Jewish Initiative for Animals - 2021 Annual Report

ANNUAL REPORT

2021

LET TER from the Director Building a Jewish Communal Response to Factory Farming

Ancient Jewish texts provide a template from which we learn about the need to bring our food system into economic and ecological balance, including an ethic of domestic animal care. For every six years of agricultural production, Jews are directed to let their ancestral land regenerate, and provide for the people and animals in the community.

This year happens to coincide with that year of Shmita, or release—a restorative practice that would be foreign to any conventional US farming model.

This year in particular, Jewish leaders are reviving Shmita as a time for Jewish communities to attune ourselves to the impacts of industrial production.

From JIFA’s perspective, communities can do much to enact the values of Shmita through the food they buy and serve.

When faith-based work emanates from authentic tradition and embedded leadership, the result is transformative: just this year, JIFA inspired over 250 Jewish leaders and 20,000 individuals to call out the gulf between what the word kosher means to traditional dietary practices (literally, fit for consumption) and what kosher now means for most certified animal products: factory-farmed.

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According to national research that JIFA designed and commissioned, misperceptions about kosher labels are widespread, including the impression that kosher products come from farms that treat animals more humanely—a fact that points to widespread humanewashing among kosher meat products. Industrial agricultural methods, and their harms to animals, public health, workers, and the environment, lie at the root of Jewish leaders’ concern that kosher labels are incompatible with Jewish ethics.

Exposing humanewashing is instrumental in building a communal will to adopt food practices that align how religious communities eat with their religious values. As reported by Tablet Magazine, leaders in a variety of religious settings are urging communities to adopt more sustainable food practices.

[M]isperceptions about kosher labels are widespread, including the impression that kosher products come from farms that treat animals more humanely—a fact that points to widespread humanewashing among kosher meat products.

For Jews, this message takes on particular significance during the Shmita year. Prior to industrialization, foods that earned the status of kosher had achieved prestige that was consistent with Jewish community’s expectations; Jewish leaders have rallied behind our campaign to restore kosher to that original ideal. JIFA’s commitment to supporting institutional change through ethical food policies will continue to build a world in which kosher is synonymous with Jewish values, not factory farming.

Blessings,

Melissa Hoffman Director, Jewish Initiative for Animals

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By the NUMBERS 250

Rabbis & senior Jewish leaders signed JIFA’s Leaders

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educational presentations delivered to an international

20K+

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Pledge condemning kosher humanewashing and calling for institutions to adopt more sustainable food practices.

audience of over 800 participants alone and in collaboration with multi-faith partners.

individuals were reached on social media by JIFA’s campaign to raise awareness about humanewashing in kosher products.

PROGRAM Highlights Hillel International enlisted JIFA to create and deliver a Food Justice curriculum for their Campus Corps Program, a new service-learning internship for student leaders across the country.

The program launched with 26 Hillel students wrestling with the ethical and practical challenges of enacting Jewish food values in the age of factory farms. This up-and-coming generation of leaders, equipped with the knowledge and training they receive through this internship, could be instrumental in transforming how our religious institutions eat and farm.

Photo: Courtesy of Berkeley Hillel

In 2021, Brooks McCormick Jr. Trust for Animals Rights Law and Policy provided support for JIFA to launch a one-of-a-kind learning series tailored to professionals in non-profit settings, including Jewish environmental, social justice, policy, and student engagement organizations. Together with the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, JIFA organized and delivered a four-part educational program on the importance of farmed animal welfare—including how animal welfare connects to issues such as public health, worker justice, environmental health and climate change—from a uniquely Jewish perspective.

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Groundbreaking RESEARCH JIFA conducted groundbreaking research showing that misperceptions about what kosher labels mean, especially for animal welfare, are widespread.

According to the results of two national surveys, both the general population and Jewish Americans believe a kosher certification means products such as chicken, beef, dairy, eggs, and fish come from animals who were treated better over the course

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of their lives than non-kosher. Additionally, Jewish Americans are more likely to hold false beliefs about kosher-certified animal products than the general population of Americans.

The data powerfully illustrates the influence of kosher humanewashing has on both Jewish and non-Jewish consumers.

MEDIA Highlights Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media

Key pieces in top-tier Jewish media highlighted the topic of kosher humanewashing. The influential Jewish magazine Tablet covered JIFA’s campaign, with interviews from some of its highest profile signatories—including Rabbis David Wolpe and Shmuly Yanklowitz and Hazon CEO Jakir Manela —about why kosher meat should not be factory farmed, producing some of the most powerful

“Ethical Kashrut”

religious condemnations of industrial farming in print today. The Times of Israel featured JIFA’s op-ed about honoring the Jewish Sabbatical year (shemitah) by reimagining our food practices. In The Forward, JIFA continued to engage Jewish communities in critical conversations around farming, pandemic risk, and reopening Jewish institutional dining with more sustainable food choices.

“The shemitah year calls us to repair a broken food system”

“How are we going to eat together again?”

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THANK YOU to Our Supporters

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Abraham Havivi

Jonathan S. Leo

We are grateful to our individual donors who have supported us throughout the year.

Alice Jena

Leah Ilan

Amy Kranzler

Melissa Scher

Beth Finger

Nanu

Betty & Estelle Mednick

Roger Higginson

Beverly Schieman

Sarah C.

Every act of generosity and tzedakah has the power to transform our Jewish community and help us build a kinder, more just, and more resilient food system.

Carol Newman

Shmuly Yanklowitz

Deborah Machalow

Susana & Michael Hoffman

Evelyn Dickson Geoffrey Claussen

The Bread & Torah Project

Janet Kolodner

Ziva Prince

Jennifer Levine

Evelyn G. Dickson & Michael W. Roman

JEWISHcolorado Jewish Community Foundation of Central Pennsylvania

Alex Willick

Aligning our food choices with our Jewish values

Contact us: jifa@farmforward.com / 323.403.5264 phone / PO Box 4120 Portland, OR 97208 / Follow us: @JIFAnimals & @jewishinitiativeforanimals