_JStandard
Reform looks at ways to reinvent the movement
Fish: A complex issue
This piece is excerpted from Rabbi Mosbacher’s chapter in “A Sacred Table” (CCAR Press).
[T]his past year I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals.” … Little that I read in Foer’s work surprised me, until I came to the section on fish. Those four pages … have challenged me, as a Jew and as a human being, to question the ethics of eating fish….
Foer disturbed and agitated me when he wrote, “Although one can realistically expect that at least some percentage of cows and pigs are slaughtered with speed and care, no fish gets a good death. Not a single one. You never have to wonder if the fish on your plate had to suffer. It did.” This was a stunning statement — one that Foer backs up by explaining the realities of both wild-caught and farm-raised fish….
Reform looks at ways to reinvent the movement
Returning food to its rightful place: Eating disorders in the Jewish community
This piece is excerpted from Rabbi Zlotnick’s chapter in “A Sacred Table” (CCAR Press).
[M]any of us were raised with the philosophy that it is always better to have too much rather than too little food at a special event. Holiday tables are laden with dish upon dish placed before the family, while relatives urge one another to “Eat, eat!” Some people speculate that this phenomenon may be attributed to our history, during much of which we experienced periods of dire deprivation and starvation….
Perhaps the power of Jewish history subconsciously plays itself out every time we gather with food as our centerpiece.
This sets the scene for eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating / compulsive overeating) to become silent yet destructive forces in our families and our community….
