Amy Klein
Conservatives’ ethical seal nearing kosher marketplace
Counterintuitive as the need for that statement about kosher certification might sound, it was just one of the points about the Conservative movement’s planned ethical seal that the group responsible for the certification wanted to clarify at this week’s gathering of Conservative rabbis in New York.
The Hekhsher Tzedek Commission announced at this week’s Rabbinical Assembly convention that it had hired a social auditing firm to compile standards for what the seal will represent. The Magen Tzedek certification has been in development for three years following multiple scandals at the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa.
ZAKA expanding Arab units
JERUSALEM – At the scene of terrorist attacks, accidents, and even homicides, most Israelis are used to the sight of ZAKA volunteers — Orthodox men working to save lives or recover body parts of the dead.
What they may not know is that ZAKA, Israel’s Orthodox-run life-saving, rescue and recovery service, also has a minorities unit comprised of Bedouin, Muslim, and Druse volunteers.
Started about five years ago to serve Israel’s non-Jewish communities, primarily Bedouin in the Negev and Druse in the Galilee, the minorities unit is expanding because of its success. Nearly 100 volunteers and three units will be added.
Orthodox students are embracing social action
NEW YORK – A few months after Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, Texas, in September 2008, Yeshiva University student David Eckstein went to the devastated area with 32 other students to help rebuild homes.
“The doors hadn’t been opened since the hurricane. We took the house apart and started rebuilding it, trying to rebuild someone’s life,” said Eckstein, 23, of West Hempstead, N.Y.
“When you picture something on the news, it’s hard to imagine it, but when you go in person to see the damaged that was done and the lives that were ruined, it’s not just the impact you have on them but the impact is much stronger on the volunteers.”
