Manya Brachear at The Seeker reports on new efforts by Orthodox social justice activists to emphasize the Golden Rule as central to keeping kosher:
Separating meat and dairy products is a central dietary rule to keeping a kosher kitchen. But some Orthodox Jews say the Golden Rule is also a key to keeping kosher. On Tuesday, Orthodox social justice activists introduced an ethical labor seal for the kosher restaurant industry that requires fair wages, overtime pay, break time and a safe workplace.
“If you think the criteria sound a lot like already existing labor laws, you’re right. But Jewish leaders have found some bosses choose to ignore them, as was the case in Postville, Iowa one year ago today. There, on May 12, 2008, federal authorities arrested 389 illegal migrants employed at the town’s kosher meatpacking plant. A state trial against the plant managers is set for August; and a federal trial, set for September, includes charges of bank fraud and 9,311 labor violations.
That number—9,311—inspired the Orthodox Social Justice Movement called Uri L’Tzedek, or Awaken to Justice, to push for a Tav HaYosher, a new ethical seal for kosher eating establishments that goes beyond the typical kosher certification called hechshering.
“After seeing the pain and suffering inflicted by our own kosher industry on the stranger and the poor, the very people the Torah demands we protect, we realized we needed to be proactive and make a change,” said Shmuly Yanklowitz, founder and co-director of Uri L’Tzedek. “We asked ourselves—how can we, as Orthodox Jews, create a system to protect the standards that Jewish law and ethics demand?”
Read the full piece here. And visit the Orthodox Social Justice Movement’s website here.