation was identical in Israel, so Tel Aviv–based Pete Cohon (the founder of VeggieJews) referred me to more information. I don't know with certainty how reliable information from the Israeli animal rights group Shevi is, but it's the best source that I'm currently aware of.

Shevi notes that in Israel, regardless of whether eggs come from "free-range" birds or birds in battery cages, the birds are still subject to appalling abuses. Hens have their sensitive beaks seared off with hot blades (i.e., debeaking), and male chicks, who cannot lay eggs, are typically killed right after birth. Hens are slaughtered when their egg production declines to the point where it's no longer profitable and are generally slaughtered in the same conditions as birds in the conventional egg industry. Shevi adds:

The hens are genetically bred to lay as many as 300 eggs per year instead of the 12-20 that they would naturally lay. In addition, the eggs they are bred to lay are larger than the tube that the eggs go through in their bodies, so each laying is accompanied by pain and pressure being applied to their inner-organs around the tube to the extent that sometimes some of their inner organs fall out of their body.

Shevi concludes, "The attempt to compare between the types of ways to produce eggs and to conclude to buy free-range eggs because the 'regular' techniques are too cruel is a failed attempt, because the decision of whether or not to buy free-range eggs is a decision in and of itself. ... [W]e can be vegan and not have to choose between the lesser of the evils and which hens suffer more."

Chief Rabbinate to Revoke Hechsher of Meat From Shackled-and-Hoisted Animals Because of Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim

2010-07-05T10:49:00.004-04:00

A couple of months ago, I noted that the office of Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger in Israel had released an encouraging statement that seemed to mark the end of Israel's imports of meat from animals killed by shackling and hoisting in South America. (The cruel slaughter method is no longer used in Israel or the U.S.) I was, however, skeptical because a similar forward-looking statement in 2008 was never enforced. This time around, it looks like the Chief Rabbinate's plan will be enacted.

On June 18, Haaretz reported that "by 2011 the Chief Rabbinate will no longer certify [as kosher] meat from slaughterhouses that use shackle-and-hoist - a controversial method employed in almost all South American kosher slaughterhouses, which provide 80 percent of all the meat imported into Israel." This is a major step forward, both because it means action will be taken within the next half-year and because business considerations (e.g., the fact that an overwhelming majority of Israel's imported meat comes from the slaughterhouses in question) will not be allowed to determine what's right.

This decision has far-reaching implications. Avi Blumenthal, assistant to Rabbi Metzger, said, "The chief rabbi believes this method is primitive and causes unnecessary pain and anguish to the animals. If the meat factories switch to more humane, kosher methods, we will certify their meat." The Chief Rabbinate doesn't have the authority to stop imports of the meat into Israel. Rather, it is specifically saying that it will not certify the meat as kosher because of the way animals are treated.

All too often in recent years, kosher certification authorities have contended that tza'ar ba'alei chayim (unnecessary animal suffering) is a distinct issue from kashrut and does not invalidate the kosher status of meat. In this situation, a hechsher is actually being revoked because of tza'ar ba'alei chayim (or perhaps the negative publicity it has caused), which means that it is not an independent consideration.

In the past, the kosher certification establishment has claimed that a statement like "Cruelty to animals means that meat from those animals is not kosher" is false. I have no rabbinic authority, but a logical extension of this new decision seems to make that statement true.

Haaretz quoted Rabbi Michael Melchior, the Danish-born former chief Orthodox rabbi of Norway, as saying that "lessening an animal's suffering is a religious requirement from the Torah - just like the kosher requirement itself."

Sholom Rubashkin Gets 27-Year Jail Sentence

2010-06-21T23:23:00.004-04:00

Today it was announced that tomorrow, former AgriProcessors executive Sholom Rubashkin will be sentenced to 27 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $30 million in restitution. In November, Rubashkin was found guilty on 86 of 91 federal charges related to financial fraud. Although an appeal is likely and the trial of at least one more AgriProcessors defendant has yet to start, I'd like to think of this sentencing as at least a temporary end to a long-running scandal that has divided the Jewish community.

Formerly the world's largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse, AgriProcessors had previously been notorious for cruelty to animals, environmental devastation, and labor woes. But in May 2008, the company's absolute demise began when its primary slaughterhouse in Iowa was raided by more than a dozen government agencies. AgriProcessors later stopped production to a large extent, declared bankruptcy, and got bought by another company. Rubashkin faced 72 immigration-related charges in a separate trial that was supposed to follow the one that ended in November, but federal prosecutors dropped those charges, apparently because they were satisfied with the verdict in the first trial and didn't think there was much to gain from expending vast resources on a second. Rubashkin was also one of several defendants from AgriProcessors originally charged with 9,311 violations of Iowa child labor laws; many of those charges were later dropped or consolidated, and earlier this month, Rubashkin was found not guilty on all 67 state charges that he ultimately faced. That verdict does not exactly clear the company of any wrongdoing, though. As Failed Messiah reflected, "Rubashkin's defense team pointed their collective finger at Heshy Rubashkin, who like his brother Sholom was an Agriprocessors VP. Does it make you feel any better about Agriprocessors labor practices if the documented abuses are Heshy's fault rather than Sholom's?"

This saga has caused pain for so many. It has caused great hardship for the Rubashkin family, and by many accounts, Rubashkin was a great contributor to the Jewish community in his personal life. Animals were treated inhumanely in a manner that had already been uncovered and supposedly stopped. The community of Postville, Iowa, was economically devastated, and many former AgriProcessors employees and their families suffered tremendously. When the second federal trial was nixed, it meant that "workers, who for over a year have been prevented by the government from returning home, will not have the long-awaited opportunity to tell their story and seek justice through the trial on immigration charges of Sholom Rubashkin," as a letter from Iowa clergy put it. Their struggle was prolonged for naught.

The whole ordeal has galvanized numerous factions within the Jewish community. The publicity generated by the scandal helped pave the way for Magen Tzedek and Uri L'Tzedek to develop seals for ethical treatment of workers. Many Orthodox supporters of Rubashkin seemingly refused to consider the facts of the cases and insisted that prosecutors and critics were acting out of anti-Semitism and unfairly targeting Rubashkin and AgriProcessors. As just one example, at least 15,000 people reportedly "attended" a rally for Rubashkin either online or in person earlier this month. When the jury found Rubashkin not guilty in the state trial, some in the Orthodox community were outraged that Jewish groups had doubted Rubashkin's supposed innocence and demanded an apology, as though Rubashkin had been totally vindicated and there were no other parts of the story.

As I noted as part of my High Holidays reflection before Rubashkin's trials began, I struggled with this ordeal as a Jew. I loathed AgriProcessors for the alleged crimes that had been committed, but I also realized that hoping for a man's downfall and suffering was not a righteous position to take. In a heebnvegan post on September 19, I concluded, "I hope that Rubashkin receives justice, both from the U.S. court system and, ultimately, from Hashem—nothing more and nothing less."

Now that "the results are in," I leave the last word to Magen Tzedek, which issued the following statement in November:

The news out of Sioux Falls, SD, yesterday, that Sholom Rubashkin was convicted on 86 out of 91 counts ... delivers both justice and a heavy heart to those of us who champion the cause of ethical kashrut. . . .

There is neither joy nor a sense of schadenfreude in yesterday’s conviction. Those of us who toil in the field of tikkun olam are downright demoralized by this highly preventable outcome. This story could have ended very differently.

Failed Messiah was a secondary source for much of the information in this post and was a leading secondary source of information for anyone looking to keep a close watch on this developing story over the last few years.

Benefit Show for Punk Jews

2010-06-20T22:10:00.000-04:00

Pesach Simcha plays drums for Torah hardcore band Moshiach Oi!
All photos courtesy of Jesse Zook Mann

Last night, the upcoming Punk Jews online documentary series hosted a concert and fundraising party at Sixth Street Community Synagogue in New York. There was a mixture of mostly Jews with different levels of adherence to punk ethos, punk punctuality (i.e., a very delayed start), an open bar, and raucous slamdancing. In other words, it was a successful event that brought the community of independent-minded Jews documented in different film clips together and introduced them to their likeminded peers in the flesh.

For me, the highlight was seeing two of my favorite Jewish bands, Golem and Moshiach Oi!, together for the first time. Golem, which plays klezmer-rock with a punk intensity, performed songs from their three most recent albums. Fiddle solos sounded somewhat off with someone filling in for longtime band member Alicia Jo Rabins, but Golem's highly danceable sound was the turning point that got the party rocking and got the audience enthused. Toward the end of Golem's set, multiple horas broke out in the middle of the pit. I have to admit that I enjoyed causing a bit of chaos when I tried to get a bunch of casually hora-dancing punks who'd been circling to the right to circle to the left instead. Somehow it all worked out.

I've seen Moshiach Oi! four or five times, and the Punk Jews show will go down in history as the night they really came into their own. Frontman Yishai Romanoff sacrificed the intensity of a second guitar so that he could reign over the microphone and immerse himself in the pit. As he preached to the audience (which he repeatedly referred to as "Jewish people") and thrashed about, he was at one with the crowd and developed a strong rapport. It didn't hurt that the "Torah hardcore" band was playing to its largest audience to date and that the fans at a Punk Jews show were quite open to hardcore music with commentary on blessing G-d, Shabbat, Torah study, idol worship, Moshiach, and Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. If people came to a Punk Jews show craving Jewish punk music, Moshiach Oi! made sure that everyone got what they wanted.

The event also included performances by Eden, Y-Love, and Blanket Statementstein (an eight-piece band that featured all four members of Moshiach Oi!) as well as artist installations from Elke Sudin, Rivka Karasik, and Ira Kaufman. Punk Jews is the brainchild of Emmy-winning director (and vegan) Jesse Zook Mann and co-producers Evan Kleinman and Saul Sudin. The documentary series recently hit its goal of raising $10,000, so last night was truly a celebration and profits from the event were icing on the cake. Punk Jews is featured on the front page of the current issue of The Jewish Week.

Yishai Romanoff of Moshiach Oi!

Aaron Diskin of Golem

Two circles of hora dancers in the middle of the pit toward the end of Golem's set

Jesse Zook Mann and Evan Kleinman

Do Fish Feel Pain?

2010-06-10T21:02:00.004-04:00

For those of us who base our total or partial vegetarianism on the ethical principle of not inflicting suffering on animals who are capable of suffering, one question deserves to be asked but is frequently relegated to the realm of "ignorance is bliss": Do fish feel pain?

In April, Oxford University Press published Do Fish Feel Pain? by animal welfare scientist Victoria Braithwaite. Many people think the answer to that question is obvious, but depending on whom you ask, that "obvious" answer varies considerably. For once, we have a credible book that attempts to answer that question with science.

Braithwaite explains why it's only been in the last decade that scientists have made headway in answering the fish pain question. She distinguishes between nociception, which is the unconscious detection of adverse stimuli by the body, and pain, which is processed by the brain and felt as suffering at an emotional level. Braithwaite discusses fish consciousness, sentience, and brain anatomy, and while she is hesitant to declare a definitive answer, she concludes, "I believe the weight of evidence now shows fish do feel pain."

Braithwaite invites bioethicists to have this revelation inform their discussions, but she does not go so far as to call for an end to fish consumption, angling, or other uses of fish. Quite logically, though, she does put the matter into perspective:

The issues and the evidence are not always black and white, which makes pain in animals a difficult topic with tricky ethical and philosophical implications. However, if we already accept that mammals and birds are sentient creatures that have the capacity to experience positive and negative emotions--pleasure or suffering, we should conclude that there is now sufficient evidence to put fish alongside birds and mammals. Given all of this, I see no logical reason why we should not extend to fish the same welfare considerations that we currently extend to birds and mammals.

One of the highlights of the book is the compelling descriptions Braithwaite offers with regard to commercial fishing. In general I've found it hard to feel sympathy for fish, since they appear to be so different than other vertebrate animals. But if you truly accept the notion that fish are sentient creatures who feel pain, then it's hard not to be appalled by some commercial fishing practices that Braithwaite describes:

"Long-lining fishing catches species such as tuna, swordfish, and mahi mahi. Long-lining crews set up several hundred lengths of line that can be tens of metres long. The lines, rigged with floats and hundreds of baited hooks, are left for several hours at a specific depth in the water to attract hungry fish species. Once hooked, depending on the number of lines set, the fish may have up to 10 hours to wait before they are collected in. Many fish are exhausted from trying to escape, but they are still alive as they are hauled onto the deck of the fishing vessel and then left to suffocate in the air."
"As the trawl net [a massive net that captures all target fish and other marine animals in its path] moves up through the water column the rapid changes in pressure cause problems for the fish. ... Without time to adjust to the decreasing pressure [of being dragged toward the surface while stuck in the trawl net], the gas-filled swim bladder typically becomes overinflated, causing huge distention inside the fish. Sometimes the pressure is so great their stomach and intestines are pushed out of their mouth and anus. Eyes can also become distorted and bulge out."

Frankly, that kind of suffering seems worse than just about any other in industrialized animal agriculture. If people eat fish and otherwise follow a vegetarian diet for ethical reasons, they might wish to consider the evidence in Do Fish Feel Pain? and take their admirable ethical position to its logical conclusion. If people eat "wild-caught" fish and think that they're sparing fish and the environment from any perils, they might want to take a closer look at the situation. I concede that my decision not to eat fish has at times been based more on routine, consistency, and idealism than on certainty in my convictions, but now it's hard to imagine ever eating fish again.

Etc.

2010-05-30T23:59:00.001-04:00

New Zealand Bans Shechita
Ha'aretz reported today that New Zealand has become the fourth country in the world to ban shechita. The Israeli paper noted, "Under the newly instated Animal Welfare Commercial Slaughter Code, announced by Agriculture Minister David Carter, commercially killed animals would have to be stunned before slaughter, making kosher slaughter, or shechita, illegal, according to the Jewish Australian News service. According to the report, while the new regulations are to take immediate effect, kosher beef will be able to be imported into New Zealand." Kosher poultry will only be allowed to be imported into New Zealand if it has already been processed.

The European Union considered a ban on shechita last year.

Meat Prices Expected to Rise in Israel
Earlier this month, YNet reported that Israeli retailers predicted that the price of meat would increase substantially. Because Argentina was experiencing a shortage of meat among Argentinian consumers, it stopped exporting meat. Israel imports large quantities of kosher meat from Argentina, which led to a shortage of meat in Israel. YNet noted, "The retailers estimate that the prices will eventually rise by 15-20% in supermarkets and restaurants. The prices of meat in Israel are relatively high as it is."

Update on Lawsuit Against Hudson Valley Foie Gras
In December, I recommended an article that discussed The Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) lawsuit against Hudson Valley Foie Gras (HVFG). (Click here to read my 2005 post about HVFG's Jewish connections.) Earlier this month, a federal court in New York ruled in favor of HSUS "in its federal lawsuit charging the nation's largest foie gras factory farm with numerous violations of the federal Clean Water Act," a HSUS press release said. The press release added:

"This facility has flouted federal pollution laws for years, and we are delighted to see justice done for the environment, animals and local residents who have all suffered at the hands of this factory farm," said Jonathan R. Lovvorn, vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation at The HSUS.

In its ruling, the court issued an injunction against further Clean Water Act violations by HVFG, ordered HVFG to hire an expert and take remedial action, provided that HVFG will be fined $25,000 per day per violation for further violations, and ordered HVFG to pay $50,000 for an environmental project in lieu of paying civil penalties. ...

[HVFG's foie gras production] not only results in extreme suffering for the birds, it also produces a significant amount of waste, including manure and slaughter waste. The case alleges that some of this waste has been discharged into the Middle Mongaup River.

Two Notable Punk Bands on Jewcy
There are two punk bands I've been meaning to write about recently, but I'm going to link to Jewcy's posts about them instead. I wanted to see Montonix, a punk band from Tel Aviv, when they played with Old Time Relijun in Brooklyn last month, but I couldn't make it. Jewcy noted a couple weeks ago that reports that Monotnix's singer had broken his leg "were greatly exaggerated."

Jewcy also introduced me to an Orthodox pop-punk band called The Groggers, whose songs include "Get" (about why it's time to get a get and get divorced) and "Mitzvah Night" (a song about a certain mitzvah that is performed on Shabbat). Says the band's MySpace page, "This music may not be suitable for mentches under bar-mitzvah. The concept is Jewish music with an edge. Plain and simple it's what would happen if more Jewish artists let loose and said what they were really thinking."

"Go Vegan!" Art Exhibit
Jonathan Horowitz's 2002 art exhibit "Go Vegan!" is making an appearance at a recently vacated meat locker in Manhattan until June 19. A press release noted:

With its signature combination of subjectivity, pathos and humor, Jonathan Horowitz’s “Go Vegan!” explores vegetarianism and sustainability while also hinting at parallel issues that emerge in a world gorging daily upon celebrity and commoditized pop culture. ...

When one examines the troubling contradictions – astonishing cruelty, environmental and health risks, economic imbalances - involved with the business behind and mass consumption of meat, vegetarianism takes on the urgency of much larger debates in which the survival of the human race is at stake.

Cuteness and Prom King Candidacy in the Same Veggie Weekend

2010-05-25T19:50:00.007-04:00

Last weekend marked the third annual Veggie Pride Parade in New York City, and the first-ever Veggie Prom and Vegan (Prom Hangover) Potluck Picnic were coordinated to coincide with the event. All in the same weekend, I secured my spot in a contest for cuteness and vied for the title of "Prom King."

On May 16, as I wrote on The Jew & The Carrot the following day, "I embodied the dual identity of the Jew and the carrot once again to lead the third annual Veggie Pride Parade through the streets of Manhattan. Trailing a police escort and walking in front of hundreds of enthusiastic herbivores, I frequently shouted 'Eat Your Veggies, Not Your Friends!' while dressed as Chris P. Carrot."

Today, The PETA Files announced a contest for the cutest photo. Click here to vote for the picture of me as Chris P. Carrot alongside my "wife," Penelo Pea Pod. As I just posted on The Jew & The Carrot, "A post on PETA’s blog announced, 'Calling all connoisseurs of cuteness: We need your help deciding which of the following pics from recent PETA demonstrations is the most aww-inspiring.' (Note: Although PETA owns the costume that I borrowed, the event was not a PETA demonstration.) The other photos feature a little kid protesting against the cruelty of the dairy industry and someone in an elephant costume educating people about the abuse of elephants in circuses."

Earlier that weekend, I attended a fun prom-themed dance party called Veggie Prom. The event was organized by the folks who run Veggie Conquest and DJed by DJ Lil Ray. At least half of the "Prom Court" (candidates for "Prom King" and "Prom Queen") consisted of vegan Jews. I don't know how I got nominated, but it was fun to participate. The title of Prom King was given to fellow herbivorous heeb David Benzaquen (left), who works for Farm Sanctuary.

The Four Questions: Allen Teboul of Clockwork Allen

2010-05-14T00:01:00.001-04:00

Allen Teboul has toured and recorded albums as the drummer for The Slackers, a legendary ska/rocksteady/reggae band, and he's currently making his third attempt at being a ba'al teshuva. Combine Teboul's musicianship with his interest in Judaism, and you get his solo project: Clockwork Allen, a San Diego punk/reggae band for which Teboul is the singer, drummer, and songwriter. Check out Clockwork Allen's MySpace page to listen to some of the band's songs.

Here is Allen Teboul in his own words.

1. How does Judaism impact the lyrical content of some of Clockwork Allen's current or upcoming music?
Clockwork Allen depicts the personal struggle of a Jew who went from yeshiva life in Brooklyn to becoming a drummer in the punk rock and reggae scenes in California. This concoction is my attempt at making sense out of mending together my religious and secular identity. I started this project using music and lyrics I had written over the years. All of my songs in one way or another correlate to my Jewish identity and provide the view of a Jew from the "other side of the tracks." I began the project after spending a couple of years playing drums for The Slackers (Hell-Cat Records), a ska, rocksteady, and reggae band from New York.

The Torah, which Hashem personally gave us, is a tree of life and essential blueprint on how to live. I continually try my hardest to consider how my outlook and actions line up with it. Judaism is the counterbalance that keeps everything in check and a catalyst for the neshama (soul). Studying the various texts, mainly Chassidut, unlocks the hidden messages contained within the Torah. Being a self-proclaimed radical, I would have to say that the words and warnings of the prophets (in the Tanach) have a direct impact on the lyrics I write. We play punk rock, and we tell it like it is, so it is not recommended for the weak-hearted and may not jive with mainstream Jewish thinking. Clockwork Allen pushes the envelope because it needs to be pushed during turbulent times. It’s the storm before the calm as we wait in anticipation of the arrival of Moshiach.

2. What role does your Jewish identity play in shaping the band's outlook, and is that consistent with the spirit of punk?
Jewish identity plays a key role for obtaining clarity through the ways of the Torah. The current band outlook is about the struggle with being ba’al teshuva (coming back to being observant) and the challenge of being cast off and singled out by some of your own people. It’s not easy being an observant Jew with tattoos and a turbulent past. For starters, the element of being rejected by the mainstream is consistent with punk rock. It speaks out against religious people who preach ahavat Yisroel (loving your fellow Jew) but tend to be all talk and no action. It also speaks out against lashon hara (gossip) and how it harms the nation of Israel as a whole. I attend shul at Chabad, and I get mixed reactions from members of the community, but it’s OK. I don’t go to shul to gain their acceptance.

My music has always talked about government and authoritarian oppression, anti-Semitism, real-life experiences, and rising from the ashes. Living the life of a Jew goes completely against the grain of today’s Christian-based global society. It is a rebellion in its own sense as we try once again to be a light to all other nations by coming together as b’nai Yisroel. Thus, I would say it definitely encompasses Judaism in many ways.

Some examples of what I am currently recording: a punk rock version of the "Shema Yisroel" and "Vi’Ahavta," a dancehall song entitled "Eshet Chayil," and another punk song entitled "Loshan Hora." I have a few other tricks up my sleeve too. More recently, I have been experimenting with niggunim to see which ones would make good punk rock songs. That’s going to be fun.

3. When you play drums for Jewish holiday functions, do you feel like you have to be in a different mindset compared to when you've played with punk, rock, ska, rocksteady, and reggae bands?
I think the act of playing music is a state of mind on its own. It’s all about feeling the music you are playing and finding the groove no matter what style or what the setting is. I stay true to myself by not putting on an "act" when playing music at Jewish functions. I am an open book, and I have nothing to hide. I’ve always been known to march to the beat of my own drum. No matter where I am, I think of Hashem. Even when I’m thrashing about in a pit.

4. Jewish punk bands are very scattered geographically. Do you envision the growth of a Jewish punk "scene" or movement?
I would have to say that I do not envision the growth of a Jewish punk scene. It took about 30 years for punk rock to be recognized and accepted by the mainstream, so I don’t see any rhyme or reason for the emergence of a punk movement that is specifically Jewish. Jews have been involved in the punk scene from its inception in the mid/late 1970s. I could totally see more Jewish punk bands sprouting up in the future as the social impact of Generation X on Judaism grows.

Jewish and Christian Blessing of the Animals Articles

2010-05-13T11:30:00.002-04:00

I've noted previously that in October, I attended two Christian blessing of the animals ceremonies and wrote an article about them that was under consideration for publication. The article has now been published by The Revealer. It discusses one woman's confusion as to why she takes her dogs to get blessed, one man's hope that G-d would help a dog who is suffering from kidney failure, and that dog's relentless barking at a police horse.

On Saturday I attended a Jewish blessing of the animals at Temple Emanu-El of West Essex in Livingston, N.J., and an article about this event and the larger trend has also been published by The Revealer. Here's an excerpt:

“We celebrate the wonderful variety of animals in our lives,” said Rabbi Mark Kaiserman during the service, interspersing standard havdalah prayers with thanksgiving for animals. “The wonderful dogs and all their joy and energy, the amazing cats who rule us and are our masters, our gerbils and hamsters and bunny rabbits and fish, the birds that flap in the cages wishing they were free but loving to be with us, and from the ant farms and the earthworms to all of the animals that make our lives joyous, we celebrate them. … We celebrate each of them and all the joy they bring to us and thank G-d for the blessing that they provide our lives.”

In December, I noted that at least 21 synagogues or other Jewish organizations had held blessing of the animals ceremonies. The tally is now up to 23. In a phone interview last month, Rabbi Micah Caplan told me that both Bet Shira Congregation in Miami, Fla., (his current shul) and Congregation Shaarei Torah in Arcadia, Calif., (his former shul) had hosted blessing of the animals events.

The following is an index of my writing about Jewish and Christian blessing of the animals ceremonies:

The Barking Blessed (The Revealer, May 2010)
Dogs Go to Church (The Revealer, May 2010)
Blessing of the Animals: A Personal History (heebnvegan, February 2010)
Jews Adopt Blessing of the Animals Ceremonies and Make Them Their Own (heebnvegan, December 2009)
On How Large a Scale Are These Ceremonies Taking Place? (heebnvegan, December 2009)
Interview With a Vegetarian Who Attended a Jewish Blessing of the Animals Ceremony (heebnvegan, December 2009)
heebnvegan Goes to Church! (heebnvegan, October 2006)

Tips for Vegetarians and Vegans on Birthright Trips

2010-05-12T16:10:00.004-04:00

Birthright trips are a wonderful opportunity for 18- to 26-year-olds to travel to Israel for free. I sometimes receive e-mails from vegetarians and vegans who are going on Birthright trips and came across my old posts on heebnvegan via a Google search. Here is a compilation of the tips I give them.

Food Advice

First and foremost, you should communicate with your trip organizers in advance to let them know about your dietary restrictions or food allergies. You should also let your trip's staff know when you meet them on the first day.
More often than not, you won't have any trouble as a vegetarian or vegan. Still, I recommend taking some protein bars (sealed and unwrapped) with you just to be safe; double-check the rules for bringing food into a foreign country before heeding my advice. Meals on my trip varied greatly: Sometimes we had lavish buffets at fancy hotels, and sometimes we had a half-hour to grab falafel (or shwarma, for the meat-eaters) while walking through a village. But in addition to finding the best falafel and hummus you've ever had, you'll find a lot of fresh veggies and creative salads at many of the meals. I also wound up having a lot of figs and other fresh fruit, nuts, potatoes, and couscous. All in all, it was likely a healthier diet than the mock-meat-centered diet I was eating in the U.S. at the time.
Almost everyone speaks English, but it's conceivable that there'd be some places you go to where you'd have to special-order and the people wouldn't speak great English. Ask the trip staff for assistance in these situations.
Most of the accouterments for falafel in a pita (or a laffa, which is another bread option), including tehini sauce (sesame-based), are vegan. Tzadiki sauce has dairy, and you should ask for your falafel without tzadiki. This is an easy accommodation.
Vegetarian schnitzel (cutlet) is a popular alternative to chicken schnitzel. Think of it as though you were getting a veggie burger in a restaurant in the US. It might have some egg or dairy ingredients you don't know about, but whether you eat it anyway depends on how strict a vegan you are.
Shakshouka is a popular vegetarian dish, but it has a whole egg in it and isn't vegan.
The presence of meat might mean that some dishes are vegan! I realize that this is counter-intuitive for those who aren't familiar with kashrut (the noun form of "kosher"). If you go to an all-kosher restaurant or are looking at packaged foods marked kosher, there are three categories: dairy, meat, and pareve. Meat and dairy cannot be mixed together (in individual dishes or even in the same meal) in kosher facilities, so if you know that a restaurant is certified kosher and that meat is present, the mashed potatoes are definitely dairy-free. ("Pareve" means no dairy or meat with regard to kashrut, but pareve foods might include eggs or fish, so "pareve" does not necessarily mean vegan.)

Miscellaneous Advice

Some trips include camel rides. If you have an ethical objection to supporting a touristy business that likely overworks camels even in extreme heat, tell your trip staff up-front that you plan to avoid this activity.
You're allowed to bring two bags (not including a carry-on bag) with you. Find a way to bring only one. You don't want to be schlepping two around with you the whole time.
On my trip, we arrived in Israel in the early morning (Israeli time) and had a full day of activity, and then a lot of us wanted to stay up at night for social reasons. I got one hour of sleep on the plane because I was excited, which meant that I was quite exhausted on Day 1 (and that exhaustion stayed with me for the rest of the trip). One woman sitting near me on the plane took an over-the-counter sleeping pill and slept through the entire flight, and she was raring to go. I normally avoid pills whenever possible, but I think she had the right idea. Use the flight to Israel to sleep, because the rest of the 10-day trip is push push push and you'll regret not sleeping on the plane.

Jewish Community High School Named the Most Vegetarian-Friendly

2010-05-04T00:01:00.002-04:00

San Francisco's Jewish Community High School was named the winner of peta2's Most Vegetarian-Friendly Cafeteria contest on Monday.

A peta2 press release noted, "The Jewish Community High School is stepping up to meet the food demands of students who are concerned about protecting animals, the environment, and their health--the school's menu is entirely vegetarian, kosher, and organic. Some popular food options that are available in the Jewish Community High School cafeteria include vegetarian sushi, a falafel bar, potato leek soup, and a make-your-own burrito bar."

peta2 director Dan Shannon, who co-hosts an annual "secular Passover potluck seder," said in the press release, "Jewish Community High School stands as a role model for schools across the country when it comes to educating students about how their food choices affect not only their own health but also the world around them."

The school won the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's Golden Carrot Award last year. At the time, the school's director of food service, Stuart Jacobs, told j., "One of our main goals is to model and provide for healthful eating, utilizing organic produce. The program is vegetarian, and also shows it can be done in the kosher realm as well."

Etc.

2010-05-03T20:07:00.004-04:00

Update on Shackling and Hoisting
On April 14, I blogged about PETA's latest investigation of a kosher slaughterhouse that practices shackling and hoisting. On Thursday, YNet reported that the office of Israeli Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger responded to the investigation by saying, "The Rabbinate recently convened all the meat importers in Israel and notified them that they will no longer be allowed to import meat slaughtered using this method, and that the plants must switch to the boxing method, which minimizes animal suffering. Currently, following a period of adjustment in which the slaughterhouses made arrangements to carry out the new orders, the Rabbinate is prepared to enforce the new directive."

As I just wrote in a post about this matter on The Jew & The Carrot, "This new statement seems encouraging, but then again, so did the one in 2008."

Veggie Conquest Follow-Up
Last week, I wrote about Veggie Conquest 4, in which my friend Sherri competed. Both Sherri and I are featured in Our Hen House's 19-minute video about the event. I told Our Hen House, "I'm here at Veggie Conquest 4, and I made Swedish-Style Charoset at Veggie Conquest 3. I really wanted to attend last time, but it was all sold out and the only way to get in was to be a chef. So I looked for inspiration to my favorite chef, Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show; dressed up as him; and made a Passover dish Swedish (really not doing anything different to it) and had by far the worst dish there. But I got in for free and got to eat some amazing food, so it was all worth it."

Vegan Dance If You Want To featured a firsthand account from one of the other contestants. Veggie Conquest's blog featured a wrap-up post as well as recipes for the winning dish and the runner-up.

Matthue Roth's 1/20
In January, heebnvegan featured an interview with Matthue Roth. He discussed the film 1/20, for which he wrote the screenplay.

Last week, Roth opened up about the movie on his blog. He said, "It's not Jewish -- well, not flagrantly. None of the main characters are -- all the characters are collaborations between me and the director and the actors, and I think we all squeezed a lot of our spirituality/religion/punkitude into them. Ayako, who plays the lead character, is the kind of brilliant that shatters glass from miles away when she's angry, and spreads love pheromones to people two counties away. ... It's pretty flagrantly punk, though. You'll see as soon as I'm allowed to show the movie poster -- Ayako's hair is an art piece. An art piece that's 18 inches tall."

Sarah Silverman Discusses Vegetarianism, Judaism in New Memoir

2010-04-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

Sarah Silverman's memoir, The Bedwetter, was published last week. Frankly, Silverman's comedy makes me feel uncomfortable. I try to see through to the bigger picture of shining light on bigotry, as she explains in The Bedwetter with regard to her controversy with the Media Action Network for Asian Americans. Still, I think Silverman crosses the line. At least when it comes to edgy Jewish jokes, her seemingly honest admission (in a chapter titled "Jew") hits the nail on the head:

To be perfectly honest, I would like to go about my life exploiting the subject of Jewishness for comedy, and not be saddled with the responsibility to actually represent, defend, or advance the cause of the Jewish people.

I blogged about Silverman's public statements about vegetarianism in October and March, but a passage in The Bedwetter seems to be her most comprehensive discussion of the topic so far. She starts off by telling the story of why she went vegetarian:

We lived on a farm, but it wasn't operational like our neighbors' farms, which produced stuff; we bought our meat and vegetables from them. When I was six years old, my dad took me there to see the turkeys. The farmer, Vic, told me to look at all the birds carefully and choose one that I liked. I saw a cute one with a silly walk and said, "Him!!" Before my pointing finger dropped back down to my side, Vic had grabbed the bird by the neck and slit his throat. Blood sprayed as the turkey's wings flapped back and forth in a futile attempt to unkill itself. Without realizing it, I had sentenced that turkey to death, and while maybe this sort of thing gave fat British monarchs a rush, to me it was horrifying. And though I'm probably projecting, I don't think it was in the turkey's top-five favorite moments, either.

I should mention that this was late November, so what I had witnessed was not random cruelty, but a long-standing American tradition. This wasn't just a random turkey killing, it was a thankful turkey killing. Until that day I didn't even know where meat came from, so if that trip to the farm was Dad's deliberate attempt to teach me about the food chain, I wish he'd used a tad more finesse. ...

In hindsight, I'm sure my dad feels bad about our little excursion, but I see it as a gift. My father might not have realized or intended it, but that day he gave me the knowledge to make an informed decision for myself at a very early age: I would never eat turkey again. And once I figured out the connection between Happy Meals and cows, I would never eat beef again, either. Or any other meat.

Silverman then recounts a story from her high school years, when a bully named Adam "discovered that I was a vegetarian." She explains Adam's rationale for one bullying incident by saying that "he just found out the Jew doesn't eat Big Macs." She explains:

While Adam stood by, clutching a heaping stack of cold cuts from the cafeteria, Gade and J.R. held me down on the cafeteria table ... and J.R. clamped my nose shut with his free hand. Then they waited patiently, giggling, for my body's breathing instinct to force my mouth open. At which point, Adam, not missing a beat, stuffed the cold cuts inside. I gagged at the taste and smell, simultaneously gasping for air through the blockade of highly processed dead-animal flesh. By now it had been seven full years since I'd last tasted meat. To call this event unpleasant would be something of an understatement. . . .

What had he hoped to accomplish? If he wanted to teach a dumb vegetarian a lesson, it failed. I did not, after that encounter, say to myself, Well, message received: Meat is appetizing, and it's time to put this childish vegetarian thing behind me. If anything, my negative attitude toward eating meat deepened.

Six Consecutive Potato Dishes? I Thought Passover Was Over

2010-04-27T11:32:00.001-04:00

After receiving honorable mention in Veggie Conquest 3: The Battle of the Cranberry Desserts, I stepped aside and let my protege compete in Veggie Conquest 4: The Battle of the Potato Appetizers. Chef Sherri Cohen and I have known each other since high school, but this was the first time I'd seen her delirious in a mad rush to get dozens of stuffed potato balls into an oven:

Sherri took a bus from Philadelphia to New York City on Saturday so that she could show off her vegetarian cooking prowess at Veggie Conquest on Sunday evening. She had originally set out to make Papas Rallenas Al Horno, a Cuban-style dish of stuffed potatoes. Her plan evolved over the course of a week, and by the time she decided to give the dish an Indian flavor, it was too late to change the name.

We started our shopping tour at an Indian grocery store in Curry Hill, so that she could purchase such hard-to-find ingredients as ajowain, garam masala, ground fenugreek, gram (chickpea) flour, and masoor dal (red lentils). I lost track of how many trips we made to the supermarket, the "farmers market," and specialty stores in my neighborhood.

On Saturday night, Sherri made a plethora of masoor dal mixed with onions, garlic, and spices; I'll be savoring the leftovers for quite some time. The lentil mixture became the stuff with which the stuffed potato balls were stuffed. Beginning Sunday morning, she made a mixture of potatoes and soft tofu, which formed a shell for the lentil core. Each ball was then dipped into a concoction of gram flour, cornmeal, and olive oil for a coating. The balls were baked, and they were served with a tamarind sauce and cilantro.
All the food at the event was delicious, prompting me to exclaim "I love Veggie Conquest!" on multiple occasions. If my memory serves me correctly, the Tiny Tater Nori Roll, Sweet Potato Cigars With Plum Sauce, and Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup won first, second, and third place, respectively. Sherri's dish, Loaded Baked Potato Pirogi, and Curried Mash Canapes With Tamarind and Cilantro Chutneys each won honorable mention. Check out the beautiful presentation of all the dishes below.

Veggie Conquest has evolved into a can't-miss extravaganza. About 80 people paid $25 each to attend, and the event sold out only 30 minutes after tickets went on sale. A panel of judges reviews and comments on each contestant's dish. The real winners are the "tasters" (attendees), who get to sample the delectable vegan creations of a half-dozen hard-working amateur chefs as well as a full meal prepared by volunteers.

Etc.

2010-04-26T15:56:00.000-04:00

Update on Punk Jews
In September, I blogged about Punk Jews, a documentary in production about unconventional practice of Judaism. Punk Jews will now be an online documentary series instead of a feature-length documentary film. The filmmakers are hoping to raise $10,000 in the next couple of months and are accepting donations through Kickstarter. In return, donors can get CDs, concert tickets, DVDs, or even a Shabbat dinner.

Recent Punk Content on Jewcy
It should come as no surprise that ever since Jason Diamond (formerly of the bands Fear of a Blue Planet and Shabbos Bloody Shabbos) took over as editor of Jewcy, the blog has featured some terrific punk content, Jewish and otherwise.

Check out Jewcy's interview with The Taqwacores author Michael Muhammad Knight, whom I've blogged about a few times myself. Patrick Aleph from CAN!!CAN has a post about PunkTorah's brand-new English-language siddur and tips for writing your own. There's a whole series about "Jewish Punk Rock Baseball"; in the first post, Josh Intrator of the Sleepies is asked about his favorite ballpark food and says, "I would say the classic ballpark hot dog but since becoming a vegetarian I'll have to go with the garlic fries at AT&T Park in San Francisco." There's also a review of the new book Gimme Something Better: A History of San Francisco Bay Area Punk Rock.

The Four Questions: Classic and Infamous?
I started heebnvegan's "The Four Questions" interview series in November. I have featured only six interviews in the series. After being featured in the fifth post, the Gangsta Rabbi blogged that the series was "classic." After reading Matisyahu's interview in the sixth post, Matthue Roth (who was featured in the third post) called the series "infamous." I'm very amused by the reputation that "The Four Questions" is getting, and I don't understand it at all.

A Few Quick Points

Vegetarian Star noted that vegan (and Jewish) actor Alicia Silverstone is working on Butter, a film about a butter-carving competition. As a three-time veteran of peanut-butter sculpting, I think that peanut butter is a suitable vegan alternative to butter when it comes to sculpting and carving.
If you're looking for a vegan cooking show with a heavy metal edge, look no further than Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking.
I counted the omer on a blog in 2007 and considered counting the omer on Twitter last year. Earlier this month, Jewschool featured a post about efforts to count the omer on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. I like to think I was ahead of the curve.
A post on The Jew & The Carrot sought to weigh desires to be vegetarian and the traditional cuisine of Jewish deli meat. The writer concluded, "I have chosen to be vegetarian, but I will always be a card-carrying delitarian. I’ll just have to admire the pastrami from afar."
Failed Messiah posted about a kosher chicken slaughterhouse that narrowly avoided closure after discharging more than four times the limit for waste.

PETA Investigation Uncovers Shackling and Hoisting at Another Kosher Slaughterhouse in Uruguay

2010-04-14T22:23:00.003-04:00

In February 2008, PETA released an undercover video it shot at a Uruguayan kosher slaughterhouse that performed shackling and hoisting, a cruel manner of cattle slaughter that has been phased out in the U.S. kosher meat industry. Israel and the U.S. both import large quantities of kosher meat from Uruguay and other South American countries. In March 2008, I wrote, "The good news is that Israel's Chief Rabbinate will phase out shackling and hoisting. The bad news is that the Rabbinate apparently isn't committing to any sort of time frame for the phase-out."

Nathaniel Popper, who has done excellent reporting on the kosher meat industry for the Forward in recent years, has an article in tomorrow's Los Angeles Times about a new PETA investigation showing that shackling and hoisting has yet to be phased out. The investigation took place in December at Frigorifico Las Piedras in Uruguay; the slaughterhouse is a major supplier of Alle Processing, which became the leading kosher meat supplier in the U.S. in the wake of AgriProcessors' collapse. Popper noted, "Meat from Las Piedras and other South America factories is used to produce most of the processed kosher meat consumed in America, including deli favorites such as salami and pastrami, kosher authorities say."

From the article it seems that various parties are pointing fingers rather than taking responsibility or initiative to phase out shackling and hoisting. Menachem Genack, chief executive of the Orthodox Union's kosher certification unit, said that while the group still favored a phaseout, it didn't want to "disrupt a very fragile industry" and threaten the supply of kosher beef. Ezra Harari Raful, head of meat imports for Israel's Chief Rabbinate, said that the decision to change procedure was up to the slaughterhouse owners in South America. Joe Regenstein, a kosher meat expert and a food science professor at Cornell University, said that the burden to take action belongs to Israeli Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.

Popper quotes animal welfare expert Temple Grandin as saying, "I'm getting fed up with it. It's a really terrible practice and it needs to stop. It's that simple." On PETA's Web site, Grandin is quoted as follows:

I watched the video. This plant is definitely doing the method of shackling the live bovine and then hoisting and dragging [the animal] out of the stun box and holding [the animal] down. This is a cruel, dangerous practice that should be stopped. This cruel method should be replaced with upright restraint.

The new video footage can be viewed on PETA's Web site.

Jewish Animal Rights Advocate Mentioned for Supreme Court Pick

2010-04-13T23:20:00.001-04:00

Legal scholar Cass Sunstein, a Jew and an animal rights advocate, has been mentioned as a potential replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Reports by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, and FOX News, among other media outlets, have floated around his name. To the best of my knowledge, there is no compelling reason to believe that Sunstein is currently on President Barack Obama's "short list" of potential nominees.

In January 2009, when Obama tapped Sunstein to oversee the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs as "regulatory czar," I discussed Sunstein's advocacy of animal rights in legal writing, public speaking, and his co-editing of the book Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions. In May 2009, I noted that Sunstein was mentioned as a potential replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter and that CBS' Andrew Cohen had said, "If the White House picks a white guy then I’m betting that Sunstein’s the man." Justice Sonia Sotomayor was eventually nominated and confirmed for that open position.

Sunstein's nomination for regulatory czar did not go as smoothly as I initially expected. In June 2009, I blogged about how Sunstein had still not been confirmed for the position because of opposition to his animal rights advocacy. It wasn't until September 2009 that the Senate finally confirmed Sunstein. According to The New York Times' The Caucus, the Senate approval followed criticism "on both the right and the left," a cloture vote, and 30 hours of debate.

"If Sunstein was getting this kind of flak when he was a nominee for an obscure regulatory position, imagine the controversy if he was nominated to the nation's highest court," Mother Jones noted in predicting that Obama "probably won't nominate" Sunstein. I'm not an expert on the politics of Supreme Court nominations, but like it or not, Mother Jones' assessment seems pretty logical.

Baruch Dayan HaEmet: Malcolm McLaren

2010-04-09T00:01:00.001-04:00

Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls and the mastermind behind the British punk scene, died Thursday from cancer. He was 64.

In some regards, McLaren was a nice Jewish boy. McLaren might not be a Jewish-sounding name, but he was raised mostly by his mother, his stepfather, and his grandmother, who were all Jewish. He attended a private Jewish school in England for six years and had a bar mitzvah. At least one of his marriages was to a Jew. When he initially sought to put together the Sex Pistols, he offered the job of lead singer to members of the tribe Sylvain Sylvain (guitarist of the New York Dolls) and Richard Hell (bassist of Television).

His obsession with Nazi symbols and regalia deviates from the "nice Jewish boy" image. At his London store, Sex, in the mid-'70s, McLaren sold patches and shirts with swastikas, SS handkerchiefs, and Gestapo buddy rings. "Malcolm was in awe of the symbolism," said a former Sex employee in Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming. "Not just the swastika, but a lot of artifacts from that era. The Nazi Youth badges. They were extremely rare. He had a lot of rings, including gold SS wedding rings, which weren’t for sale because they were originals." (For more information, see my 2008 New Vilna Review article, "Jewish Punks Embrace Nazi Rhetoric and Imagery.")

McLaren carried over this fascination with the Nazi taboo to the Sex Pistols. Bass player Sid Vicious infamously wore shirts with swastikas on them. In the book El Sid, David Dalton wrote that "Malcolm McLaren programmed him" and that Vicious "was fed a steady diet of poisonous ideas by his cynical handlers. Books on Charles Manson, Nazi paraphernalia, murderous hatred toward the establishment." In addition, the Sex Pistols song "Belsen Was a Gas" is an offensive song about the Holocaust and a musical depiction of the Nazi imagery touted by Vicious and McLaren.

McLaren might have invited controversy and offended many, but at the same time, he deserves credit for his controversy-laden success with punk music and fashion. As Paul Taylor wrote in Impresario: Malcolm McLaren & The British New Wave, "Malcolm McLaren didn’t invent punk. All he did was envisage it, design it, clothe it, publicize it and sell it."

In an obituary, BBC News quoted Savage as saying, "Without Malcolm McLaren there would not have been any British punk. ... He could be very charming, he could be very cruel, but he mattered and he put something together that was extraordinary."

The Four Questions: Matisyahu

2010-04-08T15:00:00.003-04:00

Last week, Matisyahu tweeted that he had gone vegan. I'd heard rumors that he was vegetarian, but once and for all, I needed to get to the bottom of the story. I am very pleased to post an interview with the one and only Matisyahu so that he can explain things for himself.

I've been following Matisyahu since the Shake Off the Dust ... Arise days, when I saw him sing and beatbox at a Chabad house's Shabbat dinner. Matisyahu has since gone on to mega-stardom, including having his song "One Day" be an anthem for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I think the novelty of seeing a Hassidic reggae singer is gone for a lot of people because so much time has passed since the live version of "King Without a Crown" was a radio hit. Matisyahu is still out there making heartfelt music and inspiring Jewish kids (and plenty of other people) to rock out.

Here he is in his own words.

1. I was excited to read your tweet that you've gone vegan. What led you to go vegan?
I'm not exactly vegan, not religously like keeping kosher at least. I stopped eating chicken and red meat 'cause I just figured it would be more healthy. I figured it would be more ideal to stay away from eating animals, from having meat sitting and digesting in my gut, like if I ate more plants and greens, intuitively, that seems more holy and more natural. I started thinking back on kapparos, which is the closest I ever came to an actual chicken, and how the Israeli kids were kicking around the cages and [the] noises the chickens were making before being slaughtered, and bringing my kids there to take part in the ritual, the blood, the dirty chicken feet, the sh*t everywhere. Something always kind of freaked me out about it. Then I started to really let myself think about what I am eating, i.e., that's it's actually these animals. I felt so far removed from the animals that I am actually ingesting, it just doesn't seem to me like the way it is supposed to be. I tried that for about a month and felt more conscious and clean. I noticed I was eating a lot of dairy and fish. I figured that dairy is pretty fattening, and fish these days has a lot of mercury. Also, there is a concept in chassidut of not over-indulging and keeping your desires in check, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad all around if I could eventually cut that stuff out as well. I read a couple of pamphlets on the mistreatment of milking cows, getting eggs from chickens, etc., and that pretty much sealed the deal. I haven't had any dairy in a couple months, I have eggs if they're cage-free and a couple bites of of wild salmon here and there. That's pretty much the story.

2. To what extent does Judaism inform your decision to be vegan?
I feel that while it is relatively normal to follow the ins and outs of Judaism with all its rules and regulations, especially when it comes to food, we often miss the big picture. The main idea is to be conscious of what we put in our bodies, to be healthy, to not partake in the karma of mistreating or disrespecting anything that is a part of this world, especially living creatures, etc. While I felt this way for some time, it was only recently that I was able to get past my own habits and such and to make a move, to do something, which as far as I understand, [in] Judaism is what it's all about. Action.

3. As a touring musician, do you find that it's easier to be a kashrut-observant meat-eater or vegan on the road?
Both are not simple but actually quite easy and simple when it comes down to it. It just takes preparation and not being overly attached to food. Sometimes you might have to have a protien bar and an apple for 6 hours on a plane ride instead of abusing yourself with the food everyone else is eating. It's really not the end of the world. Almost all vegan food is kosher, so it is pretty doable.

4. Several years ago, Heeb Magazine (which heebnvegan is not affiliated with) noted that Burger King tried to recruit you for an ad and have you say something along the lines of "I can't eat this, but you should" while holding a cheeseburger. Is this true, and what was your reasoning in saying no?
I believe it is sort of true, although I don't remember the exact details. The reason for saying no is pretty obvious on many levels, but mainly, cheeseburgers? Come on.

Etc.

2010-04-03T22:24:00.003-04:00

Has Matisyahu Gone Vegan?
When I Google "Matisyahu vegan," the top result is a 2007 heebnvegan post saying, "There's an unconfirmed rumor out there that Matisyahu is vegetarian (I didn't start the rumor)." On Thursday, in response to a quip that Matisyahu should throw a "shrimp on the barbie" while he's touring in Australia, the reggae-rock star tweeted, "hey there. Sorry babe not kosher plus I went vegan. But I'll eat some matzah tonight in your honor."

I'm waiting to receive confirmation from Matisyahu's management before concluding that he has indeed gone vegan, but The PETA Files is accepting his response to the quip as truth. PETA's blog noted that when Matisyahu performed in the organization's hometown recently, "PETA delivered him a basket of vegan treats along with the video 'If This Is Kosher …' narrated by Jonathan Safran Foer. The video shows footage from an investigation at Agriprocessors ...."

Israel's Kitniyot Rebellion Rolls On
On Wednesday, YNet reported that more Orthodox Jews in Israel are apparently eating kitniyot (roughly translated as legumes) on Passover. "Each year I am contacted by an increasing number of people who inform me that they are no longer adhering to the ban on eating kitniyot," said Rabbi David Bar-Hayim, the head of the Machon Shilo Institute. He added:

It was probably erroneous for [Ashkenazi] Jews to take this custom with them [from Eastern Europe] to other areas like the United States where there was no local custom, and certainly erroneous for them to bring it to the Land of Israel where the practice throughout the ages was to eat kitniyot.

Eating kitniyot during the holiday is the true custom of our forefathers in the holy land. Rice was even included on the Seder plates of antiquity.

Hot Lixx Hulahan's Retirement
American air guitar legend Craig "Hot Lixx Hulahan" Billmeier, who won first place in the world championships in 2008 and second place in 2009, has announced his retirement. A quotation on the U.S. Air Guitar Blog, attributed to Hot Lixx's likely fictitious "press secretary," compared Hot Lixx's announcement that he would no longer compete professionally to "the Colonel going vegan."

Click here to read my 2008 interview with Hot Lixx Hulahan, in which he discussed air guitar, his vegetarian diet, and Israel.

Meat-Free Mondays at Tel Aviv University
On Wednesday, YNet reported that students at Tel Aviv University have joined their peers at dozens of other universities around the world in launching a "Meat-Free Monday" campaign. YNet noted that "hundreds of vegetarian meals were handed out to students free of charge, including smoked tofu appetizers, seitan (wheat gluten) shawarma, soya goulash and an Indian legume dish."

YNet quoted Prof. Dan Rabinowitz, former president of "Life and Environment", the Israel Union of Environmental NGOs, as saying, "Changing our eating habits, as suggested by 'Meatfree Monday,' is the simplest and most effective way for each of us to help, quite without effort, the global campaign aimed at stopping climate change."

The Four Questions: Gangsta Rabbi

2010-04-02T00:40:00.001-04:00

The Gangsta Rabbi waves his flute high and lets his tzitzit hang low while on stage with Weezer at Madison Square Garden.

JDub Records' first digital-only release, Steve "Gangsta Rabbi" Lieberman's DiKtaToR 17, comes out on April 20. The number refers to the fact that DiKtaToR 17 was the Gangsta Rabbi's 17th CD. That tally doesn't include the 38 cassette albums he recorded previously.

This prolific one-man band combines bass guitar (with the distortion turned way up), vocals, drum machine, and flute. Add that up, and you get a combination that isn't the epitome of commercial appeal. What the Gangsta Rabbi does embody is a dedicated artist who has stayed true to his craft for two decades, with punk aesthetic and a shout-it-out-loud Jewish identity. It's not for everybody. But if JDub signed him, he must be doing something right.

Here he is in his own words.

1. Your album is the first release for JDub Digital. What is it about your music that leads to success in the online niche?
Firstly, to be on JDub Digital is a dream and could be a subject of a future trivia question on Jeopardy! The answer: DiKtaToR 17. What was the first release of JDub Digital? LOL. I've been "stalking" them since the summer of 2008, inviting them to any big show I had. Then, because of their new platform, and my tireless self-promotion, I was able to sign with them.

What may have contributed to my online "success" (my gross income for 22,000+ sales in 7 years has been about $2,000, as Napster and others pay $.0002 per stream--they have to stream a song 50 times for me to earn a penny, but nevertheless a "sale") is I was here as a punk solo artist since 1991, and never went away, building a small but burgeoning cult following. Before the 17 CDs, there were 38 cassette tapes between 1991 and 2001. Then there was the house fire, and I lost my Tascam 4-track and replaced it with a 2002 Korg D1600, which I still use. I got GangstaRabbi.com in 2003 and updated it every day during the Jewish Lightning sessions. In 2005, I joined MySpace, where you first found me right before the release of Punkifier and did your first interview with me. Now I have 42,000 friends there and 137,000 hits to GangstaRabbi.com, ranking it like 4,000,000th in the world. As you know, I blog every aspect of my life, from the details of every show and every record release as well as the more personal aspects, such as my battle with bi-polar/major depressive disorder. Perhaps people relate to this. And musically, some who thought of my early records as "trainwrecks" went there in curiosity and some became devoted. I take many controversial stances, as you know, being ferociously openly Jewish in a time many hide their Judaism for safety purposes and trying to be the spokesman for the downtrodden. All of this adds up but very slowly to "success."

In the "live" arena, however, success is harder to find. In 2009, I played all of 5 shows. 2010 is way better so far. I did the JDub Purim show, where I saw you, and am having at least momentary success in the Long Island Punk Scene. I work very hard for everything. Some love me, many more hate me, and it all adds up.

2. Not too many musicians can claim that they've shared the stage with Weezer at Madison Square Garden. How did that come about?
Now this is kind of cool. A new rock radio station called 101.9 WRXP came on the air in February 2008. At least for the following year, radio was again worth something, for the first time since the '80s anyway. So to promote Weezer's 2008 Red Album tour and their stint at the Garden, WRXP had a contest open for players of guitars, winds, horns, and miscellaneous instruments: the 2 winners from each category would join Weezer on stage for 2 songs--at MSG! For me, I just had to decide which category I should enter. LOL. I was finishing up my Overthrow the Government CD at the time, and there was a song called "I'm Jethro Tull," which has a like 20-second-long a capella flute intro. Right before Shabbos, I think 9/19, I submitted it, not thinking anything would happen. I went on the WRXP site after Shabbos, and there was "Steve L-Overthrow the Government" under 'Wind" entries, going against a very talented classical flute player. So I posted bulletins all over the net to [get people to] vote for me, and when the voting was over, I won with like 60.4% of the vote.

I got a call the next day from the Promotions gal at WRXP with the instructions--to play the Garden! I had 1 day to memorize like 6 possible Weezer tunes. The big problem here was I found out that Weezer tunes everything down 1/2 step, causing the chords to be lots of F#'s, Bb's, and the like, which I avoid in my own compositions. They had picked "Beverly Hills" and "Island in the Sun" for that night. I memorized them. I and the other flute player were asked to stay in front of the guest musicians, which was cool for publicity purposes! The roar of the 20,000+ crowd was overwhelming, but to me, not half as loud or half as important as 20 people who came to see me!

3. You've called yourself "The King of Jewish Punk." In what way does your music capture the essence of "Jewish Punk"?
Michael, I know if anyone would have a degree in all things "Jewish Punk," it would be you, based on your extensive research and writing on the subject, and far more artists in your theses would qualify over me as "king." But what's cool is that both "Jewish" and "punk" are outsider groups, and no researcher can ever deny my outsiderness, or my Jewishness, or my punkdom.

In my own beliefs, I am so not a "king" but a "servitor" based on [the idea that] we all must possess humility to properly serve G-d. But a proper "king" must have gotten there by suffering, toil, battle for one's beliefs, and the like, all of which I did much of just in order to make music. I was in college when the Ramones and Sex Pistols first came out, so unlike most if not all of Jewish punk artists, I witnessed the birth of punk and its evolution and wanted to do something about it when it first died.

Years after my 1st tape, 1991's Bang the Bass Bopmania, as I studied, it was a natural thing to meld this abrasive music with stories of the plights of the Hebrew people, from Biblical times to post-Holocaust. And I did it, in different degrees over the 18 CDs [including one already recorded album that has yet to be released in either CD or digital format], perhaps peaking with #16, 2009's Diaspora, which is a concept CD going historically from Abraham to the 2008-9 Gaza conflict.

I go on stage anywhere from a biker bar, where danger lurks all around for a proud Jew, to a much more safe JDub Records-sponsored event, with the star of David, my heritage, and service of my G-d all shouted proudly to the punk beat and chords. I've been doing this for 20 years and will do it for 20 more. I hope at least some think it's "Cool to Be Hebrew" because of me and proclaim me the "servitor of Jewish punk" (not as catchy as "king" but more true!).

4. Do your Jewish beliefs inform your decision to be vegetarian?
It was actually a very pivotal time in my life, the winter of 1994-1995. I was 36 1/2 and already going through mid-life crisis for years. In December 1994, like 2 weeks before I played my first big show as a solo act, the Freeport First Night New Year's Eve thingy, someone left a gift-wrapped Bible in my office, anonymously. For the 7 years following my bar mitzvah, I was very religious, but I lost my way because of playing in bands and multiple marriages/divorces in a short time. On the night of 12/19/1994, I opened the Bible and read the entire Torah. When I got to Genesis 12, Abram's calling, I thought again, "Wow, I'm one of G-d's Chosen people." By early 1995, I studied feverishly and became observant overnight.

At this same time, for the 3rd time in my life, I pondered vegetarianism. The first 2 times, in 1979 and 1980, after 6 weeks I became progressively quite sick with anemia both times. This seemed like a perfect time to try again. Originally, although G-d gave man dominion over the animals, both were given only plants for food. It wasn't until Genesis 9, after the fall of mankind, that He give Noah and his sons the right to eat their fellow creatures. Although throughout the Scriptures there are Commandments dealing with the kindness to animals, epitomized in Numbers 22, when G-d gives Bala'am's donkey the power of speech after his cruelty to her, much of the Torah and history accounted for in the Books of the Prophets dealt with ritual animal sacrifice to G-d, so vegetarianism is not in itself required to serve G-d.

I went to the Long Island Game farm and was petting a cow, and she licked me, just like my puppy Buttons would do. Buttons was my first dog, a subject of many of my early tunes. If this cow had a related soul to Buttons, I should no longer have her kind killed for my benefit. So on the 18th of Acher'on-13 3445, 3/20/1995, in this spirit, I became vegetarian, never to stray for 15 years this month.

Passover: The Story So Far

2010-03-31T21:52:00.002-04:00

After composing The Ultimate Passover Guide for Vegetarians and Vegans and featuring a guest post about nut-based Passover cuisine, I was ready for Passover.

For the second straight year, I spent the first seder with the NYC Jewish Veg*ns MeetUp group. (Click here to read last year's post.) The host, who did a Herculean job preparing most of the food for 21 people, was busy in the kitchen most of the night, so I wound up leading the seder. It proved a good opportunity to promote heebnvegan! The entirely vegan and kosher-for-Passover menu featured matzoh ball soup, mushroom-walnut pate, charoset, salad, potato/kale/onion kugel, sweet-potato/carrot/currant kugel, broccoli "cheese" casserole with matzoh stuffing (the only dish to feature a kitniyot-based product), grilled vegetables with spicy tomato sauce, five varieties of macaroons, seven-layer chocolate matzoh cake, and Rescue Chocolate's "Don't Passover Me" Bark.

Last night, I went to a cousin's seder with about 17 other relatives. As my video comparison suggests, the family seder (click here to watch the family version of "Chad Gad Ya") was more traditional than the MeetUp seder (click here to watch the MeetUp version of "Chad Gad Ya"). My mom had made the Passover Nutloaf featured in last week's guest post, and it seemed fitting to have nut-based food at the forefront of my meal. After all, nuts have a long history as the center of my family's seders, through a family tradition called the Nut Game, which is essentially bocce with hazelnuts:

I'm responsible for all my vegan, kosher-for-Passover food preparation for the next six days, and I'm not at all intimidated about this. I was already excited to cook with all the fresh vegetables, fruit, and soybeans (still in the pods) I bought at the Union Square Greenmarket. I also found myriad vegan, kosher-for-Passover goodies at a kosher supermarket on the Upper West Side called Supersol, including mango sorbet, matbucha, cashew butter, mini-croutons, hot cereal, and rotelle and shells pasta.