In a display of interfaith solidarity, representatives from Jewish and Muslim student groups are working to get more kosher and halal food options offered on the Hill.
Halal and kosher foods are prepared to meet certain requirements of Muslim and Jewish law, respectively. The student groups, including the Muslim Student Association and the Jewish Student Union, have worked together since fall quarter to procure better access to foods that meet their dietary restrictions. The student groups met with representatives of UCLA Dining Services in January to discuss the possibility of expanding kosher and halal items on Hill menus.
“For students who keep kosher, or want to keep kosher, or live in the dorms, the options are very, very limited,” said Raquel Saxe, a fourth-year political science student who serves as co-president of the Jewish Student Union. “The same can be said of halal food.”
Kashif Iqbal, a second-year biology student and member of the Muslim Student Association, said there are currently no halal offerings on the Hill.
Although there are currently kosher sandwiches offered at Bruin Cafe, UCLA Dining Services did not specify whether they offer halal options in an email statement to the Daily Bruin.
Universities such as Stanford, UC San Diego and UC Riverside all already offer some sort of halal food on their campuses, according to the universities’ websites. Stanford and UC San Diego also offer kosher options.
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, co-director of the Jewish Learning Initiative On Campus, said kosher meals are available at a cafe in the Hillel building, located just off campus on Hilgard Avenue The food, however, is only available during lunch hours, he said.
Saxe said the only kosher options available to UCLA students on the Hill right now are kosher sandwiches sometimes available in Bruin Cafe and that these are not always offered.
The sandwiches can be purchased for three meal swipes, two meal swipes in addition to a $4 charge, or for a flat rate of $8.75.
According to Daily Bruin archives, UCLA Dining Services had plans to offer hot kosher meals in 2007, but such a plan is not currently in operation.
Some students have had health problems due to the lack of kosher options.
“From a personal standpoint, I got sick my freshman year because of my lack of iron intake because I wasn’t eating meat anymore,” Saxe said. “I wasn’t really aware of how to impact my diet positively, so I became anemic.”
Steven Wolf, a third-year computer science student and a member of the Jewish Student Union, described his experience of having trouble finding substantial meals on campus due to the lack of kosher food.
In an email statement, UCLA Dining Services said they are looking into the matter of offering kosher and halal foods.
“UCLA Dining is always working to improve the student experience and to make sure every student has delicious, healthy foods that they can enjoy,” said UCLA spokeswoman Alison Hewitt in an emailed statement. She also stated that further research is needed in regards to kosher and halal food options on the Hill.
The research is part of the UC-wide campus climate study, the statement read.
Some students stated their belief that change would happen in small increments.
“I think ORL will take some action, we don’t expect it to be that large just because it is very challenging to try to change food policy, and it is challenging to get a new vendor,” Iqbal said.
Saxe said there has been tension between Jewish and Muslim students at UCLA and across the country over such things as political issues before explaining that this represents a rare instance of cooperation between Muslim and Jewish student groups at UCLA.
Iqbal pointed out that although the groups have organized small-scale events together in the past, this represents one of the first big projects both communities have worked on together at UCLA.
“Hopefully we will encourage more partnership and cooperation in the future,” Saxe said. “One of the Jewish students invited one of the Muslim students to have lunch at Hillel; it’s really opened a lot of doors and friendships in a way that we might otherwise keep to our own.”
Email Foresta at mforesta@media.ucla.edu
About time they’re implementing this. I’m tired of the anti Judeo-Islamic days at Feast where literally everything on the menu is pork this pork that.
I agree! Sometimes all the dining halls are serving pork on the same night, so it makes things tricky
It often means that I will have to head straight for desert.
“Anti Judeo-islamic” is a funny way of saying Asian cuisine. Yes, pork is a bigger part of their diet. There are half a dozen places to eat just on the hill, and pork isn’t really an issue at B-cafe and 1919, which are always options.
Expecting –every– dining place to accommodate religious dietary needs (particularly ones like Feast which are based on cuisines in which these religions don’t really play a major part), is a little entitled.
Glad to see this is happening. I can finally eat something other than fish and vegetarian stuff.
One thing to consider, from an Islamic perspective is the term “zabihah”, the method of Islamically slaughtering an animal, is different than the term “halal”. Halal is a term that, simply translated from arabic, means “permissible”, and it encompasses more than just food (it can refer to business transactions, behaviors, etc).
For example, most vegetables and grains are halal. Correctly slaughtered meat is halal. All fish and crustaceans, regardless of method of slaughter, are halal. Pork is not halal. Alcohol, is not halal. Something normally halal, such as pasta, can me made not halal by the addition of alcohol. According to the ingredients lists on the dining services’ website indicate that some pastas (both meat and vegie) do contain wine (Chablis, Marsala, or something). If one is cognizant of this, they aren’t allowed to eat it.
Some things that are not kosher for Jews are halal for Muslims. Eating milk/dairy and meat together is not kosher, but is halal. Most muslims (except those who strictly follow the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence) are allowed to eat shellfish and crustaceans, whereas jewish people who keep kosher cannot eat shellfish and crustaceans.
It is the general consensus of Muslim scholars is that meats that are considered “Kosher”, are halal, so long that they does not contain non-halal things (such as alcohol).
When I visited my Jewish friend in Colorado, I had a conversation with his mom in which she said that if someone keeps kosher, they can eat halal meat under similar conditions.
It is the opinion of some (perhaps a majority, I am unsure) scholars that if no zabihah slaughtered meats are available, then kosher meats are perfectly acceptable. But if both are available, the halal one is preferable.
There is however, a group of people that say that since in Schechita, the name of God isn’t said prior to each slaughter (it’s said at the beginning of each slaughtering session, it’s not edible for Muslims. Though I honestly haven’t met anybody in real life that has had that opinion, I’ve only heard of people on obscure message boards and I don’t know anybody who actually practices this.)
Also, it should be noted that there should be no mixing of utensils, etc.
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The ramifications of this are that dining services wouldn’t need to provide two separate dining options. Theoretically, it would be possible to offer kosher meat/food only and still satisfy the needs of the Muslim student population so long as they
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It should be noted that the article does not say anywhere that Kosher and meats are prepared in a nearly identical manner (the difference being one . Zabihah and the Kosher method of slaughter, “schechita,” both are quite similar with minute differences. You can look them up on wikipedia.
Ask a local Imam/Rabbi if you need clarification.
Please correct me if I misstated something. One reason I really liked UChicago is that they have a kosher station at their dining hall, and they serve halal meals like 3 days a week. If ucla gets this ish done, i wont lament the fact that uchicago waitlisted me any longer. =)