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'Ethical' food, not kosher, is priority for US Reform

November 26, 2009 15:48
Reform Jews were urged to cut down on red meat consumption at the biennial Reform conference this month

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Anonymous,

Anonymous

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For the past few years, the American Reform movement has been edging toward a re-examination of kashrut. Those tentative steps were diverted somewhat at the movement’s biennial convention in Toronto earlier this month.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, devoted much of his Shabbat sermon to urging Reform congregations in North America to develop a dietary practice based on Jewish ethical, environmental and health values. He reminded the 3,000 conference delegates that Jews “eat mindfully and thoughtfully”, and that “eating can be a gateway to holiness”.

But he stopped short of asking them to consider eating kosher.

“This is not about kashrut,” he cautioned, as he outlined the main points of the Reform movement’s new Green Table/Just Table Initiative. Referring to last year’s scandals at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant, he added: “We do not accept the authority of the kashrut establishment, and its problems are for others to resolve.”