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Christopher Paul, Retriever Staff Writer, Volume 39, Issue 21, published March 15, 2005
Wood Food Services Company will be offering improved kosher meals in the dining hall during Passover, beginning Saturday, April 23 and ending Sunday, May 1, in an effort to address Jewish students religious needs.
The kosher meal plan will provide lunch and dinner in the dining hall every day of Passover except Seder night, and will include seven freshly prepared hot and cold meals during the intermediate days of Passover, April 26 to April 29. In addition, an assortment of frozen meals will also be available throughout the entire holiday. Wood Food Services Company will be offering improved kosher meals in the dining hall during Passover, beginning Saturday, April 23 and ending Sunday, May 1, in an effort to address Jewish students religious needs.
"(It's) something we've been working on for one year. We are committed to addressing the ethnic needs of the students with the limited space facilities we have and we believe that this is a step in the right direction," Oscar Berninger, President of the Wood Company said.
"Complete meal plans have been available at most major university campuses in the Baltimore area and at University of Maryland, College Park for some time, but this will be a first for UMBC," said Jonathan Finkelstein, Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, Director of the undergraduate minor in Judaic Studies, and Associate Professor in Psychology.
According to Finkelstein and Rabbi Levi, Director of UMBC Hillel, a Passover Seder may be offered on the first night of Passover, Saturday, April 23, provided that there is sufficient interest. The main complication with offering a Seder this year is that the holiday begins right after Sabbath, on Saturday night making it difficult to have fresh foods for the following week.
If there is not enough interest for a Seder the first night of Passover, students who are unable to return home for the holiday may make arrangements with Rabbi Levi to participate in a family Seder within a variety of homes throughout the Baltimore community. "Jewish dietary restrictions are quite complicated during the eight day holiday and historically, Jewish students have had nothing to eat on campus during this week," Rabbi Levi said.
According to Arlene Mathes-Scharf, food scientist and kosher food specialist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Passover is a time of year when kosher consumers are most careful about what they eat, due to the strict prohibitions against eating or coming into contact with foods that contain chometz: barley, wheat, rye, oats, and spelt. This is based on the biblical injunction against eating or possessing leavened bread during Passover. (Exodus 12:18-20) The only exception is matzoh and matzoh meal products which are made from flour and water mixed together and baked for less than 18 minutes under rabbinic supervision.
In addition, most American Jews are Ashkenazim, meaning that they are of Eastern or Western European decent and cannot use kitnoit: legumes (such as soy, peanuts, and peas), corn and its derivatives such as corn oil, corn starch corn syrup, mustard flour, rice and lecithin. Oils used in preparing food such as greasing baking pans become highly important as only cottonseed, grape seed or safflower oil may be used.
Many products that say they are kosher for Passover may still be inappropriate for Ashkenazim Jews. Many of these products are imported from Israel, where the majority of the population is Sephardim, who do use kitniot, increasing the complications.
There are many innocuous appearing products, which require proper kosher certification such as sodas, dried fruits, and candies. Sodas sold for everyday consumption contain a number of ingredients that are not kosher for Passover. Sodas for Passover must contain sugar cane as sweetener and not corn syrup. Soda bottlers typically use corn syrup as a sweetener in order to reduce manufacturing costs. Everyday sodas contain flavorings and colorings that may contain grain based alcohol which is not kosher for Passover.
Producers of dried fruits such as raisins use oils and waxes to prevent clumping. Glycerol is sometimes added to raisins to keep them moist. Therefore because of the processing agents used, raisins and dried fruit need to be kosher certified in order to be consumed during Passover. The fruit may also be dried in ovens used for processing chometz.
The kosher Passover meal plan is being administered by UMBC Hillel Rabbi Amos Levi and has been developed in cooperation with Leland Beitel, UMBC Associate Vice President of Administrative Affairs, Oscar Berninger, Wood Food Services Company, and Nancy Young, UMBC Director of Residential Life.
Additional information about the kosher Passover meal plan may be found on the web at http://www.baltimorehillel.org/images/passoverbrochure.pdf
Christopher Paul, Retriever Staff Writer, Volume 39, Issue 21, published March 15, 2005
As you may have read in this issue of the Retriever, Wood Co. will be offering increased options for kosher meals during Passover this year. Thanks to coordination from various people on campus, students will now have a number of choices for kosher meals.
Other schools have adopted similar policies regarding meals for Passover, and we at the Retriever applaud UMBC for following suit. The course of action shows respect for a broader, more diverse population.
Beyond simply offering kosher food, it is significant that the dining hall will provide actual choices. The fact that students are given a variety of options, rather than a single kosher meal, suggests that the plan will provide for real options to meet student's needs. Rather than mere lip-service, the program seems to be sincere, which students should appreciate.
While the opinion may be inconsequential to many UMBC students, it is an important move to indicate that the University is concerned in meeting the needs of a wide variety of students. As President Hrabowski frequently brags about the diversity of students here, providing kosher meals proves that the school is concerned with actually accommodating that diversity, not just bragging about it.
Dear Mr. Paul,
Just got to read your story (UMBC offers kosher food this Passover) in the March 15th issue of The Retriever. Very nice work. Thank you. I learned some new things from it about the variety of food customs and regulations associated with the holiday. I also want to express appreciation for the very supportive editorial (Wood Co., keeping it kosher) in the same issue.
As you probably know, Passover commemorates of the exodus of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt about 3300 years ago. The core values of freedom and civil rights, for all people, that the observance of Passover embodies have been held precious through the millennia. Their central importance is renewed each year through the Passover Seder and the 8-day-long holiday during which participants, and especially youngsters, are taught to think of themselves as having personally been brought from slavery to freedom. The special foods - their tastes and smells and the care put into their proper preparation - physically and symbolically highlight the continuing need continuously to safeguard freedom. The rule about eating only unleavened bread during Passover, for example, is associated with the need for the Jewish slaves to rapidly gather their belongings as they fled Egypt. There was not sufficient time to let their dough rise and they immediately and quickly baked the unleavened dough into the stiff, flat "bread" that was the precursor to today's stiff, flat matzah. This mainstay of the Passover holiday has come to be known as both "the bread of our affliction" when we were slaves and as a symbol of freedom from slavery and oppression first experienced over 3000 years ago.
In the spirit of inter-cultural, inter-ethnic, and inter-religious education and understanding at UMBC, a story on the meaning of Passover might be another worthwhile endeavor for The Retriever.
Best,
Jonathan Finkelstein
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