Read the award winning piece here!

(JTA) — JTA won two first-place prizes and a second place in the annual journalism contest sponsored by the American Jewish Press Association.

The Rockower Awards were presented Wednesday at the annual AJPA meeting in Philadelphia. The gathering brings together leading editors and publishers throughout North America.

Ami Eden, JTA’s CEO and editor in chief, won the Rockower for Excellence in Arts and Criticism News and Features for his piece titled “J Street, the book — expect more controversy.”

“Regardless of whether you agree with the statements and conclusions contained in this book review, you must admire the piece for its clarity, fluidity and graceful style. No words are wasted. A fine piece of writing,” the judges said of the piece.

JTA Managing Editor Uriel Heilman won in the Excellence in Feature Writing category for his piece titled “Inside Empire‘s slaughterhouse: The life of a kosher chicken.”

“This piece took an already good subject and presented it with color, verve and thoughtfulness. Well done,” commented the judges. Heilman also took a second place in the David Frank Award for Excellence in Personality Profiles category for his piece “In a remote New Mexico valley, a Jewish skiing legacy at Taos.”

The New York Jewish Week took three firsts and two seconds. In the Excellence in News Reporting Category, the newspaper took first place for “In Lakewood Abuse Cases, A Parallel System Of Justice” by Hella Winston and second for “Tragedy in Borough Park Puts Shomrim Under Scrutiny,” also by Winston. The Jewish Week also took first and second in The Boris Smolar Award for Excellence in Enterprise or Investigative Reporting. The first place award went for “Holocaust Claims Going Unpaid, Investigation Says” by Stewart Ain, and second award went for 21st Century Jewish Education: Series on Technology in Jewish Education by Julie Wiener. The newspaper also took first in the Excellence in Special Sections or Supplements category for “Text/Context.”

Other first-place winners include the New Jersey Jewish News, Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, Jewish Women’s Archive, Washington Jewish Week, Hadassah Magazine, Intermountain Jewish News, Jewish Standard (N.J.), Jewish Independent of  Vancouver, B.C., Chicago Jewish News, Arizona Jewish Post, Na’amat Woman, Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia, Jewish Voice of Wilmington, Del., B’nai B’rith Magazine, Cleveland Jewish News, Jewish Action magazine, j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California, New Jersey Jewish News, St. Louis Jewish Light, Chicago JUF News and the Jewish National Fund.

The full list of winners can be seen here.

WASHINGTON D.C. — The occasion was the White House celebration of American Jewish Heritage Month on May 30^th at which some 200 guests enjoyed glatt kosher food, under the supervision of Chabad of Washington in conjunction with the Rabbinical Council of Greater Washington. Rabbi Levi Shemtov of the Chabad of Greater Washington supervised the kosher fare at the event which included an impressive delegation of the kosher food industry, headed by Alain Bankier of Manischewitz, Greg Rosenbaum of Empire Kosher and Yakov Yarmove of SuperValu.

Manischewitz has been particularly active in promoting Jewish Heritage Month. Launched in 2006 by President George W. Bush, JAHM is celebrated nationwide, including events at the Capitol and the White House. This year President Barak Obama evoked the dark memory of the 150th anniversary of an order that was issued by General Ulysses Grant, expelling Jews “as a class” from the military department of Tennessee.

“It was wrong. Even if it was 1862, even if official acts of anti-Semitism were all too common around the world, it was wrong and indicative of an ugly train of thought,” Obama said. He went on to note that American Jews protested the order. “What happened next could have only taken place in America,” he said. “Groups of American Jews protested General Grant’s decision.” He described how a Jewish merchant from Kentucky met with President Abraham Lincoln and how following the meeting, the order was rescinded.

In years past, particularly during the Clinton era, the White House would reach out to a local caterer, sometimes even from neighboring Baltimore to cater kosher at the White House. But at recent events, including the much celebrated Chanukah celebration, the fare is arranged and supervised by Rabbi Shemtov.

“So,” Hugh Kaufman said Wednesday afternoon outside the Nats Park center field gate, “we’ve got the chicken, the flag, the autographed Davey Johnson baseball. We’ve got the castration knife….”

That was, of course, a misnomer. No one was getting castrated on this day. It was just a bunch of baseball fans, gathered on their lunch breaks or whatnot to cut the head off a rubber chicken.

“This is the first time we’ve done this,” Kaufman pointed out. “I usually sacrifice chickens while we’re having losing streaks.

“He said that with a straight face,” observed Dan, who wisely was going just by his first name for media purposes.

In case you missed it, when he was discussing the team’s rash of injuries on Tuesday, Davey Johnson started this whole thing by mentioning “superstitions to change our luck.”

“Sacrifice a chicken or something,” Johnson joked.

Well, maybe he was joking.

“I think Davey has recognized the importance of baseball Voodoo…and so again has shown tremendous leadership for this squad,” Kaufman told us.

Hugh Kaufman with Empire Kosher rubber chicken, from 2009. Photo, Washington Post.

Kaufman’s propensity to cut the heads off rubber chickens has been discussed in this paper before; Dave Fahrenthold wrote about his first chicken sacrifice in 2005, and I wrote about how he started sacrificing Kosher rubber chickens in 2009. He claims to have done the deed a dozen times since the Nats arrived in D.C.; “we’ve had some rough years,” he observed.

The ceremony is rooted not just in “Major League” and similar baseball lore, but also in the Jewish Kaporos ritual, an extremely rare Hasidic sacrifice involving swinging a live chicken over your head before offing it.

“This is an offshoot of that,” Kaufman said. “That’s when you transfer the sins to the sacrificed animal. When you take the head off, that gets rid of the bad JuJu.”

At previous sacrifices, Kaufman has swung the rubber chicken in a clockwise motion. For the Davey Johnson injury sacrifice — which doesn’t really involve a losing streak — he was going with counter-clockwise.

The guys, of course, are all part of the Secret Society of the Rubber Chicken, with the pins and hats and Chicken Mode shirts to prove it. Gio Gonzalez saw a Chicken Mode shirt during Spring Training, and approved. “We’ve got too much Beast Mode around here; we need more Chicken Mode,” he reportedly said.

Davey Johnson, of all people, turned down an offer of a T-shirt. Maybe he’ll change his mind after this.

“I need someone to hold one end of the chicken,” Kaufman told his three friends. Scott Ableman of Let Teddy Win stepped forward, and offered a few counter-clockwise spins.

“I can almost see the evil spirits lifting,” Dan said.

“Hey, the clouds are parting,” Luis noticed.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bam-Bam get another home run or two this series,” Kaufman said.

Then he lopped off the head of the rubber chicken using a few cutting motions — “it’s all in the wrist,” he said — and thrust the bird into the air.

“The curse is broken!!!!!” he said.

“We’re very thankful, man,” Luis said.

“We’ll see if it works,” Hugh said.

“Hey, you might want to put that knife away,” Luis advised.

“You’ve got to try everything,” Hugh said to conclude matters. “There’s no such thing as overkill.”

Try telling that to the chicken.

Anyhow, the whole ceremony didn’t last more than 15 minutes or so, and there’s not much to do after you’ve taken the head off a rubber chicken.

“You guys want to do lunch?” Luis asked.

I suggested they eat the decapitated chicken.

“I hear it’s a little rubbery,” Scott said.

(Read Scott’s take here. Video later.)

Doing  justice to the Passover seder

Empire Kosher president and CEO, Greg Rosenbaum, right, chats with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack at the second annual Food and Justice Passover Seder. Photo by Ron Sachs.

A juicy ripe tomato sat in the middle of each table’s seder plate at the April 4 United States Department of Agriculture and White House Food and Justice Passover seder.

That vegetable was there to remind the 50 seder participants of those migrant farm workers who strive to get those ripe tomatoes to our tables, but who can’t always afford to buy enough food to feed their own families.

Rabbis for Human Rights, which represents 1,800 rabbis in the United States and Canada, is committed to helping these workers, a spokesman for that group said.

“We place a tomato on the seder plate in honor of … migrant workers everywhere who have demonstrated courage and persistence in securing a better life for agricultural workers,” the spokesman said.

The seder, held two days before the start of Passover, focused on the themes of hunger, access to healthy food, sustainable food production and the fair treatment of farm workers.

Singing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and White House seder are (from left) Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation; Rabbi Sydney Mintz of San Francisco; and Alan Van Capelle, CEO, Bend the Arc. Photo by Ron Sachs

There are 17 million households who are food insecure, Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the participants who filled his executive dining room. Those taking part included members of President Barack Obama’s staff, employees at the Department of Agriculture and leaders of Jewish social action groups.

While the seder consisted of the obligatory four cups of wine, breaking of the middle matzah and tasting of the bitter herbs, it clearly was a very different Passover experience.

Once the 10 plagues were recited, those in attendance offered up 10 other plagues that they each agreed to work on this year. Some of the social issue “plagues” were bigotry, hunger, special interests, foreclosure and the immigration system.

Sporting a kippah, Vilsack said his department has a “great partnership with the Jewish people.” He noted that when the Jews walked through the desert, “they asked for manna from heaven. They asked for food, not riches or power.”

Today, 92 percent of those considered food insecure, meaning they live in fear of not having enough to eat, are senior citizens, people with disabilities and children, many of whom live with working parents, Vilsack said. In other words, “these are people playing by the rules,” he noted.

“We are in a very significant moment when we have to decide what kind of people we are. Will we turn our backs” on those who are hungry, he asked. If we do, he continued, “then what kind of generation are we?”

Alan Van Capelle, CEO of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, said he grew up in a home where “we were as Jewish as we had money. When we had money, we belonged to a synagogue” and were kosher. His organization was created through the recent merger of Jewish Funds for Justice and the Progressive Jewish Alliance.

“Jews are not a passive people. We are sort of in your face” and were in the forefront of the civil rights and labor rights movements. “It is the pinnacle of who we are that we take on these challenges,” Van Capelle said.

He led the prayer over the fourth cup of wine, calling for everyone to “build a stronger, fairer, more just community.”

Jon Carson, director of the federal Office of Public Engagement, said the government “is most effective when partnered with organizations and foundations on the ground.

The seder was officiated by Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria and Rabbi Sydney Mintz of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.

After breaking the middle matzah, Moline joked that anyone finding the afikomen “could get a tremendous USDA grant.”

During the seder, participants read from a 16-page Haggadah prepared by Bend the Arc, which sponsored the seder along with Empire Kosher.

Inserted throughout the many prayers were statistics concerning hunger and poverty and an explanation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is part of the proposed 2012 Farm Bill.

Seders offer lots of great food, and this one was no exception. The meal was catered by Empire Chicken, whose president and CEO Greg Rosenbaum paced the room, peering at each plate of chicken with matzah stuffing and fresh vegetables. He asked several people what they thought of the meal, which also included a salad filled with figs and fruits and a fruit tart dessert.

spollak@washingtonjewishweek.com

(JTA) — President Obama will host a seder at the White House on the first night of Passover.

Obama’s seder on Friday night will continue a tradition that started in 2008, when he was a presidential candidate on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania and he joined a small group of staff members at an impromptu seder.

On Thursday, the president issued a video Passover message.

“The story of the Exodus is thousands of years old, but it remains as relevant as ever,” he said. “Throughout our history, there are those who have targeted the Jewish people for harm — a fact we were so painfully reminded of just a few weeks ago in Toulouse.

“Michelle and I are proud to celebrate with friends here at home and around the world, including those in the State of Israel,” Obama said, wishing the Jewish community a “Chag sameach.”

On Wednesday night, the U.S. Department of Agriculture hosted a separate seder in Washington. The second annual Food and Justice Seder was co-hosted by the White House, organzied by Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice and sponsored by kosher poultry giant Empire Kosher. It was attended by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

Empire Kosher President and CEO, Greg Rosenbaum, (right) chats with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (left) at the second annual Food and Justice Passover Seder, which Empire Kosher sponsored, held April 4, 2012, at the USDA headquarters in Washington, D.C. The seder was co-hosted by Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice and the White House.

There are plenty of new and exciting food products this year for Passover with manufacturers large and small trying to improve upon the holiday’s growing food selection.  Brooklyn based Haddar, New Jersey based Kedem Foods, and Pennsylvania based Empire Kosher Poultry all have a variety of new options for Passover which can be found in most of The Five Towns kosher supermarkets.

Haddar Foods

Haddar leads off this year with their new whole wheat shmura matzos.   “It’s a nice interesting product,” Lazer Bauer said on behalf of Haddar.  He noted that they also have new 18 minute organic smelt matzos, all baked in Jerusalem under the supervision of K’hal Adath Yeshurun.

In addition to a new passover imitation mustard and honey mustard, Bauer pointed to a new line of glazes his company produces. They come in barbeque, orange, honey soy, teriyaki and honey mustard.  “It adds a nice presentation to the food,” Bauer added.

They also have unveiled a new milk powder, a non-dairy creamer and a non-dairy french vanilla creamer for those travelling.  For a dessert treat, Haddar has a new line of Biscotti cookies that come in chocolate fudge, chocolate chip and cappuccino crunch.   All of the cookies are gluten free with zero grams of trans fat.

Kedem Food Products

Last year Kedem foods set a trend by unveiling Kosher for Passover Lay’s Potato Chips, Lipton Kosher Soup Secrets Matzo Ball and Soup Mix Yehuda Gluten Free Matzo-Style Squares, among others.  This year, they continue their trend of innovation with an array of new items.

“One of our greatest strengths is the marketing team,” Harold Weiss, Vice President of Kedem Food Products said.  “They are quick to analyze trends, make use of our vast portfolio of brands identify new opportunities and bring the pieces together.”

This year, they have unveiled the Sweet Goodies brand of licorice.  Weiss said he is excited about it because it has never been available for Passover before.  He added that it tastes great and comes in strawberry, sour strawberry, sour apple and sour blue raspberry.  They are low fat and gluten free to meet special diet needs.

Adding to the addition of Yehuda Gluten Free Matzo Style Squares last year is a Toasted Onion Variety.

“I’ve never seen a product sell out as quickly as Yehuda Gluten Free Matzo Style Squares” noted Weiss, “While they were introduced for Passover, we had people who were gluten intolerant buying them by the case and requesting them long after Passover.”

Also added to Kedem’s Yehuda Gluten Free line is Yehuda Gluten Free Cake Meal, which can be used as a coating for cooking or a flour substitute for baking.

All Natural Gluten Free Panko Flakes are another addition to Kedem Foods.  They are part of a line of products developed by Chef Jeff Nathan, Executive Chef of New York’s famed Abigael’s Restaurant Group.  Nathan is known for his television series New Jewish Cuisine.  His All Natural Gluten Free Panko Flakes have no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives.  Kedem Food Products touts them as a great topping for casseroles or coating for chicken or fish.

Empire Kosher Poultry

Empire, well known for their array of kosher poultry products, only has one new product but they are very excited about it.  It’s a Ready to Roast Garlic and Herb Seasoned Kosher Chicken.  What’s notable is that it’s microwaveable in only 20 minutes and Empire’s website describes it as tender, juicy and absolutely delicious.

“It’s a fantastic product,” Empire Spokesman Yosi Haber said.  “It’s basically the first microwaveable chicken.  It usually takes an hour to cook a chicken.”

Listen to Empire Kosher’s Ready to Roast featured on WCBS 880 in New York.

Transcript:

“20 minute chicken!

I’m Anthony Dias Blue with the Blue lifestyle minute, sponsored by CuisinArt.

Sometimes you’re presented with a conundrum. You just don’t have the time or energy to put together a full meal, yet you’re unwilling to compromise the quality or flavor of your food.

Don’t worry. I think ever person across America has run into this dilemma at one time or another. Thankfully, Empire Kosher Poultry released their Ready to Roast Garlic and Herb Seasoned chicken. This whole chicken comes in a microwave-safe bag that’s immediately ready to be popped in the microwave.

After heating for 20-25 minutes, depending on your microwave, your steaming, juicy, and deliciously seasoned chicken is ready oto be the main course of the night’s dinner.

Empire Kosher Poultry’s Ready to Roast Garlic and Herb Seasoned microwavable chicken. It’s available in grocery retailers for about $15.00.

I’m Anthony Dias Blue, sponsored by CuisinArt …. this is the Blue lifestyle minute on WCBS 880.”

(JTA) — Temple Shalom won the first turkey chili competition at the Kosher Chili Cook-Off in Dallas.

More than 4,500 chili fans attended the competition Sunday at Tiferet Israel in Dallas.

As always, the event featured meat and vegetarian categories, but turkey was added to the mix as the cook-off celebrated its 19th anniversary. Empire Kosher Poultry donated the turkey.

Moishe House Dallas won in the beef category after securing a spot at the last minute off the waiting list. Congregation Shearith Israel and the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas finished second and third among the beef entrants.

Congregation Anshai Torah in Plano took home the crown for vegetarian chili. The People’s Choice award went to the Ann and Nate Levine Academy.

During the event, participants were able to sign up to become bone marrow donors.