Categories
American Jews Food Jewish Kosher Politics Supreme Court Washington

Kagan Rules in Favor of Chinese Food on Christmas

On Christmas Day 2007, I wrote that Mike Huckabee, then a presidential hopeful, liked to eat Chinese food on Christmas like many Jewish people.

Huckabee explained his family’s Christmas tradition: “…we have an unusual tradition that after the Christmas Eve service we go out and eat Chinese food. Don’t ask me why.”

Jewish people flock to Chinese restaurants on Christmas because they’re the only restaurants open. The oft told joke is that the difference between the Hebrew calendar and the Chinese calendar is about 1,000 years — which means that this was how long Jews had to go without Chinese food.

Now, today we get word from the woman who is likely to be the next Supreme Court justice that she also frequents Chinese restaurants on Christmas.

In Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina probed Kagan on the threats to the United States, asking her if she was unnerved by the Christmas day bomber. He asked her, “Where were you on Christmas Day?”

To which the Jewish Kagan responded, “Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.”

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee chairman quipped, “I could almost see this one coming.”

And Senator Chuck Schumer explained to the committee, “Those are the only restaurants that are open!” (Video below)

Perhaps this Christmas Eve at a table in a Washington D.C. Chinese restaurant will sit Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Elana Kagan, just having a nice Chinese dinner like many other Jews around the country.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Food Holidays Humor Jewish Passover

Uses for Leftover Matzah?

James Besser, Washington Correspondent and New Media Editor of The New York Jewish Week, asked me to come up with a Top Ten list of uses for leftover Passover matzah. But being busy trying to catch up with post-Passover work, I was only able to come up with five. (Who am I kidding? Even if I had a lot more free time I couldn’t have come up with ten.)

Here’s James Besser’s post, but if you really want to laugh out loud check out last year’s hilarious YouTube video “20 Things To Do with Matzah” by Michelle Citrin and William Levin.

Five uses for leftover matzah

Okay, you miscalculated, and you have a few extra boxes of Passover matzah cluttering your cupboard. Maybe a few dozen.

And let’s face it: if you have to choke down another bite of matzah, you’re going to hurl. So what to do with the leftovers?

We asked Jewish Week blogger Rabbi Jason Miller, and he offered these “helpful” suggestions – tongue firmly in cheek, maybe stuck there by all the matzah goo:

– Give it to a blind person to read

– Crumble, add water and fill in the cracks in the sidewalk

– Use it as packing material

– How about playing catch with a square Frisbee?

– Crumble up for Shavuot Blintz topping

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Food Jewish Kosher Michigan Money Shabbat

Meatless Michigan?

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has taken quite a bit of criticism over her recent “no meat on Saturdays” proclamation. Or, as Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press wrote: Gov. Jennifer Granholm is in “a tall vat of deep-fried tofu.”

Granholm reasoned that in Michigan, a state hit hard by the economic recession, it’s become more difficult to feed the family meat meals. Essentially, she was just trying to help Michiganders save money during challenging times. However, like Oprah Winfrey a few years ago, Granholm neglected to consider how a move to vegetarianism would affect the agricultural industry. Obviously, Michigan farmers were less than thrilled by the governor’s meatless idea, even if it was only intended for one day of the week.

But there’s another segment of Michigan’s population that Governor Granholm didn’t consider: The non-vegetarian Jewish citizens of Michigan who enjoy eating meat for Shabbat lunch on Saturdays. While kosher meat is certainly more expensive than the tofu the governor is recommending, there are a good number of Jewish people who enjoy a hot meat-filled cholent on Saturday afternoon.

I think Granholm’s intentions were good, but I’m just not willing to forgo cholent, chicken, or even a turkey sandwich following Shabbat services on Saturdays. And I can certainly understand how this weekly push for vegetarianism would hurt local farmers financially.

Maybe Brian Dickerson put it best when he wrote: “Granholm and other politicians should take note: No one likes being told what’s good for them — unless they’re paying a cardiologist for the privilege.”

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Detroit Food Holidays Humor Jewish Kosher Michigan Passover

Kosher for Passover Zingerman’s Challah?

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the signs at Balducci’s, a New York grocery store, that advertised their ham as “Delicious for Chanukah.”

Today’s issue of the Detroit Jewish News features a full-page ad for the local Plum Market chains of grocery stores. In large print, the ad proclaims Plum Market as “Your Passover Destination” and features a challah (Jewish egg bread) from Zingerman’s Bakehouse above the words “We stock a full line of Passover products from Zingerman’s Bakehouse.” (Thanks to Rabbi Rachel Shere, of Adat Shalom Synagogue, for bringing the ad to my attention.)

First, Zingerman’s, based in Ann Arbor, is not a kosher establishment. Second, their products are not kosher for Passover.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Food Holidays Kosher Michigan Passover Shabbat

Costco Kosher Special Event

Last month, I wrote about Costco’s efforts to attract the kosher consumer by increasing their selection of kosher products, including kosher chicken and kosher meat. They certainly had the best of intentions even if the samples of cooked kosher chicken they were handing out wouldn’t pass even the most lenient of kosher standards.
Now, one of the local Costco warehouses in Michigan is reaching out to synagogue leaders to have Costco’s kosher products publicized to synagogue members before Passover. Unfortunately, once again, it looks like Costco didn’t consult anyone in the Jewish community who would have likely informed Costco’s public relations department not to have their special event take place on Shabbat. Oops!
There are other times for kosher consumers to attend this special three-day event, but most Jewish people will have already completed their Passover shopping at this point. Well, at least the thought is there.
(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Conservative Judaism Food Jewish Kosher News Orthodox Judaism

How Can Lox Not Be Kosher?

Smoked salmon, or lox, has long been known as a staple fare at Sunday brunch in Jewish homes. In fact, Jewish people who claim their Jewish identity as only secular are known as “Bagels and Lox Jews.”

Well, now an ultra-Orthodox group of rabbis, the Chevra Mehadrin of Monsey, New York, have included lox on a list of food items that should no longer be considered kosher. According to these rabbis, a tiny parasitic worm called anisakis that can be found in smoked salmon calls its kosher status in question.

NBC New York interviewed some individuals in the Kosher industry who were less than appreciative for this ruling. “From time to time there are organizations who get a little crazy with these ideas,” said Hal Simon, manager of Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen in midtown Manhattan, who sells lox daily.

When matters like this arise in the world of kosher certification, I usually consult two of my Talmud teachers from the Jewish Theological Seminary for their opinions. However, based on many prior conversations with them I can pretty much guess what their responses will be. Rabbi Joel Roth, who is the highly regarded kashrut expert for the Conservative Movement will say this is narishkeit (foolishness in Yiddish). Prof. David Kraemer, author of Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages, will no doubt have a lot of eye rolling commentary about this latest pronouncement by the ultra-Orthodox kosher police.

In his book about kashrut and Jewish eating as an identity, Prof. Kraemer devoted his entire last chapter to this particular subject. Titled “Bugs in the System,” he opens the chapter by recounting the New York Times article from June 1, 2004, which reported that New York City drinking water had ceased to be kosher because of millimeter-long zooplankton called copepods.  He writes, “How is that water that had been drunk for generations without hesitation or compunction was all of a sudden suspect, and even ‘non-kosher?’ Examined by itself, this chapter in the development of modern kashrut practices is a study in different interpretations of detailed legal sources. But studied in context, the copepod incident is the culmination of a not-so-long history of increasing alarm and accusation over kashrut in the Orthodox community and beyond.”

Indeed, Kraemer goes on to address the relatively new (mid-1980’s) preoccupation the Orthodox have with the potential for bugs rendering vegetables as un-kosher. A year ago, I was interviewed by a Detroit Jewish News reporter for an article she was writing on my kosher certification business, Kosher Michigan. Due to pressure from Detroit’s Orthodox kosher certification group (the Vaad), the article was never published. However, when I asked the reporter what the Vaad’s representative said when she interviewed him, she replied that he didn’t question my knowledge of kashrut law; but suspected that, as a Conservative rabbi and mashgiach (kosher supervisor), I wouldn’t find it necessary to check the vegetables for bugs.

I have no doubt that Kraemer would have included the recent proclamation that lox are no longer kosher in this chapter. It is further evidence of the ultra-Orthodox blurrying the kosher regulations and prioritizing the wrong message. What I find ironic about this is the ultra-Orthodox’s reliance upon new technology to apply further strictures upon the already nuanced system of kashrut. Modern scientific knowlege could be applied by them to reverse the centuries-old ban in the Ashkenazic Jewish world on kitniyot (legumes) including peanuts during Passover, which Kraemer also addresses in the same chapter (“Of course, if Rabbi Moshe Feinstein approved of the kashrut of peanut oil on Passover, there is no question that it is kosher.”). Rather than use new information and scientific innovation to make it easier for Jews to observe the kosher laws, the ultra-Orthodox have used microscopes to render tap water, Brussels sprouts, and smoked salmon unfit for consumption by the kosher observant Jew.

And therein lies the reason that the most common questions I field in the months leading up to Passover all have to do with the acceptability of food items deriving from leguminous plants that techically cannot be chametz (leavened) as they are not derived from the “five grains” (wheat, spelt, barley, oats, or rye).

So, from now on when a secular Jew cites their love of eating lox as their Jewish identity, will you have the heart to let them know that those lox aren’t even kosher anymore?

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Detroit Food Humor Jewish Kosher Michigan

Kosher Chicken at Costco

Costco has been working hard to appeal to the Kosher consumer. A few Costco locations in Michigan have begun selling refrigerated kosher beef produced by Colorado Kosher.

I was at one Costco location today in Michigan and was surprised to see free samples of Kosher chicken being offered. Of course, the chicken was being cooked on the same grill that had been used for non-kosher food samples on a previous day (and is therefore no longer kosher), but it’s the thought that counts.

I love that the woman distributing the samples (her name is Penny) told me that this kosher chicken is an excellent way to keep my family kosher during this Lenten season. Here’s the video of Penny, Costco’s Kosher Chicken “Spokesperson”:

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Food Kosher Michigan

Kosher Baskin Robbins

In time for Hanukkah, a few weeks ago my kosher certification initiative (Kosher Michigan) officially certified as kosher the new Baskin Robbins ice cream store in my hometown of West Bloomfield, Michigan. To show appreciation for becoming kosher, the store’s owner (Stella Stojanovic) created these new Hanukkah ice cream cup


Stella’s former Baskin Robbins location in West Bloomfield was about a mile from the home in which I grew up. Coincidentally, it was in the same strip mall as Marty’s Pizza, where the late Marty Herman started making his famous Marty’s Cookies thirty years ago. Those cookies are now certified kosher by Kosher Michigan too.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Detroit Food Jewish Kosher Rabbi

Kosher Chain Restaurants

With Yom Kippur commencing this Sunday evening, I couldn’t resist blogging about food…

In June 2006 I wrote about the opening of the first kosher Subway restaurant in North America. I then had a chance to try it when I was in Cleveland later that year (with Rabbi Steve Weiss at left). It was delicious and a real treat to walk into a Subway and order a meatball and cheese sub (fake cheese of course!).

Now, Subway has quickly become the largest kosher restaurant chain in the U.S. according to an article in the JTA this past August. Subway recently opened its ninth kosher franchise in a North Miami Beach JCC. By the end of 2009 there will be eleven kosher Subway franchises and five more planned for 2010. Dunkin Donuts has some 33 chains that are kosher, but they do not serve full meals there (only coffee, donuts, and breakfast sandwiches).

In Metro Detroit, we have a kosher Dunkin Donuts, but no Subway restaurants. Rumors of a Subway franchise opening in the Jewish Community Center sprouted up several times over the past couple of years, but ultimately the deal fell through. Jerusalem Pizza, owned by Brian Jacobs, has taken over the space vacated by Matt Prentice Restaurant Group’s Milk & Honey kosher dairy restaurant in the West Bloomfield JCC. Brian’s new sit-down dairy restaurant at the Jewish Center is very good.

Through my kosher certification, Kosher Michigan, I supervise a bagel and cookie bakery that recently opened its second location. Marty’s Cookies and Bagel Cafe opened at the end of the summer in West Bloomfield. The two stores are the perfect synergy between the two owners. Josh Charlip, who owns The Bagel Factory, and Stacy Fox, who owns Marty’s Cookies. As Stacy likes to say, “A balanced diet is a cookie in one hand and a bagel in the other.” Stacy purchased Marty’s Cookies many years ago from the founders Joyce and Marty Herman, my parents’ long-time friends. Marty has since died (he was killed in a motorcycle accident), but I’m so happy that his name lives on through these delicious cookies.

While I’m not sure that Jerusalem Pizza or Marty’s Cookies & Bagel Cafe could quite be called a kosher restaurant chain, it is exciting that local kosher eateries in Detroit are expanding.

In the recent issue of the New York Jewish Week, there is an article about the “chain-ing of kosher food.” Is it a good thing? I think it’s great!

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Food Israel Politics

Israel’s Sushi Strike

According to a Reuter’s article, Israel’s Asian restaurants went on a one-day spring roll strike Tuesday to protest the Knesset’s new plan to rid their kitchens of foreign chefs. “The restaurants are angry at government plans to purge Japanese, Chinese and Thai eateries of Asian cooks and replace them with Israelis as part of a broader program to cut the number of foreigners working in the Jewish state… Israel attracts virtually no immigrants from Asia since anyone seeking citizenship here must prove they have Jewish family or links to the country.”

The restaurant owners threatened that sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu. I would think they would strike hard and “86” the sushi in the beginning since it has become so popular in Israel. But apparently they thought it was best to go with the egg rolls first.

Personally, I think they should have taken soup off the menu just so every Asian waiter throughout Israel could say No soup for you!

Hopefully, a deal will be struck before Israel becomes sushi-free. Jews and Asians should be able to co-exist peacefully. There might be hope because a restaurant once existed in suburban Detroit during the 1980’s called “Shanghai Shapiro’s,” which was half Chinese and half Jewish deli. But then of course, that restaurant did close its doors.
(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller