What’s Fair And Fowl: An Eco-Kosher Tale

by Elicia Brown
Special To The Jewish Week

Talia leans in conversationally, as she often does on long car trips when puzzling over the earth’s mysteries. This time, she catches me off guard: “And how,” my 5-year-old daughter asks, “does the chicken make the chicken?”
I envision a fluffy, white-feathered hen, a live squawking bird, giving birth to a tender drumstick. I take a deep breath. “Well, honey, I say, stealing a queasy glance at my husband before answering Talia, “the chicken we eat is the chicken. It’s dead.”
Talia screams.
As I’ve written in the past, I do enjoy an occasional wing, so long as it’s kosher, and especially if my mother-in-law prepares it with rosemary and garlic. And my 3-year-old son Joel has been known to shriek for his

share. But, as I’ve also written, I can’t fully relish the kosher chicken that’s available to us, and I can’t comfortably serve it to my family. What transpires on factory farms — including at some kosher processors — makes my stomach churn.
But just as Talia awakened this fall to the brutal reality of our food chain, a small but growing number of Jews seem to be waking up to the need to know more about the meat we eat. They want to be more aware of and involved in the entire process, not just the animal’s death, but also its life. From that perspective, there’s been a virtual feast of good news since I wrote in August about how I tend to salivate at gourmet markets over the local, humanely treated — but alas, non-kosher — chickens for sale.
For starters, the Conservative movement has endorsed the heksher tzedek label, a project started by Rabbi Morris Allen to ensure the fair treatment of workers, better protection of the environment and of animals. Kosher manufacturers will receive heksher tzedek certification if the company complies with a set of ethical standards. The project also received a financial boost, securing a $50,000 grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
In a separate extraordinary event, some 60 or so people gathered last Friday on a Connecticut farm to witness the kosher slaughter of three goats, who were essentially treated in life as they were in death — with great respect. “The shechita,” the slaughter, “was probably the holiest experience of my life,” wrote Sharon Lebewohl, in her comments after Hazon’s food conference.
The ritual slaughters, which were the centerpiece of Hazon’s second food conference, aimed to “lift the cellophane veil,” says Nigel Savage, Hazon’s executive director. “If you eat meat bought in a supermarket, or in a kosher restaurant or at a friend’s home, you have absolutely no sense whatsoever of how that meat got there.” The conference, which drew almost 250 participants, dined on goat stew for Shabbat dinner.
But to my mind, the most important development is this: Eco-kosher chicken could soon be on my plate — or yours. By eco-kosher chicken, I mean fowl raised on an environmentally friendly farm, where the birds can wander freely and the workers earn a decent wage and benefits.
For the first time, two new small meat co-ops, both guided by Hazon, one in Washington D.C., one in New York City, were able to procure eco-kosher turkeys for Thanksgiving. Simon Feil, who started the New York City-based Kosher Conscience, says usually on Thanksgiving, “I want to eat until I can’t move.”
This year though, he had a more intimate relationship with his dinner. On an upstate farm, he had held his turkey as its life drained away, and later plucked out its feathers himself. At the Thanksgiving meal, he felt as if he were in a world apart from the other guests, as if he were “in a bubble. I ate quietly, respectfully,” he says, adding, “I didn’t want to throw away any leftovers. I almost wanted to bury the carcass.”
While chicken should be available in February through Feil’s Kosher Conscience, Maya Shetreat-Klein plans to sell grass-fed, organic, ethical kosher beef by March in New York through her Mitzvah Meat co-op. Avi Finegold is working on a similar venture in Chicago.
Meanwhile, Talia threatens to renounce Dr. Praeger’s fish sticks. “Many people feel as you do,” I say gently. “They call themselves vegetarians.” But in truth, I want her to eat that protein. Her body needs it.
As for me, I look forward to that evening at the winter’s end when I can justify my food choices, not only to Talia, but also to myself. n
Elicia Brown’s column appears the second week of the month. E-mail her at eliciabrown@hotmail.com.

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