LUBICOM CEO Menachem Lubinsky is the founder and co-producer of Kosherfest, the annual trade event for the kosher food & beverage industry and is the editor-in-chief of KosherToday.

Eye on Kosher shares Lubinsky’s personal reflections on kosher-related topics and is released on alternating weeks with My Sixth Sense, which can be found at http://www.koshertoday.com

An Event of Mixed Emotions

Feb 09, 2009

You may have read the story of a large contribution of 50,000 pounds of kosher poultry by Empire Kosher Poultry to Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty to help feed New York’s needy. Met Council annually provides more than 4.5 million pounds of kosher food to needy households in New York City, making it the largest kosher food pantry in America. The photo opp at Met Council’s Brooklyn food pantry included Mayor Michael Bloomberg. So why was I so torn?

The positives were pretty obvious: Many Jews are hurting badly from the recession. Some who were in the middle class just a year ago now rely on Met Council for help. I have been a board member of Met Council since 1973 and served 8 years as its president and 4 years as it Chairman of the Board. I know first hand the great work that they do, especially under the leadership of Willie Rapfogel, one of the most capable executives of any Jewish organization. 

Empire is another one of my favorites. My relationship with them goes back more than 20 years when they were one of the first exhibitors at the Kosher Food and Jewish Life Expo in the Javits Center. They were one of those kosher companies that literally helped put kosher on the map. I even did some PR and marketing for Empire, under the late Murray Katz, the son of the original owner of Empire. Its present ownership under Greg Rosenbaum is doing an outstanding job and stepped to the plate when there were shortages of poultry due to the events in Postville. It is wonderful that Empire decided to help Met Council. 

So why the mixed emotions? In the photo and announcement were leaders from the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Jewish Labor Committee. The UFCW played a big hand in bringing down Agriprocessors and not only bringing it down but making sure that the owners would be locked up and the keys thrown away. Why? All because they did not succeed in unionizing the Postville plant. The JLC was not far behind with its pronouncements against Agriprocessors. Their actions caused an unprecedented supply problem to kosher consumers that to this day has not been rectified. So was this a PR event to correct their tarnished image with kosher consumers? You be the judge. 
But as much as I have my reservations about the motives for the event by some in the photo, I have none about Met Council, which desperately needs the product to feed the hungry. Congratulations Met Council and congratulations Empire!