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February 14, 2003/Adar 12 5763, Vol. 55, No. 25
Keeping kosher
Schools' kashrut policies meet variety of needs
BETH OLSON
Staff Writer
Students at the Tri-City Jewish Community Center often take their kosher lunches outdoors for a picnic.
Photo courtesy of Nicole Culbertson
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It's most children's favorite part of the school day - lunch. But unlike public school, with hundreds of students and large cafeterias, the local Jewish day schools have fewer students and more limited facilities. Additionally, they have policies to maintain kosher standards both in school-provided lunches and those brought from home.
While each day school's kashrut policy differs somewhat, the principal theme is the same - to create an environment so that any child who comes from a family that keeps a kosher home will be able to maintain those standards at school.
Students at the Jess Schwartz Jewish Community High School bring their own dairy or pareve lunches to school, and packaged items brought in carry a hechsher (kosher certification), according to Headmaster Jay Schechter. He explains that it's particularly important that a community high school meet the needs of all students. According to the policy handbook, he says, the school has established "basic ground rules that make is possible for every Jewish family to feel comfortable in our school environment, therefore kashrut standards will be maintained throughout the school."
Schechter says that the policy has not been difficult to uphold.
"I've been quite pleased by the adjustment of many students ... to the kashrut policy," he says.
The King David School also asks that students bring dairy or pareve lunches, according to Avi Marcovitz, middle school principal and Judaic coordinator. Additionally, the school has arranged for private kosher catering, including King Solomon pizza on Thursdays and falafel on Fridays.
"Anything brought in is via the Vaad," says Marcovitz, referring to the Greater Phoenix Vaad Hakashruth, a kosher certification agency.
Pardes Jewish Day School is also served by an independent caterer that provides kosher lunches. Children may bring a dairy, pareve or kosher meat lunch. Bonnie Morris, head of school, says the policy meets the needs of students regardless of their level of the observance.
"I'd say the vast majority of the (school) population abstains from eating pork and shellfish products. Then there are people, a lesser number, who observe a separation between milk and meat, and a lesser number still who maintain separate sets of dishes in their home," she says. "You'll find that's consistent with the Reform movement, that you'll find the entire spectrum of observance."
The Tri-City Jewish Community Center Day School provides lunches daily from Lovicks Catering - twice a week they are served meat lunches and the other days are dairy or pareve. Students are also allowed to bring dairy, pareve or meat lunches on any day, so the school has separate tables for dairy and meat.
"We have separate tablecloths and sponges and everything you need to keep kosher for meat or dairy," explains Sharon Shelton, director.
Lorraine Harmon, owner of Lovicks Catering, says she provides kosher lunches to all of her private school customers because they have to be kosher for the JCC.
"I don't advertise it as kosher to anybody else," she says, "but all of our products are strictly kosher."
For Blair Dworkin, mother of two children at the JCC, the kashrut policy meets the needs of her family, which she says keeps "Conservative kosher," although she does lament that the catered meals are expensive.
"For two of them (it costs) $7 a day for hot meals," she says.
Phoenix Hebrew Academy is the only day school that provides kosher hot lunches prepared at the school, including meat meals. Rabbi Harris Cooperman, principal of the school, says children may also choose to bring a kosher pareve or dairy lunch. He points out that it's not only important to maintain a kashrut policy for lunch.
"The food policy has to be consistent all the time - no home-baked or home-prepared foods from anybody, not even the rabbi's house," he explains. "Food has to be prepared at the school or from bona fide kosher vendors."
Cooperman sees the policy as an opportunity to educate families about the kosher options available. At the beginning of the year, he sends home a letter explaining the school's policy, along with a list of the kosher symbols.
"There's a proliferation of kosher foods - nobody goes hungry," he says.
The school also suggests that parents provide kosher foods at birthday parties outside of school, and that the parties not be held on Shabbat or holidays.
"If you invite everybody in your class, you want everybody to be able to come," he says.
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