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Thursday, August 21, 2008
Born in Hartford, CT, Rabbi Howard (Zvi) Goodman was educated at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University, and is a graduate of Yeshiva University. After studying advanced Talmud and Judaic Law in Jerusalem, he received rabbinic ordination from Medrash Hatalmud Tifereth Avrohom Yeshiva in Jerusalem, as well as from a number of Jerusalem’s leading rabbinic scholars. Upon his return to the United States, Rabbi Goodman served as a Rabbinic Fellow at the prestigious Beth Medrash Govoha Rabbi Aaron Kotler Institute for Advanced Learning in Lakewood, NJ.
Rabbi Goodman served as director of rabbinic studies at Yeshiva Shaare Torah in Suffern, NY and also held several supervisory positions in the field of kashrut. Rabbi Goodman joined the Orthodox Union’s Kosher Department more than 12 years ago, where he serves as rabbinic coordinator for many of the OU’s vitamin companies. In addition, Rabbi Goodman also serves as RC for many hot filled beverage, tomato and condiment companies.
Rabbi Goodman resides in Monsey, NY. He is married, the father of six children and has 12 grandchildren.
ALBANY, NY – Getting out of prison wasn’t supposed to be this easy.
On a sunny spring afternoon, Josh Wildman, mashgiach with the Vaad HaKashruth of the Capital District, locked the door of the room of the Department of Correctional Services Food Production Center facility in Rome, New York and ran the tail of an OU seal through the two ports affixed to the doors.
“I record the number on the seal in my book” he said, “and tomorrow when I come in I make sure that no one has tampered with it.”
For the past year the Orthodox Union, working with the Vaad of the Capitol District, has been maintaining a pilot project for the New York State Department of Correctional Services at its central Food Production Center facility located in Central New York, on the Oneida Correctional Facility real estate. It serves a dual purpose, in that it both provides for local packaging of all the kosher food for the entire state prison system as well as a number of county lockups, and also is a training facility for inmates who use their incarceration as a means of learning a food service skill that will make them more employable when they’ve done their time and return to private life.
Under the general supervision of the Orthodox Union, serviced by rabbinic coordinator Rabbi Leonard Steinberg, assisted by Rabbi Tzvi Jacobs of Monsey, NY, OU RFR Rabbi Dr. Moshe E. Bomzer who heads the Capitol District Vaad, Wildman and other lay mashgichim, the operation currently involves only the repackaging of previously certified glatt meats and chalov yisrael American cheese into quarter-pound servings. Nonetheless, and despite the fact that only 10 per cent of the prison inmates who request kosher meals are Jews, and of that number only a handful kept kosher before going to prison, the operation slices, packages and vacuum seals an average of 3,000 individual servings each day, Monday through Thursday, for a total of a ton and a half of food per week.
It is not, of course, the easiest place to work. Ten hours each day are spent in a 38-40 degree refrigerated room with half a dozen convicted criminals, none of whom themselves keep kosher. The personnel changes are unpredictable as inmates receive parole and leave the facility on a week’s notice; or worse, are involved in some violation of the rules that removes them from the workforce and denies them the privileges of employment. The supervisory staff are not permitted to have cell phones or any electronic devices within the prison; even an accidental possession discovered before any contact with an inmate has been initiated will result in immediate dismissal and an escort from the grounds.
But those who work in the program praise it. “I have never had such a rewarding job,” says Seth Eben Shapiro, who retired from the practice of law in 1994 and has worked for the Vaad in numerous industries since 2001. “Not only are we providing our Jewish brothers and sisters who have had the misfortune to be incarcerated with the comfort and confidence of having their meals certified as kosher by the OU, but we are also creating a wonderful environment of understanding and gratitude with non-Jewish inmates who thanks to us are acquiring skills that may keep them from ever having to see the inside of a prison again!”
Facility Director Howard Dean is so impressed with the success of the program that he is in active discussions with the OU’s Rabbi Steinberg on the possibility of increasing the production to include salads and other cold foods, all with OU certification, that would be a general offering to the entire prison population. Already, the OU can be found on apple and pineapple juice servings that are processed in the plant. “We are, in reality, no different than any other food production company, even though our product serves only a specific customer base”, Dean said, “but the OU certification increases the confidence that our food is being held to the highest standards.”
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
As part of its ever-expanding initiatives in kashrut education, OU Kosher has released two DVD’s—on meat and birds—explaining the intricacies of what makes these products kosher. They follow two highly popular DVD presentations, “Kosher Kidz,” which conveys the basics of kosher certification to a youthful audience; and “The Kosher Fish Primer,” which explains the basics of identifying kosher fish and purchasing it.
Kosher Meat: Unexplored Frontiers with Rabbi Yisroel Belsky
You want to really understand meat preparation—the Torah way. What is it that goes into making a kosher steak or lamb chop? But you don’t know who can teach you. You’d probably need a team of three: A rabbi with mastery of the relevant laws; a scientist with a breadth of anatomical knowledge; and a veteran shochet (ritual slaughterer) who can share his expertise.
Guess again! In Kosher Meat: Unexplored Frontiers with Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, a one-of-a-kind video presentation, Rabbi Belsky, the world-renowned scholar who serves as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in New York and as a Senior Halachic Consultant for OU Kashrut, explores the lesser-known—and lesser-seen—aspects of meat preparation. A master halachist, anatomist, and shochet, Rabbi Belsky addresses such questions as: How is a kosher animal identified? What does it mean to “chew the cud”? How does a shochet prepare for shechitah? What do the Matnos Kehuna (the portions given to the Kohen) look like? What’s checked after shechitah? Join him and understand meat preparation like you never imagined you could.
Kosher Birds: Who Are They? (You’ll Have a Ball with these Fowls!) with Rabbi Chaim Loike
Kosher fish have fins and scales. Kosher mammals have cloven hooves and ruminate. And kosher birds have…what exactly? In “Kosher Birds: Who Are They?” a unique video seminar, Rabbi Chaim Loike, an OU Kosher rabbinic coordinator possessing special expertise in birds, explains how we determine that a bird is kosher. Using live birds—squawks and all!—Rabbi Loike addresses such questions as: What are the physical traits of kosher birds? How does Judaism define a predatory bird? What role does communal tradition play here? Let Rabbi Loike be your guide, and understand kashrut in a whole new way.
Kosher Meat and Kosher Birds comprise the two most recent examples of OU Kosher’s expanded educational outreach. These educational programs include the nationally-renowned and ever-popular “OU Kosher Coming” initiative, which sends OU’s expert rabbis to schools, synagogues and college campuses to share their knowledge of halacha and technology; the ever-growing Kosher Tidbits series of short seminars on innumerable aspects of kashrut and certification, available at ouradio.org. , as well as the popular OU Kosher webcasts – the most recent one held on May 29th featuring OU Senior Halachic Consultants Rabbis Yisroel Belsky and Rabbi Hershel Schachter in a question and answer webcast session about the Kosher Kitchen. Thousands of listeners tuned in to that most informative presentation.
The Kosher Kidz and Kosher Fish Primer videos have already achieved great popularity. “There has been an astounding response to these presentations,” declared Rabbi Eliyahu Safran, Senior Rabbinic Coordinator and Vice President of Marketing and Communications at OU Kosher. “We have received requests from day schools, summer camps, yeshivas, kollelim, federations, Jewish community centers, synagogues, youth groups, college campus groups, and classroom teachers—from all denominations from throughout the country and worldwide, including Israel, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. We are obviously meeting a very real need for teachers and schools everywhere throughout the Jewish educational network. Some days as many as 50 requests arrive. The appreciation expressed is overwhelming.”
For further information on bringing OU Kosher to your school or community, or to receive the DVD’s, contact Rabbi Eliyahu Safran at . There is no charge for the DVDs other than $10 for postage /handling for the 2, and $16 for all four DVDs.
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