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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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A new musical wonders: What happened to solidarity with English Jews?
The Battle of Cable Street, a 1936 street scuffle off an obscure stretch of road in London’s East End, holds a totemic importance to the Jews of England, and, given how few they are in number, a correspondingly small significance in the larger British imagination.
The musical Cable Street, dramatizing that showdown between Jewish and Irish East Enders against Oswald Mosley’s fascist blackshirts, arrives Off-Broadway from London amid a spate of headlines about the safety of English Jews and a subsequent minimization of their fears. Only now, the political alignment of those defending or hectoring Jews has recalibrated from the days the play examines.
In his rhetoric and tactics, the anti-Islam “activist” Tommy Robinson, who antagonizes Muslim neighborhoods and marched through Central London in his “Unite the Kingdom” rallies, would appear to be the heir apparent to a Mosley, with the exception that he presents himself as a friend of the Jews. (Most Jews in the U.K. won’t have him; the Israeli far-right welcomed him to the Jewish state last October.)
On the left, the multicultural coalition has found a cause in Palestinian rights, which they march for like clockwork. Jews, who in the U.K. make up about .5% of the population but a whole 29% of recorded religious hate crimes, don’t count in their social justice calculus, comedian David Baddiel has argued. Evidence is mounting in that direction.
Police have surrendered to community leaders pushing to cancel an Israeli soccer club match, fabricating evidence with A.I. post facto to make it seem like the Israel fans will be the violent faction. A Panorama documentary from last month makes an earnest case for Jewish anxiety, but aired only after the BBC was made to review their standards over stories on Gaza following the network running a documentary that failed to disclose its narrator was the son of a Hamas minister. (This to my mind is nowhere near as egregious as the channel’s reluctance some years before to back down from blaming Orthodox children for their own abuse by mistranslating a word of Hebrew into an anti-Arab slur.)
Jews being gunned down outside shuls on Yom Kippur or stabbed in the streets – as they were just last week, two days before I saw this musical — don’t mobilize the masses. They do get the odd pundit condemning the violence, only to then to whatabout with the humanitarian disaster in Gaza or blame Jewish institutions’ efforts to conflate Jews and Israel, as if only when uncoupled will their targeting be truly horrendous.
British Jews are so much a rounding error they could hardly sway a council election. That fact scarcely moves the needle on the old libels of governmental control, as Labour responds to violence with crack downs on pro-Palestinian protests.
The development of Cable Street goes back years before the current bloodletting, yet it has hit on a rhyme in history.
The story provides a framing device of a present-day walking tour before jumping back in time to follow three youths and their families: Irish immigrant Mairead (Lizzy-Rose Essin-Kelly), who dreams of a writer’s life during her day job rolling bagels; Sammy Scheinberg (a dynamic Isaac Gryn), who wants to be a boxer against the wishes of his shmata business father; and Ron (Barney Wilkinson) a recent Lancashire transplant, underemployed, with hair the color of threshed wheat, ripe for recruitment by a band of populist nativists.
The show finds hope in an unlikely coalition of Irish dockworkers, Jews and Communists rallying to stop a police-escorted British Union of Fascists (BUF) march through London’s Jewish Quarter. The parable is so near to today’s headlines that it can make one’s head spin, and, in the particular case of a Jew, scan for allies. Better luck in New York, with the Brits Off Broadway festival, than across the pond, where this may be taken as a more general parable, with Jews as allegorical victims standing in for other marginalized groups. To read into the story the excesses of today’s protests, and what the authorities allow under the pretext of free speech, would surely be sacrilege, depending on which marchers it’s applied to and where your loyalties lie.
The music by Tim Gilvin has shades of what I’ll call Hebraic Hamilton (“Dream of making the dough, making the bread, baking the challah,” Sammy spits bars over a backbeat). There’s an Irish jig and a ballad that sounds like Coldplay, and “Only Words,” an elegiac plea from a Jewish father to his hothead son. (Jez Unwin plays the Scheinberg patriarch, a modern-day descendant and the leader of the Stepney BUF.) A ragtime number of chattering broadsheets sellers feeds us intermittent exposition.
The introduction of the BUF imagines them as a ‘90s boy band, making fun before they prove their menace. It works better downtown, when the Nazis in another British import, Operation Mincemeat, do their K-Pop number, as that show is an all-out farce.
Better by far is the play’s treatment of Jewish scenes, scripted by book writer Alex Kanefsky with deft direction by Adam Lenson. We hear a hamotzi, see a synagogue (with an implied women’s balcony) and hear a refrain of Sholem Aleichem and Sim Shalom integrated into musically layered sequences.
The indefatigable cast of 13 plays countless characters, switching allegiances from Mosleyites to Jews at the donning of an armband. This can lead to odd stage imagery, as when musician-actor Max Alexander-Taylor is togged up like a blackshirt while riffing on an electric guitar. (The rest of the band is on a top level, shielded in by the corrugated metal and chainlink of Yoav Segal’s set design.)
But there are moments of sublime stage work, après Les Miz, as the story’s action rises and the street mounts a defense with slogans borrowed from Spanish Republicans. The play, in its chilling wisdom, doesn’t stop at this high point. It allows room for what followed: The BUF’s membership only grew after the battle. Regrouping, they retaliated with a pogrom against the Jews. This time, no one showed up to defend them.
The cringey lyric of the battle song — “we’re not like the others, we won’t let you demonize our sisters and brothers” — is replaced with a more sober conclusion from Sammy’s sister in the wreckage of the attack.
After noting how “the rich blame the poor, the poor blame the rich and everybody hates the Jews,” Rosa Scheinberg (Romona Lewis-Malley) laments that “when the common enemy’s defeated, old wounds flare up, and old mistakes get repeated.” Solidarity was but a brief and shining moment.
As a concession to hope, the show doesn’t end there, but it very well might.
The musical Cable Street plays at 59E59 in New York through May 24. Tickets and more information can be found here.
The post A new musical wonders: What happened to solidarity with English Jews? appeared first on The Forward.
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Progress Without Power: The Limits of the Lebanon Ceasefire
Smoke rises following explosions in southern Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, April 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
Last month’s announcement by President Donald Trump of a temporary extension to the Lebanon–Israel ceasefire, amidst ambassador-level Israeli-Lebanese talks in Washington, was greeted, in some quarters, with cautious optimism.
This is understandable.
Lebanon and Israel have been in a technical state of war for decades, with even basic engagement once unthinkable.
What’s more, rhetoric emerging from the Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun — including unprecedented criticisms of Hezbollah, the heavily armed Iranian terrorist proxy which has dominated Lebanon for decades — provides even more reasons for optimism.
But that optimism collided almost immediately with reality. Soon after the extension was announced, Israeli troops came under attack from a Hezbollah drone strike, leaving six wounded and 19-year-old Sgt. Idan Fooks dead — the third Israeli soldier killed since the ceasefire began in early April.
Israel responded, as it was entitled to under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, with targeted strikes on Hezbollah positions and infrastructure. Retaliatory attacks have since continued.
These events expose the limits of the ceasefire.
The intentions may be honorable, and hopes may be real. But hope is not a strategy. And the situation in Lebanon is such that any positive hopes for an end to the violence cannot be fulfilled while an armed Hezbollah remains a decisive power in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has long operated as a state within a state — exercising power far beyond Lebanon’s elected government. Any agreement struck with Beirut is therefore inherently constrained, because the Lebanese government does not control much of its own territory, and does not currently have the ability to make Hezbollah stop firing at Israel, much less disarm. Indeed, Hezbollah openly says it will not be bound by any deal the Lebanese government makes with Israel.
This reality was laid bare in March, when Lebanon expelled the Iranian ambassador — only for him to simply refuse to leave.
To its credit, for the first time in years, Lebanon has shown signs of recognizing the problem, and trying to actually do something about it. For example, Lebanon has moved to end Hezbollah’s control over Beirut’s airport, taken steps against unauthorized weapons, and President Joseph Aoun has even accused Hezbollah of treason.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue to uncover Hezbollah weapons stockpiles — including in children’s rooms and underground bunkers within populated areas in southern Lebanon, which the Lebanese army claimed to have cleared of Hezbollah military bases and activity last year. All of this is in direct violation of the 2006 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament, as well as the ceasefire agreement that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, in which Beirut promised to finally fulfill its obligation under 1701.
This is why the current ceasefire does not fully address the real sources of violence and instability, even as too many in the international community continue to confuse ceasefires with peace.
Reports indicate that Hamas is using the ceasefire in Gaza to rebuild capabilities and consolidate control there. Hezbollah has followed a similar pattern. So even if periods of calm emerge, they are unlikely to last long.
There is no question that Iran and its proxies have been weakened by the last two and a half years of war. But ideological regimes do not measure success in conventional terms. They do not concede defeat. And they do not abandon their objectives.
This is why the persistent focus by parts of the international community on ceasefires and “de-escalation” — with the demands directed mainly at Israel — risks overlooking the central challenge.
French President Emmanuel Macron continues to push for de-escalation, urging Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory and calling for Hezbollah to cease its attacks. He also says Hezbollah must ultimately be disarmed by the Lebanese themselves.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong echoes similar concerns, condemning Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and calling for an immediate cessation. At the same time, she has condemned in the “strongest terms” Israeli strikes on Lebanon, without fully acknowledging that they have been targeted against Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives. She mentions in passing that Hezbollah should be disarmed.
Yet both leaders failed to address just how Hezbollah can be disarmed — which is the central question. Statements that Hezbollah “should” be disarmed are nothing but empty words.
When dealing with absolutist religious ideologies, diplomacy is not necessarily a strength. It can become a vulnerability — exploited by those who understand that the Western aversion to conflict can itself be weaponized.
The Israel-Lebanon talks are signs of progress. But progress without power is terribly fragile. And as long as Hezbollah remains armed and entrenched, hope is a dangerous strategy.
Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
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Israel Must Stop Handing Victories to Its Critics
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem, May 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Ronen Zvulun.
Are some of Israel’s own decisions undermining its future?
No one who cares about Israel wants to ask that question. No one who understands Jewish history, regional reality, or the relentless threats Israel faces wants to even entertain it. Yet concern is growing among many who support Israel deeply and sincerely. They are not questioning Israel’s right to exist — but they are questioning if Israel’s actions are harming the Jewish State in the long run.
Let me be clear from the start: Israel has every right to exist. Israel has every right to defend its citizens. Israel has every right to confront terrorism and prevent those who openly seek its destruction from succeeding. In a region where genocidal rhetoric is still common, self defense is not optional. It is essential.
But rights alone do not guarantee wisdom. A nation can be morally justified and strategically misguided at the same time.
Recent events surrounding attempts to breach the Gaza maritime blockade offer a telling example. Many of the activists involved are not neutral humanitarians. Some seek spectacle more than solutions. They understand that confrontation with Israel generates headlines and outrage, and that images travel quickly across the world. Provocation is often the point.
Yet Israel too often responds in ways that hand these provocateurs exactly what they want.
Stopping a vessel at sea may secure an immediate tactical objective. But if the result is another cycle of global accusations, another flood of hostile coverage, and another round of diplomatic damage, then a narrow operational success becomes a strategic failure.
Israel frequently wins the immediate encounter while losing the larger narrative.
That problem extends well beyond maritime incidents.
Many people around the world defend Israel in increasingly hostile environments. Diaspora Jews face intimidation on campuses and in public life. Christian allies speak out despite social pressure. Non-Jewish advocates challenge lies, distortions, and double standards at personal cost. They write, donate, organize, and absorb abuse.
Too many feel taken for granted.
Allies matter. Gratitude matters. Communication matters. Nations under pressure cannot afford to neglect those who stand with them. Support should not be treated as automatic or endless. It must be nurtured.
Another issue that troubles even committed supporters is the use of administrative detention and other extraordinary emergency powers. Israel undeniably faces real security threats. Some dangers cannot be handled through ordinary methods alone. But emergency measures that become routine create a moral and political burden.
When people are held for long periods without normal judicial processes, Israel’s critics seize on every case. More importantly, genuine friends of Israel become uneasy. They ask whether a state founded as a refuge for a persecuted people is drifting from the democratic principles it was meant to embody.
There is also a message for ordinary citizens in Israel — especially those on the far right.
Israel is judged by a harsher standard than most nations. That reality is unfair, often hypocritical, and sometimes openly antisemitic. But it is reality nonetheless. Every act of racist violence, every attack on innocent civilians, every mosque vandalized, every tree burned, every mob chanting hatred, every soldier filmed humiliating noncombatants without cause becomes a global symbol.
One reckless act by one person can damage an entire nation.
Israel does not have the luxury of indiscipline. It is not a quiet country insulated by geography and history. It carries the security of millions of Jews. It carries the memory of exile and extermination. It carries the burden of proving that Jewish sovereignty can be both strong and just.
That requires more than military power. It requires discipline, humility, gratitude, legal integrity, and strategic patience.
Israel’s enemies would love nothing more than to see the Jewish State become isolated, angry, careless, and morally confused. Their greatest victory would not come on the battlefield. It would come if Israel helped destroy its own legitimacy.
The answer, then, is not despair. It is course correction.
Think carefully before reacting. Think strategically before escalating. Think morally before normalizing emergency measures. Think politically before alienating allies.
Israel was built through courage, sacrifice, and vision. It should not be weakened by avoidable mistakes.
The gravest danger to Israel may not come only from those who seek to destroy it from without. It may also come from forgetting how to preserve itself from within.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.