NARVON, PA – A thick, rolling gobble fills the barn in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania as several hundred turkeys stand shoulder to shoulder, shifting in waves like a loud, feathered mob.

They don’t know it, but they’re part of a gamble — one that could reshape the kosher poultry business in America. The question is: Will enough people want a Thanksgiving turkey, at a price between $140 and $400, that tastes like bubbe’s did?

Supermarket poultry has become a fixture of the Jewish kitchen — easy to find, easy to cook, easy to forget. As organic and ethically raised meats gain traction across the country, many kosher families are still left with factory-farmed options that claim tradition but taste like compromise.

This flock belongs to Chosen Farms, a kosher heritage poultry startup run by Yadidya and Miriam Greenberg, a husband-and-wife team who split their work between two states: turkeys here in Lancaster County with help from an Amish farmer, and chickens on 30 acres in Pemberton, New Jersey.

Once the turkeys reach market weight, they begin a Thanksgiving relay — first to a kosher processor in upstate New York, then to Pemberton to be frozen and packed. Labels come off the printer like boarding passes, rattling out destinations: California. Colorado. Florida. Nevada. New York. Orders pile up like suitcases in an airport the day before the holiday.

These are heritage birds — the kind that existed before industrial farming redesigned poultry around speed and uniformity. They come from older bloodlines that could walk, flap their wings and develop muscle over time. Today’s supermarket birds are bred to grow fat fast, their skin stretched thin over rapidly expanding bodies. They arrive like something delivered by algorithm. Heritage birds arrive with history.

The turkeys live twice as long as their grocery store counterparts. They keep the genetics, and much of the flavor, of the past. If you want your chicken soup to taste like your bubbe’s version, you start with one of these.

As a teenager, Miriam volunteered on farms in Maryland and later trained as a classical chef in New York. She speaks about modern poultry with the bluntness of someone who has tasted too much of it. “They neutered all the flavors. It just tastes like mush,” she said.

Heritage birds, she insists, give you something more flavorful. “It’s like tasting butter after a lifetime of margarine.”

Heritage breeds and Hanukkah goose

Miriam isn’t the only one making the case for flavor. Gidon van Emden, CEO of Kol Foods, which specializes in kosher grass-fed beef, lamb and pasture-raised chicken, has seen growing curiosity about heritage breeds in the kosher market. Consumers tell him the difference is noticeable immediately.

Van Emden believes the kosher market is hungry — not just for cleaner food, but for food that feels intentional. “If you mistreat the animal — bad feed, bad genetics — it’ll taste more watery,” he said.

He and Yadidya go back years. Greenberg taught him how to be a shochet, a butcher. Now, Kol Foods and Chosen Farms are among the few companies trying to expand what kosher poultry can be.

Yadidya bought the Pemberton property in 2022, and soon after married Miriam. The pasture is in the same swath of South Jersey where Holocaust survivors resettled and rebuilt their lives running chicken farms.

These day, in the kitchen, Yadidya boxes frozen turkeys — lining cardboard with insulated wrap, dropping in ice packs and sealing each shipment with a strip of tape. Their sukkah from last month’s holiday still stands in the yard, a reminder that the Jewish calendar doesn’t always make room for farm schedules. Their two-year-old brown herding dog, Peanut Butter, zigzagged between the chickens, nipping at their heels.

Chosen Farms sold its first batch of kosher heritage turkeys last year. It was a modest 20 birds. This year, they tripled that to 60. There’s no marketing budget, no social media campaign. Orders came in online by word of mouth, passed between butchers, rabbis, chefs and families looking for something better than the standard frozen brick with a pop-up timer.

Not all of their orders are for November. Yadidya pried open a freezer and revealed rows of heritage geese. The traditional Ashkenazi “Hanukkah goose” was once a staple dish in Eastern Europe, especially for Jews who couldn’t afford beef. Its rendered fat, known as schmaltz, became the secret weapon for frying latkes.

“We’re one of the only places in the country raising and selling kosher geese,” Yadidya said. Goose requires specialized equipment to pluck, and at $30 a pound, it’s not exactly an impulse buy. But Greenberg said demand returns every winter, a culinary echo of an older Jewish kitchen.

Farm life, Jewish life

Living on a farm doesn’t mean leaving Jewish life behind. The Greenbergs chose Pemberton precisely because it keeps them connected. They’re 30 minutes from Cherry Hill and Lakewood, both home to large Orthodox communities and kosher restaurants. There’s a mikvah nearby, and a daily minyan within a 20-minute drive. “There are farmers who move two hours away from Jewish life and then struggle,” he said. “I didn’t want that life. We paid more to be close.”

Friends drive in to spend Shabbat with them. In the summer, Jewish camping groups pitch tents by the trees. “We’re far enough to have space,” Yadidya said, “but close enough to still feel part of something.”

Chosen Farms isn’t an anomaly. It’s part of a small but growing movement of Jews choosing to make their living in agriculture. The Jewish Farmers Network, which began in 2017, now counts 1,800 farmers across 46 states. Some run educational farms for school trips, but others simply farm. No workshops. No signage. Just soil, livestock and spreadsheets.

“When Jewish people enter agriculture, it often feels like they’re departing from Judaism,” said Shani Mink, the group’s co-founder and executive director. “But we try to show that it can actually be a deeper encounter with it — because at its core, Judaism is agrarian.”

The Greenbergs’ farm still feels young — part vision, part construction site. They’re hoping to add heritage ducks next year, starting with the Silver Appleyard breed, which currently has no kosher supplier. A small curbside farm stand is in the works, where they could sell eggs, meat and Miriam’s sourdough bread.

The Greenbergs, as is their tradition, are hosting Thanksgiving on the farm with visiting family and friends. The turkeys will be their own, of course. Peanut Butter will make his rounds.

In a few days, ovens will preheat. Football games will hum in the background. Parade balloons will float past Macy’s like oversized guests. And somewhere between the gobbling and the grace after meals, one Jewish farm will find out whether a taste from the past still belongs to the future.

The post This Jewish family is betting the farm on Thanksgiving turkeys like bubbe cooked appeared first on The Forward.

The United States said it had made significant progress on crafting a plan to end the war in Ukraine during talks on Sunday but no agreement was reached on how to guarantee Kyiv’s security amid concerns about the threat posed by Russia.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the talks in Geneva with a high-level Ukrainian delegation after Kyiv and its allies voiced alarm about a US-backed plan because of what they saw as major concessions to Russia, and pressed for changes.

Rubio said work remained to be done on questions including the role of NATO and security guarantees for Ukraine, but that his team had narrowed down unresolved issues in a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine championed by President Donald Trump.

“And we have achieved that today in a very substantial way,” Rubio told reporters at the US mission in Geneva.

Earlier, Trump said Ukraine had not been grateful for American efforts over the war, prompting Ukrainian officials to stress their gratitude to the US president for his support.

European officials joined the US and Ukrainian delegations for talks late on Sunday after crafting a modified version of the US plan for Ukraine that pushes back on proposed limits to Kyiv’s armed forces and mooted territorial concessions.

The European plan proposes that Ukraine be granted a larger military than under the US plan and that talks on land swaps should start from the front line rather than a pre-determined view of which areas should be considered Russian.

On Friday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had until Thursday to approve the plan, which calls on Ukraine to cede territory, accept limits on its military and renounce ambitions to join NATO.

For many Ukrainians, including soldiers fighting on the front lines, such terms would amount to capitulation after nearly four years of fighting in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two. On Saturday, Trump said the current proposal for ending the war is not his final offer.

Rubio said the United States still needed time to address the pending issues. He hoped a deal could be reached by Thursday but suggested that it could also take longer.

US and Ukrainian officials were discussing the possibility of Zelensky traveling to the United States, maybe as early as this week, to discuss the peace plan with Trump, two sources familiar with matter said on Sunday.

The main idea is that they would discuss the most sensitive issues in the peace plan, such as the matter of territory, one of the sources said. There is no confirmed date for now, the source added.

ORIGIN OF U.S. PLAN STIRS CONTROVERSY

The main talks between US and Ukrainian officials got under way in a stiff atmosphere at the US mission, soon after Trump complained in a Truth Social post that Ukraine’s leadership had shown “zero gratitude” to the US for its efforts and Europe continued to buy Russian oil.

Rubio interrupted the meeting to speak to reporters, saying the talks had been probably the best the US had held with Ukraine since Trump returned to power.

He said changes would be made to the plan to work towards a solution that both Ukraine and the US could support.

“Obviously this will ultimately have to be signed off with our presidents, although I feel very comfortable about that happening given the progress we’ve made,” said Rubio.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian delegation, was at pains to thank Trump for his commitment to Kyiv during the brief interlude. Minutes later, Zelensky also thanked Trump.

Yermak did not reappear with Rubio when the talks ended.

Since the US plan was announced, there has been confusion about who was involved in drawing it up. European allies said they had not been consulted.

Before heading to Geneva, Rubio insisted on X that Washington had authored the plan after remarks from some US senators suggesting otherwise.

Senator Angus King said Rubio had told senators the plan was not the administration’s position, but “essentially the wish-list of the Russians.”

A PERILOUS MOMENT FOR UKRAINE

The draft US plan, which includes many of Russia’s key demands and offers only vague assurances to Ukraine of “robust security guarantees,” comes at a perilous moment for Kyiv.

Russia has been making gains on parts of the front, albeit slowly and, according to Western and Ukrainian officials, the advances have been extremely costly in terms of lives lost.

The transportation hub of Pokrovsk has been partially taken by Russian forces and Ukrainian commanders say they do not have enough soldiers to prevent small, persistent incursions.

Ukraine’s power and gas facilities have been pummeled by drone and missile attacks, meaning millions of people are without water, heating and power for hours each day.

Zelensky himself has been under pressure domestically after a major corruption scandal broke, ensnaring some of his ministers and people in his close entourage.

He has warned that Ukraine risked losing its dignity and freedom – or Washington’s backing – over the US plan.

Kyiv had taken heart in recent weeks after the United States tightened sanctions on Russia’s oil sector, the main source of funding for the war, while its own long-range drone and missile strikes have caused considerable damage to the industry.

But the draft peace plan appears to hand the diplomatic advantage back to Moscow. Ukraine relies heavily on US intelligence and weapons to sustain its war against Russia.

The Israeli military on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s top military official, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, in a strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital that came despite a year-long ceasefire.

His killing was announced by Israel’s military. Hezbollah later confirmed his death, hailing him as “the great jihadist commander” who had “worked to confront the Israeli enemy until the last moment of his blessed life.”

Israel had already eliminated most of Iran-backed Hezbollah’s leadership during a war that raged between October 2023 and November 2024, when a US-brokered truce was agreed.

But Tabtabai, who was appointed as the group’s chief of staff after its recent war with Israel, was killed in a rare post-ceasefire operation against a senior Hezbollah figure.

MILITARY LEADER ROSE THROUGH HEZBOLLAH’S RANKS

Tabtabai was born in Lebanon in 1968 to a father with Iranian roots and a Lebanese mother, according to a senior Lebanese security source. He was not a founding member of Hezbollah but was part of its “second generation,” deploying with the group to fight alongside its allies in Syria and Yemen, the source said.

Israel’s military said Tabtabai joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and held several senior posts, including in its Radwan Force, an elite fighting unit. Israel killed most Radwan figures last year ahead of its ground invasion into Lebanon.

During last year’s war, Tabtabai led Hezbollah’s operations division and rose in rank as other top commanders were eliminated, the Israeli military’s statement said.

Once the ceasefire came into force, Tabtabai was appointed chief of staff and “worked extensively to restore their readiness for war with Israel,” according to the statement.

The Lebanese security source confirmed Tabtabai was swiftly promoted as other top Hezbollah officials were killed, and had been appointed chief of staff over the last year.

The Alma Center, a security research and teaching organization in Israel, said Tabtabai had survived other Israeli attacks both in Syria and during the war in Lebanon.