What I’m about to say may surprise you, given that I am a rabbi who keeps strictly kosher in accordance with the Orthodox halakha I live my life by, but sadly, the current state of kosher eating (“kashrut”) is not morally superior to non-kosher eating. Yes, it fulfills the technical biblical requirements, but it does not rise beyond.

Of course, I consider kashrut holy. It is a set of ancient, sacred laws from the Torah. However, that does not make it inherently aligned with the values of ethical consumption. In an ideal world, the ethical and the religious would be braided together inexorably. I believe that before the era of industrialized meat and dairy, this was the case. But the advent of factory farming has resulted in kashrut becoming uncoupled with moral choices around food. Until the kosher industry can disentangle itself from the most pernicious sides of hyper-capitalism in general, and from factory farming in particular, the only true form of ethical eating in line with Jewish values is a plant-based one. 

I have felt real reservation about making this argument publicly. Am I feeding into the antisemitism of anti-kosher rhetoric, I asked myself? After all, the European Union has become notorious for attempting to ban shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter).........

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