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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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Hillary Clinton Warns Youth Being Misled by ‘Totally Made Up’ Narratives About Gaza, Israel
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks on the first day of the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative Meeting at the Hilton Hotel in New York City, US, Sepy. 23, 2024. Photo: MediaPunch/INSTARimages via Reuters Connect
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a stark warning this week, arguing that young Americans are increasingly turning against Israel because they are consuming misleading and often fabricated social-media content about the Gaza war.
Speaking at an Israel Hayom summit in New York, Clinton said that young people were being influenced by “totally made up” videos depicting alleged Israeli actions in Gaza, many of which she claimed were nothing more than stylized pro-Hamas propaganda.
Clinton noted that more than half of young Americans now receive their news primarily from platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, where short, highly sensationalized clips often spread faster than verified information. She warned that these platforms prioritize emotion over context, leaving users vulnerable to narratives that ignore decades of Israeli security dilemmas, Hamas terrorism, and the broader regional picture.
Clinton lamented that her attempts to have conversations with young people over the Gaza War have been fruitless, noting that students “did not know history, they had very little context, and what they were being told on social media was not just one-sided, it was pure propaganda.”
Her remarks reflect growing concern among pro-Israel advocates and politicians about the generational shift in US public opinion. Recent polling show that younger Americans, across political lines and even within the Jewish community, are significantly less supportive of Israel than older generations. Clinton suggested that this shift is less a product of thoughtful engagement with the conflict than of a digital information culture in which Hamas and its sympathizers have gained enormous influence.
”It’s not just the usual suspects. It’s a lot of young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand. A lot of the challenge is with younger people. More than 50 percent of young people in America get their news from social media,” Clinton said.
“So, just pause on that for a second. They are seeing short-form videos, some of them totally made up, some of them not at all representing what they claim to be showing, and that’s where they get their information,” continued Clinton, who previously served as a US senator from New York.
In today’s fragmented media environment, a single unverified video can reach millions of people within hours. Analysts have repeatedly documented how decontextualized or manipulated footage from Gaza circulates widely before fact-checkers can intervene. Meanwhile, footage that reveals Hamas’s extensive use of human shields, its embedding of military infrastructure inside hospitals, or its responsibility for repeated ceasefire collapses rarely achieves the same viral momentum. According to experts analyzing the flow of information, the asymmetry has allowed simplistic narratives portraying Israel as an aggressor to dominate the feeds of young users who lack the historical grounding needed to assess such content.
Clinton’s comments underscore a growing consensus that modern warfare is fought not only on the battlefield but also online in the domain of public relations. Israel, she suggested, faces an unprecedented challenge in countering digital propaganda that spreads farther and faster than any official briefing or nuanced reporting.
Clinton warned that the crisis extends beyond Israel to the United States and other democracies struggling to maintain informed public discourse. The result is an American youth culture increasingly swayed by unverified images and misleading narratives rather than history, context, or the realities of Israeli security, an information landscape that has reportedly been leveraged by foreign actors such as Iran, Qatar, and Russia to push disinformation.
Clinton’s remarks amounted to a call for a more robust response to online misinformation and for renewed efforts to inform young Americans about the complexities of the conflict.
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New York Governor Puts New Holocaust Memorial Project in Motion
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. Photo: Reuters Connect
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday signed legislation to establish a new memorial honoring victims and survivors of the Holocaust that will be constructed inside the Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany.
“With the first ever state-sponsored Holocaust Memorial, we are honoring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust while ensuring that all visitors have a place to remember and reflect on what the Jewish community has endured,” Hochul said in a statement announcing the action. “New York has zero tolerance for hate of any kind, and with this memorial, we reaffirm our commitment to rooting out antisemitism and ensuring a peaceful and thriving future for all.”
Per the legislation, Senate Bill 5784, the construction of the memorial, the first ever to be sponsored by the state government, will be managed by New York’s Office of General Services (OGS). Hochul’s office said its completion will give “visitors the opportunity to reflect on issues that touch the core of our society” and “serve as a reminder of the dangers of antisemitism, racism, and all manifestations of intolerance.”
Dan Dembling, president of the Capital District Jewish Holocaust Memorial, a nonprofit from upstate New York which promotes knowledge of the Holocaust, said his group is “deeply grateful” to Hochul.
“At this time when antisemitism is so high and rhetoric is reminiscent of the Nazi era, the need to remember the Holocaust is critically important,” Dembling said. “As envisioned, this memorial will have statewide impact by helping to educate people about the consequences of prejudice left unchecked and hopefully inspire New Yorkers to stand up against hate in all its forms.”
The approval of the Rockefeller Plaza Holocaust Memorial comes amid a rise in antisemitic incidents in New York, especially in New York City, where, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), hundreds of anti-Jewish acts have been perpetrated in 2025 and a record 976 struck the city in 2024.
During the hate crime wave, the Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn suffered a violent series of robberies and other attacks. In one instance, three masked men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood. Before then, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. Additionally, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
Hochul’s handling of the problem has been criticized by Jewish civil rights activists and Republican lawmakers. Many lambasted, for example, her endorsement in September of the candidacy of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist who is allied with far-left anti-Zionist groups and has vowed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit the city. Mamdani has also supported boycotts targeting Israel and failed to denounce the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which has been widely interpreted as a call for terrorism against Jews and Israelis worldwide.
The endorsement prompted accusations that Hochul was contributing to the rising popularity and aggressiveness of political Islamism across the Five Boroughs. Days after Mamdani won his bid for mayor, anti-Israel protesters staged a riotous demonstration in which hundreds of people amassed outside a prominent New York City synagogue and clamored for violence against Jews.
Hochul’s political opponents blamed her leadership for the incident.
“This is [Gov.] Kathy Hochul’s New York,” US Rep. Elise Stefanik, a leading Republican candidate running to unseat Hochul in next year’s gubernatorial election, said on the X social media platform. “When New Yorkers were looking for strong leadership from our governor, instead of standing against antisemitic hate, Hochul chose to endorse a raging antisemite for mayor of NYC putting Jewish families at risk.”
Hochul’s office has maintained that her administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism lead the nation, pointing to its constituting a new Division of Human Rights, enacting a “first ever statewide plan to combat antisemitism,” and approving legislation which requires colleges in the state to hire a civil rights coordinator.
College campuses in the state continue to see shocking incidents of antisemitism, however.
In September, law enforcement agents filed hate crime charges against two Syracuse University students who they say forcefully gained entry into a Jewish fraternity’s off-campus house during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and heaved a bag of pork at a wall, causing its contents to splatter across the floor. Just days earlier, someone graffitied antisemitic messages inside the Weinstein residence hall at New York University.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Guinness World Records Tells Israeli Charity It’s Currently Not Accepting Submissions From Israel
People stand next to flags on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
An Israeli nonprofit organization had its application to the Guinness World Records rejected recently because the latter has a current policy of not accepting submissions from Israel or the Palestinian territories.
The Matnat Chaim charity, which helps people make voluntary kidney donations, said on Wednesday it contacted Guinness World Records (GWR) to discuss an event it is planning next month at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem where 2,000 Israeli kidney donors will gather in one place, which would be a world record. The charity hoped the event would be entered into the next Guinness Book of World Records. However the nonprofit’s request was rejected by GWR, which claimed that it is currently not processing record applications from Israel or the Palestinian territories.
“We deeply regretted the decision to involve politics in a purely life-saving effort. Humanity should be above all boundaries or conflicts,” the charity, whose name means “Gift of Life” in Hebrew, wrote in a Facebook post. “But the truth is, no record book can truly contain the greatness of our donors. Our true record is not measured by certificates hanging on the wall, but by 2,000 men, women, and children who got up from their sickbeds and returned to life. It is measured by thousands of families who received their loved ones back.”
“Guinness may choose not to list us in their book, but our wonderful donors are listed in the book of lif. And this is the most important record there is,” the charity added. “Next month, we will meet in the name of God, the Matnat Chaim family, at the Nation Buildings and break a record. We continue with all our might in our activities, because there are still lives to save.”
Guinness World Records said in a statement on Wednesday that the policy has been place since November 2023, shortly after the war in Gaza started following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel,
“We are aware of just how sensitive this is at the moment,” GWR explained. “We truly do believe in record breaking for everyone, everywhere but unfortunately in the current climate we are not generally processing record applications from the Palestinian Territories or Israel, or where either is given as the attempt location, with the exception of those done in cooperation with a UN humanitarian aid relief agency.”
GWR said it is “monitoring the situation carefully” and the record application policy is subject to a monthly review. “We hope to be in a position to receive new enquiries soon,” it added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called the policy “inexcusable” in a post on X. He said Israelis “expect and demand that this twisted decision be revoked immediately.”