A Food Initiative

SheHaKol is a 1 year fellowship for students at Yale that explores food: how we eat, what we eat, why we eat what we eat.  This initiative  emerged out of  conversations with students about food, spirituality, kashrut, and what we choose to eat.  After the story broke last year about Agriprocessors, the themes of factory farming, the treatment of animals, sustainability and how to become more connected with food kept re-emerging in individual conversations with students.  This year a group of 12 students will join Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt on a food adventure to explore our own stories about food and how we might eat more consciously.

The initiative includes:

A locally grown, home cooked meal over which we will talk about what food means to us.  How meals have shaped spiritual experiences and how food plays into our Jewish story.

A Sunday afternoon session with shohet Andrew Kastner.  We will learn together the ethical laws of schitah (kosher slaughter), hear from Andy about his own desire to become a shohet, followed by a hands on demonstration of the slaughter of 3 chickens.

Dinner and a conversation about buying locally, creativity and the spirituality of food with owner and chef Bun Lai of Miya’s Sushi.

Spring break with the Jewish Farm School in Ithaca, NY.  We will spend the week cooking, learning Jewish texts related to food and the land, and maple sugaring.

A final meal prepared by the participants at Joseph Slifka Center’s Kosher Kitchen.  The food will be locally bought, the meal will be cooked by students, and we will present our reflections (and dishes) from the journey to the rest of the community.

Join us on this journey!  Click the links below to find reflections, photographs, and articles that emerge from this food initiative.

November 12, 2009 – The First Meal

November 15th, 2009 Learning Schita