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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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US, Israel Said to Plan New Iran Strikes as Tehran Pounds UAE
People walk past a billboard with a graphic design about the Strait of Hormuz on a building, amid a ceasefire between US and Iran, in Tehran, Iran, April 27, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Israel and the US are coordinating plans for another round of strikes on Iranian targets, CNN reported Tuesday, as Iran kept up its attacks on the United Arab Emirates for a second straight day and amid reports that the Gulf state’s defense increasingly appeared to be drawing on Israeli support.
CNN cited an Israeli source as saying that the plans, largely drawn up before the ceasefire with Iran began in April, include strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure and targeted killings of senior officials.
“The intention would be to carry out a short campaign aimed at pressuring Iran into further concessions in negotiations,” the source said, adding that any decision to resume the war would be made by US President Donald Trump.
CNN also reported that an Israeli-operated Iron Dome battery intercepted an Iranian missile over the UAE on Monday, the first known use of the system to defend a Gulf state. The system had been secretly deployed there at the start of the war, according to the report, along with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers sent to operate the system.
The system has so far intercepted dozens of Iranian missiles in the UAE, according to Israeli officials cited in a separate report by Axios.
The UAE said Iran fired 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles, and four drones at the country on Monday. And then, according to Emirati officials, Iran launched additional missiles and drones on Tuesday. The UAE’s Foreign Ministry called the attacks a “serious escalation” and a “direct threat” to national security, adding that the UAE reserves its “full and legitimate right” to respond.
Another report by the London-based Iran International said that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was furious over the escalation and warned military commanders of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that the “completely irresponsible” attacks risked dragging Iran back into full-scale war.
He also described the IRGC’s handling of tensions with regional states as “madness,” the report said, citing sources close to the matter, and warned that the consequences could be irreversible.
The New York Times reported last week that senior IRGC commanders were increasingly driving decision-making in Tehran, with Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, unable to command the system with the authority once wielded by his father. The report added to mounting rumors over Khamenei’s health and capacity, and to growing confusion over who is ultimately directing Iran’s military and political response.
Iranian state media, citing an unnamed military official, said that the strikes on the UAE were unintentional and “the result of the US military’s adventurism to create passage for illegal ship transit” through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s trade in oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, on Monday said American forces had cleared a mine-free route through the strait, which Iran shut in response to the US-Israeli strikes, and were escorting civilian vessels when Tehran launched cruise missiles, drones, and small boats at ships under US protection.
US military helicopters destroyed six of the boats, Cooper told reporters, saying “each and every” threat had been defeated.
Beyond mounting escorted transits for commercial vessels, the US has countered Iran’s shutdown of the waterway by blockading Iranian ports, a move that has further crippled the country’s already ailing economy and pushed it to the brink of collapse.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards issued a new warning Tuesday, saying any vessel that does not use the route approved by Tehran through the Strait of Hormuz would face retaliation.
“We warn all vessels planning to transit the Strait of Hormuz that the only safe passage is the corridor previously announced by Iran. Any diversion of ships to other routes is dangerous and will result in a firm response from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards navy,” the Guards said in a statement carried by state television.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Tuesday said the military was “closely monitoring developments in the Gulf” and is “prepared to respond with force against any attempt to harm Israel.”
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Brooklyn Nets Forward Michael Porter Jr. Defends Deni Avdija Against Hate for Representing Israel
Mar 2, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija (8) drives to the basket against Cleveland Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome (2) and forward Dean Wade (32) during the second half at Rocket Arena. Photot: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images via Reuters Connect
Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. defended fellow NBA player and Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija against the hate he receives for representing his home country of Israel.
Porter Jr. recently made an appearance on a live stream with YouTuber N3on and mentioned that Avdija is a player who gets to the free-throw line often. N3on then commented that Avdija “gets a lot of hate,” referring to hate messages on social media, even though “he’s a good player.” When Porter asked the streamer if Avdija is criticized because he is Jewish, N3on replied yes.
“Really? What are people mad about?” Porter asked.
“Because he wore a flag or something,” N3on replied, referring to Avdija’s public display of pride for Israel, such as wearing a jersey featuring an Israeli flag or draping himself in an Israeli flag on the court.
“It’s so weird,” Porter said in response. “Do people not want others to represent their country? What do they expect from him?”
Michael Porter Jr. tells N3on people are weird for hating on Deni Avdija just because he proudly represents Israel
“Why hate someone for repping their country?”
pic.twitter.com/C945Xr0dhB
— luci. (@inmaxera) May 2, 2026
Avdija, who is set to become a free agent in 2028, is the first Israeli to be named an NBA All-Star and last month became the first Israeli to reach and win an NBA Playoff game. Unfortunately, the Portland Trail Blazers ended their 2025-26 season last week with a 114-95 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the 2026 playoffs.
Earlier the year, Avdija spoke to The Athletic about the hate that he receives as an NBA player from Israel.
“I obviously stand for my country, because that’s where I’m from. It’s frustrating to see all the hate,” he said. “Like, I have a good game or get All-Star votes, and all the comments [on social media] are people connecting me to politics. Like, why can’t I just be a good basketball player? Why does it matter if I’m from Israel, or wherever in the world, or what my race is? Just respect me as a basketball player.”
“You don’t have to love what I stand for or how I look, but if I’m a good player, give props,” Avdija added. “All this hate … for no reason, like I’m deciding things in the world … I’m from there, and I respect my country, and I stand behind it. I’m a proud Israeli because that’s where I grew up. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Israel and the support the people and fans gave me. But all the extra stuff around it? It’s just unnecessary.”
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Mike Stoller and Iris Rainer Dart talk ‘Beaches’ and reviving their Yiddish musical
A Peanuts poster in the background of our video call reminds Iris Rainer Dart of her brief time starring in a musical.
“I was the understudy for Judy Kaye in the L.A. company of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown,” recalled Dart, 82, the author of the bestselling novel Beaches and the book and lyrics for the new Broadway musical based on it. “She wanted to go home for Thanksgiving, and so they let me go on one time to see if I could do it. And then for Thanksgiving, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then went on as Lucy!”
After that, it was curtains. “That’s my distinguished acting career,” Dart said. “Boy, am I glad it gave me up!”
But Dart never gave up on musicals, which she started writing as an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon with an up-and-coming composer named Stephen Schwartz. She worked as a writer for Sonny and Cher’s variety show, and used Cher as a partial model for the character of Cee Cee Bloom, the brassy diva whose friendship with the more refined Bertie White is the center of Beaches. (There’s a bit of Dart in Bloom, too — namely the Jewishness.) Years later, after Garry Marshall directed the 1988 film version of Beaches, Bette Midler, who gave life to Cee Cee on screen, asked Dart to write a new vehicle for her.
Searching for subject matter, Dart remembered her stint as a replacement teacher at her daughter’s Jewish school in her largely Judenrein neck of California. She felt unprepared to take over — “The understudy doesn’t know the lines” — but she got mailers from Jewish institutions to develop her lesson plans. One was a catalog of Yiddish films.
Growing up in Pittsburgh with Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents, she didn’t need subtitles to watch them. Inspired, she wrote what would become The People in the Picture, a memory play of Yiddish theater and the Holocaust.
Midler wouldn’t go on to star in the show, which debuted on Broadway in 2011 with Donna Murphy, but she made the shidduch between Dart and Mike Stoller, the legendary songsmith who, with lyricist Jerry Leiber, penned “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Yakety Yak” and, yes, a tune called “Charlie Brown” for the Coasters.
When it came time to adapt Beaches, a story built in part around backstage drama, and an enduring friendship that grows out of it, Dart reconnected with Stoller after working with a different composer on a previous run of the show.
Stoller, 93, has had his music feature in many Broadway musicals — mostly of the jukebox variety, long after they had already been hit records. He says he approaches crafting an original score differently, writing for characters rather than an artist like Elvis. With Beaches he set out to write a “musical-musical,” that was traditional and book-driven. In the case of both Beaches and People in the Picture, there’s a heaping helping of Yiddishkeit.
One line that has audiences rolling in the aisles comes when Cee Cee (played by Jessica Vosk) pays a visit to her friend Bertie (Kelli Barrett), whose mother is dying at a Catholic hospital. She tells the nuns “my mother used to point you out to me on the street and say, ‘At least they married a Jewish guy.’”
Stoller spent some of his early years living in the converted basement of his grandparents’ house in Bell End, Queens. His grandmother spoke Yiddish, Russian, Polish and English with a Cockney accent.
“She left Bialystok and moved to Whitechapel in London on her way to America,” Stoller explained.
Stoller never had a bar mitzvah, and learned his father didn’t either. It was only when the family moved to California that Stoller learned his dad, A.L. Stoller’s, full name.
“I was thrilled to find out that his name was really ‘Abraham Lincoln Stoler,’” Stoller recalled. “In a way, it sounded Black, and I was working primarily with African American people when I started writing along with Jerry, and those were the singers that inspired us, and so I felt additional pride in his name.”
The People in the Picture brought Stoller to tears. Beaches, which (spoilers for a 41-year-old story) ends with Bertie’s untimely death, has audiences cracking up before they reach for a Kleenex.
The one song Stoller didn’t compose for the show is “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” which became a standard from the film. But beyond that, the story stays truer to Dart’s novel than the movie did.
“I always knew, because I wasn’t writing it, that it would not be the story that I wanted to tell,” said Dart of the film version. “The story I wanted to tell was in the book and in this musical.”
In the meantime, Stoller and Dart want to bring back People in the Picture. Dart said she has a new draft ready to go.
“I’m hoping that maybe we can get Jeff Goldblum, who says he loves Yiddish,” Dart said. “He’s from Pittsburgh also, and I think his father, Dr. Goldblum, may have been the doctor to my family, to my mother. Because there were two Dr Goldblums, and one of them was an eye doctor, and my mother was always trying to fix him up with my cousin.”
“Need I say more?” Dart asked.
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