When Ethan Genauer discovered that he couldn’t afford to attend the food activism conference hosted by the Jewish environmental group Hazon last December, he decided to make a fuss. Activist movements, Genauer reasoned, should be accessible. This one, with its expensive conference at a resort in Monterey, CA, was not. So, he published an open letter calling the New Jewish Food Movement elitist, arguing that it caters to a wealthy subset of the Jewish community while failing to confront broader social justice issues. “During a holiday season of massive economic implosion when millions of Americans are struggling just to put food on their tables,” he wrote, “what message does the comparative luxury of the Hazon Food Conference send?”
The New Jewish Food Movement has emerged as a Jewish wing of a broader movement emphasizing locally grown produce, sustainable agricultural practices, and a return to the pleasures of preparing one’s own food. Hazon is the largest and most visible Jewish organization on the scene, but it’s joined by activist groups like Uri l’Tzedek and Magen Tzedek, and Jewish agricultural programs like Adamah and the Jewish Farm School. While leaders of these organizations maintain that social justice issues are at the center of their work, activists such as Genauer have begun to question whether the movement’s focus on the healthy eating concerns of its generally middle-class Jewish constituency has led to a deemphasis on issues of social and economic justice.
The New Jewish Food Movement came to prominence in the wake of the Agriprocessors scandal last summer, when a major kosher meat producer was shown to have mistreated both its workers and its animals. The ensuing media coverage burst the myth that kosher meat was inherently more humane than non-kosher meat, sparking a re-examination of the ethics of kashrut. Uri l’Tzedek, Magen Tzedek and Hazon took hold of the issue, supporting new certifications for kosher meat that take into account environmental impact and fair labor standards.
Yet while Agriprocessors may have provided the movement’s first big media moment, it represented something of a departure for a movement whose leading components have been active for nearly a decade, working under an ethos that mixes an emphasis on healthy eating with a Jewish Renewal-influenced back-to-the-land spirituality. Adamah, the Jewish organic farming program at the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Connecticut, has produced 120 alumni since 2003. Hazon, founded in 2000, runs the Jewish Farm School, environmental bike rides, and local CSAs around the country. These organizations often have social justice components, but it’s a more inward-looking set of programs than those of what might be called the Old Jewish Food Movement, represented by Mazon, a 24-year-old Jewish organization that works to alleviate hunger.
For Genauer, this distinction is a sign that the New Jewish Food Movement has its priorities wrong. In his letter, he questioned whether the response to the Agriprocessors scandal was broad enough. “[D]o we just care about finding new sources of [K]osher beef for ourselves, or will we engage radically to transform the systemic roots of injustice [and] oppression…?” he asked in his letter. He also critiqued the cost of attending the Hazon Food Conference, which was $290 per person , and the lack of conference speakers involved in what Genauer called “food justice issues”—food work in marginalized communities.
Genauer’s letter circulated quickly throughout the tight-knit movement, and resonated with some activists. Ilana Lerman, a food activist and an Adamah alumnus, said that three friends forwarded her Genauer’s letter in a single day. “I was very excited,” she said.
Irv Hershenbaum, a member of the Executive Board of the United Farm Workers union and participant at the 2008 Hazon Food Conference, agreed that the New Jewish Food Movement, like the larger food movement, could engage more fully in social justice issues. “The food movement needs to look at the problem of exploitation in the food system,” Hershenbaum said. “And that’s a different value than just taking care of yourself. You can support sustainable agriculture by following [Slow Food guru and Omnivore’s Dilemma author] Michael Pollen but you need…to do more.”
Shamu Sadeh, the director of Adamah, says that Genauer’s concerns weren’t new. “I thought it was an interesting and important exchange,” he said of Genauer’s letter. “I appreciate that he asked it. A lot of us were talking about [the letter] at the [Hazon Food Conference] and will continue to talk about it.”
Some in the New Jewish Food Movement, however, thought Genauer’s complaints were unfair. In a written response to Genauer, Judith Belasco, co-Director of Food Programs at Hazon, pointed out that the organization offered scholarships to the conference. She also pointed to social justice programs embraced by the movement, including the response to Agriprocessors. “We are doing considerably more good than ill,” Belasco said.
Charges of elitism have long been leveled against the larger food movement. The emphasis on organic food, still a luxury due to its cost, has led to accusations that the movement is by and for the wealthy. Movement guru Michael Pollen acknowledges the concern, but says that it’s inevitable. “A lot of important movements begin as elitism—women’s suffrage, abolition, environmentalism,” he says. “And then, hopefully, they filter down and they don’t remain elite.”
This gradualist perspective is shared by Dr. Eric Schockman, president of Mazon. “The new food movement is, I think, a burgeoning, consciousness-raising phenomenon that has caught the wave in the Jewish community and is sort of riding the crest. And it’s all productive.”
For Ilana Lerman, attracting wealthier Jews is a step towards a broader movement. “If we are trying to start a movement here, we need to meet people where they are,” she says. “If wealthy Jews want to go to organic wine and cheese tastings by Jewish farmers today, eventually they will see the interconnectedness with food and justice work. We need a bunch of different Jews.”
Several months after publishing the letter, Genauer’s critique has spurred conversation. Still, it hasn’t done quite as much as he had hoped. “I had hoped to quickly start launching an actual Jews For Food Justice organization, but I have not yet been able to do so,” Genauer said. “It is much harder to put these ideas into action than to simply articulate them.”
