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An amended Conservative Jewish Passover policy taps into the booming gluten-free market
(JTA) — Ahead of Passover 2020 — as life worldwide ground to an abrupt halt in the face of a rapidly spreading pandemic and people faced the specter of empty grocery shelves, or staying confined at home — a range of rabbis tried to make it a little easier to observe the holiday.
Long lists of foods and newly lenient guidelines from Jewish organizations circulated among people who keep kosher for Passover, explaining which foods they could purchase and eat on the holiday, given the year’s extraordinary circumstances. The message — sometimes explicit, sometimes implied — was that these special permissions applied only temporarily.
Now, one rule instituted as a COVID provision by the Conservative movement is becoming permanent: Before Passover begins, Jews may buy certified kosher products that have kosher-for-Passover ingredients and are certified gluten-free and oat-free — even if they aren’t explicitly certified kosher for Passover.
When it first appeared in 2020, that rule was written in a way that suggested it was an emergency measure, using the words “when the situation demands.” This year, that four-word phrase has been removed from the Rabbinical Assembly’s Passover guide, and the guidance has moved from a separate section into the main list of allowable products.
The edit reflects how some shifts in Jewish practice that first appeared at the outset of the pandemic, as stopgap measures, have since been normalized. It also allows — for at least a narrow set of Jews who observe Jewish ritual in accordance with the Conservative movement’s dictates — more robust and potentially less expensive options for keeping kosher during Passover.
Rabbi Aaron Alexander, chair of the Kashrut Subcommittee on the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which issues the movement’s Jewish legal rulings, said the change does not reflect a shift in the movement’s approach to Jewish law, known as halacha. Instead, he said, it reflects confidence that the Food and Drug Administration’s strict rules about how products can be labeled can be trusted when it comes to Passover observance.
“It’s not a significant change in how we understand halacha in general and how we understand the general Passover laws,” Alexander said. “It’s always been the case that there are products you can buy without a KP [symbol] before Passover, when you can be pretty sure that there’s no chametz and that any accidental admixture would be minimal.”
The requirement for foods to be certified gluten-free and oat-free, Alexander said, is “an extra line of defense” for people buying products before Passover that are not explicitly labeled kosher for Passover.
The policy shift opens new doors to kosher-keeping Jews: Rather than seeking out specialty items with Passover kosher certification, often carried only in kosher supermarkets and in major markets, they can observe Passover by taking advantage of the increasing number of products that are labeled kosher, gluten-free and oat-free, as long as the ingredients accord with Passover laws.
The gluten-free marketplace is estimated at $6 billion a year in the United States and is growing by an estimated 10% each year, according to industry trend reports. The marketplace serves people with celiac disease — whose incidence is rising — as well as people who seek to reduce or eliminate their gluten intake for perceived health reasons.
Some people with celiac disease say they look forward to Passover because more products will hit shelves that they can count on to be free of gluten. Now, Jews who follow the Conservative movement’s guidance can benefit from some of the wide array of gluten-free foods that are already available.
On Passover, five types of grain are prohibited (except for when they are used to make matzah): wheat, spelt, barley, oat and rye. By purchasing products that are certified gluten-free and oat-free, consumers can avoid buying food that contain those five ingredients.
“In an effort to definitively alert consumers to the presence of wheat gluten in packaged foods, the FDA mandates that any product including the words ‘gluten-free,’ ‘no gluten,’ ‘free of gluten,’ or ‘without gluten’ must contain less than 20 parts per million of glutinous wheat, spelt, barley, or rye,” a footnote to the guide states. “This eliminates the possibility of a gluten-free packaged food containing 4 of the 5 hametz-derived grains in any quantity that would be viable according to Jewish law.”
Alexander emphasized that the gluten-free and oat-free guidance should be seen as “a good way to figure out whether or not the products you’re getting before Passover could be problematic.” He cautioned that looking at the rest of the ingredients is crucial: Some certified gluten-free products, for example, could still be prohibited for Passover because they contain yeast.
Sarah Chandler, an ordained Hebrew priestess and Jewish educator who used to run a pickle business, already bought food with gluten-free labels during her pre-Passover shopping.
“It’s very practical, and it’s also consistent with other levels of kashrut,” Chandler told JTA regarding her pre-Passover shopping. “The fact that you and I can go to a grocery store and buy eggs — you don’t need a kosher symbol on it. We just know that it’s eggs. We’re not worried that the egg is from a bird of prey and not kosher. We can just assume that [if] it says ‘chicken eggs,’ they’re chicken eggs.”
She added, using a Hebrew term for kosher certification, “We don’t need a hechsher on it. The hechscher just means a certain level of supervision.”
Chandler is a vegetarian and eats a variety of nut butters, which are often expensive. Recently, she bought a jar of gluten-free cashew butter that was on sale for $6 instead of its regular price $12. (A jar of almond butter by a kosher brand marketed for Passover can run around $18.) Because it’s still unopened and the ingredients are kosher for Passover, she plans to eat it during the holiday.
Kosher-keeping Jews with gluten intolerance and celiac disease have especially found a lifeline in the growing marketplace of gluten-free food.
Lisa Goldman, also known as the “Gluten Free Jewish Momma,” is an Orlando-based advocate for the gluten intolerant on behalf of her now-grown daughter, who was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2012.
“My daughter was crying over not being able to have matzah balls because matzah [is] very high in wheat,” Goldman recalled. “So it was so exciting when all of the Jewish brands started to come out with a gluten-free version of many of their products.”
By the Way Bakery, a kosher, gluten-free and dairy-free bakery in New York City founded in 2011 by Helene Godin, may be a destination where Jewish shoppers who abide by the Conservative ruling could get food for the holiday. It is offering multiple Passover items this year, though the menu isn’t certified kosher for Passover.
By the Way Bakery is certified kosher, and its individual products that are sold in Whole Foods are in the process of being certified gluten-free.
“I’m really careful with the word ‘certified,’” Godin told JTA. “We are not certified with respect to Passover. I can tell you what is in [our products]. We’re very transparent. If you go to our website and you go to the FAQ section, there’s a link to our ingredient summary. And we list everything that’s in every product.”
Some of the items on this year’s Passover menu include an orange almond cake that Godin calls “the little black dress of desserts” because it goes with everything, and a chocolate truffle torte. By the Way Bakery’s cakes and cookies are made with wheat flour alternatives, many of which fall into the category of kitniyot, or foods such as legumes, corn, and rice that some Jews, including many Ashkenazim, avoid eating on Passover. Sephardic Jews traditionally eat kitniyot on the holiday and the Conservative Movement began permitting the consumption of kitniyot during Passover in 2016.
“There are people who say, ‘You’re not kosher enough,’” Godin said. “And there are people who say, ‘Oh, I’ll eat that.’”
Another popular gluten-free kosher bakery, Modern Bread and Bagel, is offering non-kitniyot foods for Passover. Like By the Way Bakery, Modern Bread and Bagel is not certified kosher for Passover, but all of its kitchen’s ingredients are kosher for Passover.
Godin says her company gains new customers every Passover, but this year has been an especially busy time. The number of orders for the orange almond cake, which has not been on the menu in several years, was three or four times larger than what she expected.
“Our projections were that we would be up 20% over last year. And we’ve well exceeded that,” she said. “Post-COVID, people just want to celebrate and get together.”
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In two controversial ads, a tale of how not to fight antisemitism — or support Israel
Multimillion dollar ad campaigns aimed at scaring Jews, or scaring others on Jews’ behalf, are not working.
They are not effectively combating antisemitism. They are not strengthening Jewish life. And they are not persuading Americans to embrace Israel or its government’s current course of action. They are, in fact, backfiring.
That was recently made clear in two very different contexts: A New Jersey Congressional race, and the Super Bowl. The reactions to two disparate ads — one attacking former Rep. Tom Malinowski, and one advocating an approach for fighting antisemitism that some found dated — sent the same message.
We Jews are tired. We are tired of being told that the only way to be Jewish in the United States is to defend Israel’s indefensible actions. We are tired of being blamed for every policy choice the Israeli government makes. We are in a precarious moment in history, possibly a pivotal one — and we are tired of being shown half-hearted solutions. We are tired of being afraid.
Fear is not a strategy. It is a reflex. And acting reflexively will not help us build a strong future.
A telling political miscalculation
The United Democracy Project, the super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, spent at least $2.3 million attempting to defeat Tom Malinowski in the race to replace now-New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherill in the House of Representatives. Malinowski is no fringe critic of Israel. He is a longtime supporter of the Jewish state, who has said he would not deny the country what it needs to defend itself.
His only deviation from AIPAC orthodoxy was that he refused to rule out placing conditions on U.S. aid. For that, he became a target.
The AIPAC-backed ads themselves did not mention Israel at all. Instead, they criticized Malinowski for a vote on immigration enforcement funding during President Donald Trump’s first term, in a clear attempt to paint him as unreliable on domestic security issues. The goal, as a spokesperson for the PAC stated openly, was to push votes toward the group’s preferred candidate in the crowded primary.
Instead, Analilia Mejia, a left-leaning organizer who openly stated she believes Israel committed genocide in Gaza, surged to the lead. She declared victory on Tuesday.
In other words, after $2.3 million in negative ads, the candidate who most directly accused Israel of genocide appeared to benefit the most.
Many of AIPAC’s choices in this matter could be criticized, including their stance that openness to any conditions on aid is anti-Israel or worse, antisemitic. But perhaps the most important one was their decision to treat the issue of support for Israel as one that must be smuggled into a race under cover of unrelated issues.
If the case for unconditional support of Israel’s current government is strong, then why cloak it in ads about ICE? If such support is as morally and politically sound as its architects insist, it should be able to stand in the open.
The choice to obscure it suggests something else: that traditional, narrow support for the current Israeli government and its military campaigns no longer carries the traction it once did. Voters can sense when an argument is being rerouted through unrelated fears. And when they do, it breeds not persuasion but distrust.
Post-it advocacy
Then there was the Super Bowl.
An ad funded by Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, formerly known as the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, ran during the game. In it, a teenage Jewish boy walks down a school hallway, not knowing that someone has put a Post-it on his backpack reading “dirty Jew.” He looks small and isolated.
A larger Black classmate notices, covers the note with a blue square, then puts another blue square on his own chest in solidarity. The message is that allies can stand up to antisemitism.
But the image felt oddly untethered from the current moment. It asked viewers to see Jews primarily as vulnerable targets of crude prejudice. It did not speak to the nuance of Jewish life in America today. It did not grapple with the political entanglements or technological shifts shaping public debate. It flattened Jewish identity to an experience of persecution.
The same broadcast gave us a chance to understand the risks of that approach — of acting like minorities live in a state of constant endangerment.
Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny headlined the halftime show with a performance that was an act of cultural declaration. His staging celebrated Puerto Rican life and heritage, in all its complexity. There were the sugar cane fields, where enslaved people were forced to labor before emancipation, turned into a site of essential but emotionally mixed heritage. There were joyful community scenes interspersed with critiques of infrastructural failure. He performed almost entirely in Spanish, ending with a roll call of countries across the Americas and a message of unity that transcended borders and expectations.
That was a radical act at a time when this country is rife with state violence largely targeting Spanish speakers from many of those countries. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, deportations, and threats against immigrants that have left families terrified and communities in crisis. Just days before his performance, Bad Bunny used his Grammy acceptance speech for Album of the Year to demand “ICE out,” a protest call to make clear that immigration enforcement’s brutality was unacceptable and dehumanizing.
The contrast could not be sharper.
Bad Bunny’s presence, his language choice, his celebration of heritage spoke to millions; it was the most-watched halftime show ever. It’s hard to imagine it being so successful if he had focused exclusively on the Latinx experience of persecution in the U.S.
Cultural vitality is an essential partner to moral clarity in building a stronger future. That building means saying no to violence, but also yes to life, even when it is complex and unsettled. It means joy. It means pride.
The AIPAC-funded ad against Malinowski and the Blue Square Alliance-funded one about fighting antisemitism made the same mistake. Fear alone does not persuade people to seek change. Faith in the good that life has to offer must be part of the picture.
In the classic Jewish text The Big Lebowski, Walter Sobchak delivers a vocal celebration of our identity. “Three thousand years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax,” he says, “you’re goddamn right I’m living in the past.”
It’s a funny line. But it’s also a reminder.
We come from a civilization of argument, poetry, exile, reinvention, baseball heroes, mystics, storytellers, radicals, comedians, ping-pong hustlers and stubborn moral voices. We do not need to be reduced to frightened caricatures. We do not need to outsource our dignity for protection. We do not need to insist on adherence to dated principles in order to prove our belonging.
If we are going to invoke thousands of years of Jewish history, let it be the history of ethical wrestling, cultural creativity, and unapologetic presence. Let it be a Judaism that refuses both erasure and weaponization.
That is the Jewish future worth living for.
The post In two controversial ads, a tale of how not to fight antisemitism — or support Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Tucker Carlson, the Kennedy Assassination, and the Theater of ‘Just Asking’ About Israel
Fox personality Tucker Carlson speaks at the 2017 Business Insider Ignition: Future of Media conference in New York, U.S., November 30, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
In one of Tucker Carlson’s recent Instagram reels, drawn from a conversation with far-left anti-Israel pundit Cenk Uygur, Carlson returned to a maneuver that has become central to his treatment of Israel and Jews.
Carlson noted references to Israel in the assassination files of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, and wondered aloud why some remain redacted more than 60 years later.
His guest, Cenk Uygur, supplied the line that Carlson basically asked for: “That’s almost an admission.”
Carlson widened the frame: Why do we keep seeing Israel [in these files]? Why are the lines blacked out? Why, he asked, are there two “monuments” in Israel to James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s former counterintelligence chief?
Then came the disclaimer. Carlson says he opposes conspiracy thinking because it “drives you crazy.” But, he adds, “if you don’t tell people the truth, like what are they supposed to think?”
The performance is familiar. The host is merely “asking questions.”
But questions of this type are not requests for information. They are accusations regardless of the punctuation. They gesture toward a very nefarious destination, while preserving the speaker’s ability to claim he never quite traveled there.
And as with almost everything Carlson has written or said about Israel in the past few years, this series of “questions” is missing important information and is deeply misleading.
Anyone who has spent time with the Kennedy archives knows that Israel is hardly unique in attracting redactions. Black bars sit beside Mexico, Cuba, the former Soviet Union, Jordan, and a host of other countries. They exist for reasons that are often mundane: protecting sources, preserving methods, honoring liaison agreements, or shielding names that remain sensitive.
A redaction is not a confession. It is often paperwork.
Carlson should know this. Uygur should as well.
But this ordinary explanation, and the fact that many other countries have redactions in the Kennedy assassination files, would collapse the drama.
The “show” depends on persuading viewers that redactions related to Israel must mean something darker.
And so, evidence is withheld. Suspicion advances. Tone does the work that proof cannot.
This is not investigation. It is nefarious storytelling.
Then there is the Angleton insinuation.
Angleton oversaw counterintelligence and, among many responsibilities, managed relationships with allied services across Europe and the Middle East. His ties with Israel grew out of years of professional cooperation and personal familiarity.
Israel later honored him.
There is nothing extraordinary in that. Intelligence communities commemorate foreign officials who strengthen relationships and collaboration. Streets are sometimes named. Plaques are mounted.
Gratitude is not evidence of control. And commemoration is not proof of conspiracy.
To present routine diplomacy as something sinister is to convert normal statecraft into conspiracy.
Carlson’s particular gift (and grift) lies in inversion. He warns against conspiracism while practicing it. He performs reluctance while manufacturing certainty.
If conspiracy thinking corrodes those who consume it, as he says, one might imagine restraint before distributing it at scale.
But insinuation has become Carlson’s product. And it is not randomly distributed. It moves in one direction. The questions chosen, the contexts omitted, the raised eyebrows, the studied bewilderment — they point somewhere specific.
Toward Jews. Toward Israel.
There is never any actual evidence that Tucker provides. What remains are misleading hints elevated into conclusions, delivered with deniability and received, inevitably, by far too many, as fact.
History knows this propaganda method well. It is the politics of implication, the art of constructing guilt through repetition rather than demonstration. The speaker positions himself just outside the accusation while ensuring that the audience hears it clearly.
We know, in retrospect, what such machinery can produce.
The tragedy is not only that it is dishonest. It is that it works.
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.
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Forverts podcast, episode 5: Jewish Education
דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט שוין אַרויסגעלאָזט דעם פֿיפֿטן קאַפּיטל פֿונעם ייִדישן פּאָדקאַסט, Yiddish With Rukhl. דאָס מאָל איז די טעמע „ייִדישע דערציִונג“. אין דעם קאַפּיטל לייענט שׂרה־רחל שעכטער פֿאָר איר אַרטיקל, „וואָס סע פֿעלט בײַ אונדזערע ייִדישע מיטלשולן.“
צו הערן דעם פּאָדקאַסט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
אויב איר ווילט אויך לייענען דעם געדרוקטן טעקסט פֿון די אַרטיקלען, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ און קוקט אונטן בײַם סוף פֿון דער זײַט.
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