Rubashkin Convicted on 86 Charges

The end to an awful ordeal and a true shame for the Kashrut industry.

“On Friday, Sholom Rubashkin, the former owner of an Iowa kosher slaughterhouse, was convicted of 86 out of 91 fraud charges. It has been over a year since the the Pottsville, Iowa slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors was raided by federal authorities arresting hundreds of workers. Since the raid, vigorous debate has ensued regarding the treatment of the workers, the animals and even what it means to eat kosher meat. The Jew and the Carrot hopes to continue this important debate.”

via The Jew and the Carrot » Blog Archive » Rubashkin Convicted on 86 Charges.

Eco-highlights from the URJ Bienneial

The URJ Biennial, a gathering of many Jewish lay leaders and clergy from around North America gathered in Toronto to pray together and help to guide the future of Reform Judaism in the US and Canada.  The environment seems to have topped the list, check out the highlights below and comment on what your congregation and/or community is doing to adopt some of these initiatives.

Rabbi Yoffies sermon highlighted the need for Reform Jews to embrace the now-mainstream eco-kashrut movement:

“For a Reform Jew and a Reform synagogue, what does it mean to eat Jewishly? What does it mean to hallow our eating by inviting God in? It means reciting blessings prior to a meal and after a meal. And beyond that, there are two things that strike me as essential.”

Read the whole thing including suggestions for congregations to adopt: Toronto Biennial Sermon – URJ.

Biennial Initiative: Schulchan Yarok (green table) and Shulchan Tzedek (Table of Justice) including many resources for Jews who want practical resources as they make their choices about food.  Also includes a guide for synagogues who want to start local Community Supported Agriculture programs.

The general assembly passed a resolution(pdf) in support of action on Climate Change.

“We now face the unprecedented challenge of climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions, and the need for serious and urgent action on this issue has never been clearer.  This growing threat, along with our rapidly decreasing supply of fossil fuels, further illustrates the need for strong energy and environmental policies at every level. “

This document also outlines the benefits of Cap and Trade, taxing high-carbon emitting sources and

“At the same time, we have repeatedly expressed caution
about the expansion of nuclear power, as in our 1991 Resolution on a New North American Energy Strategy which, “reaffirm[s] our opposition to the further expansion of nuclear energy until the unanswered questions regarding safety and disposal of nuclear wastes are satisfactorily resolved.”

I’m still very proud to call myself a Reform Jew.

Together we will change the world

The following article appeared in the October 2009 issue of the Aitz Chaim bulletin:

I was sitting in my Sukkah last week, enjoying the sun shining through the schach in the roof and my book, when the sky began to darken.  My midwestern instinct immediately informed me that it was about to rain.  I took everything inside just as the first few drops began to fall.  Rather than be upset that my beautiful day was ruined, I paused to think about how great it is that we have so much freshwater in the Northeast, while many parts of the world are becoming ever dehydrated.

I would not have experienced the same problem had I been living in Jerusalem or Los Angeles, as it only rains in the winter.  In fact, Sukkot is timed to be just before the rain begins to fall in Israel, and it isn’t until we have taken down our sukkot at the end of the festival that we begin to recite the request for rain in our daily Amida prayer.  The use of rain as a reward or of drought as a punishment is a major theme running throughout Judaism.  Do good and you will have abundant rainfall, but go astray and your land will dry up and no crops will grow. (Deut. 11:13-21)

Sukkot is often a time that environmentalists use to forward their agenda of saving our planet by reducing the human affect. During the Yamim Nora’im (the days of awe) I was camping in Glacier park.  A sign at the entrance to the Grenell Glacier hike declared that human actions are causing the glacier to erode at rates far faster than predicted and showed the photographs of the glacier over the last century and how much the glacier declined in the last two decades.  As I descended from the mountain I realized how profound the impact the sign had made.  I had just witnessed a glacier that is millions of years old that, with every passing second, is spewing forth water that has not been in it’s current state of matter since the ice age.  Chances are that my grandchildren will not be afforded the same opportunity.  And that’s why I speak up and advocate for the need to dramatically reduce our impact on our environment and our health.

We are currently dealing with many hot topics these days – some are political, while others are very personal.  Fortunately, there are people who are passionate about all of these issues enough to stand up and decide to not only take a stand but also try to encourage others to join them.  Judaism has a long history of standing up for the issues in which we believe.  Whatever makes you passionate, I hope that you find something that you are passionate about in this new yeah, learn about the issue, and share with others why it is so important to you.  Ani V’atah, n’shaneh et haolam – Together we will change the world.

Soapless Soap

This is a reaction to a friend’s question about why in Israel the soap says “Soapless Soap”

In the US, it’s rare that you’ll see a product actually with soap on the label, because, i’m sorry to say, it isn’t.  Soap is really just oil that has been saponified to separate the materials that creates soap.  Glycerin + lye = soap.  Maybe some fats to keep things looking shiny and smooth.  There is only one product I know about, Dr. Bronners soaps, which are actually soap.  Everything else is: Shampoo, body wash, scented this, amazing that…but not soap.  I hate to tell you, but guess where most of your “soap” comes from?

See that Sodium Laurel (and Laureth) Sulfate?  That’s processed petroleum.  Yup – you are putting black gold on your skin and hair.  All those other things you can’t pronounce?  Smell, lather (so you think you are getting clean), color, texture, preservatives and well, water is still water.  Maybe it makes your skin soft, but that’s only because they add ingredients to counter act the effect of the other stuff.

Unfortunately, the preservatives they use are almost always called Parabens, which are thought to increase your risk of breast cancer, and make our water not so nice.  While these studies are not fully conclusive, Parabens are used extensively in the beauty product world and I’m not going to take my chances.  If I can’t pronounce it, I’m not putting it on my body.  Who knows what these things are doing to our largest defense mechanism, our beloved epidermis.

Here’s why I use Dr. Bronners:
I can prononce everything on the label
100% organic and fair trade
So fair trade, that he uses Palestinian olives and an Israeli olive presser.  I’m getting clean and helping the peace process.
It smells nice (I use pepperment).
1 bottle = shampoo, soap, dish soap, and cleaning soap.
It’s 100% biodegradable.

Conscious Meat Eating

“It could be, in fact, that a conscientious meat eater may have a more environmentally friendly diet than your average vegetarian.”

I love meat.  It sometimes shocks people when I say that after a diatribe about how awful it is for the environment to eat meat.  The problem, in our current society, that like anything else we do we eat meat in excess.  There is no doubt that the way we produce the majority of the meat in our society is unsustainable and unhealthy.  But that doesn’t mean that in order for one to feel good about being an environmentalist one must give up meat altogether.

Check out this article from the NY times which lists all of the ways that meat eaters can actually feel good about the food that they consume.  Unfortunately, this system will not produce enough meet for us to all eat a double bacon cheeseburger once a day, to start off every day with steak and eggs, or to eat street meet after every bar visited on a Halloween night.  We must reduce our consumption, and demand that our food supply is healthy, sustainable, and, if we are lucky, might actually taste better too.

via Op-Ed Contributor – The Carnivore’s Dilemma – NYTimes.com.

Woman’s Shattered Life Shows Ground Beef Inspection Flaws – NYTimes.com

Is this the type of environment that we want to be living in?  One where we are unable to know the process in which a company produces ground beef such that we can be made extremely ill from it’s consumption?  A Jew might disregard this article thinking that this sort of thing doesn’t affect Kosher meat, but it surely does.  It’s time for the American people to rally and demand that major changes be made to our argiculture industry so that we not only have access to safe, healthy meat, but that we have the transparency to know how our food get’s from the seed to the table and who is involved along the way.

Bon Appetite.

“The meat industry treats much of its practices and the ingredients in ground beef as trade secrets. While the Department of Agriculture has inspectors posted in plants and has access to production records, it also guards those secrets. Federal records released by the department through the Freedom of Information Act blacked out details of Cargill’s grinding operation that could be learned only through copies of the documents obtained from other sources. Those documents illustrate the restrained approach to enforcement by a department whose missions include ensuring meat safety and promoting agriculture markets.”

Woman’s Shattered Life Shows Ground Beef Inspection Flaws – NYTimes.com

A Purposeful Fast: A Yom Kippur Sermon on Food | The Jew and the Carrot

This is a great Yom Kippur drash about the state of our food industry and re-envisioning Kashrut, with which I completely agree.  It’s time to take Kashrut to a new level.

A Purposeful Fast: A Yom Kippur Sermon on Food | The Jew and the Carrot

Why I Bike Amongst the Cars

Why I Bike Amongst the Cars, originally uploaded by swimfast.

Rainy Sunset

IMG_0052.JPG, originally uploaded by swimfast.

Best Buds

DSC_3764.NEF, originally uploaded by swimfast.