Campaigns

Fruchter, Dasi. "Bringing Torah to the Action." JewishSocialJustice.org 30 July 2012.

On Tuesday, July 24th, Uri L’Tzedek joined with thousands of people in New York City for a National Day of Action for Low Wage Workers. It was an oppressively hot and humid day, but clergy showed up in full regalia. At the press conference before the rally, I sought out my new friends across faiths to share a blessing. I looked over at my mentor Rabbi Ari Hart in his tallis, the Reverend in a collar, the Elder in robes, and a good friend wearing the hijab and fasting for Ramadan. It was an honor to stand with my frum (in Judaism, ritually observant)friends amidst this vibrant group of faith leaders. Read More...

"Jewish Groups Call for End to Solitary Confinement in US Prisons." Jspace.com 20 June 2012.

Eighty thousand prisoners face solitary confinement on any given day in the United States. Many remain alone and in their cells for 23 hours a day for months or even years without meaningful human contact. Once a hardly employed practice, the advent of super-max prisons and the explosion of the prison population have turned solitary confinement into a regular form of discipline in many American prisons. Read More...

Sales, Ben. "Behind the Flaum Settlement, a long Campaign and a Phone Call." JTA.COM. 8 May 2012.

For more than a year, Ari Hart had struggled in his protest against unfair labor practices.

Seeking justice for immigrant workers allegedly fired by a Brooklyn kosher food distributor, Hart had held signs, made phone calls, organized protest events and persuaded grocery stores and companies to boycott the distributor.

But nothing had worked. Flaum Appetizing Corp., which allegedly fired 16 workers in 2007 after they demanded the legal minimum overtime pay, would not give in to the former employees’ demands. Read More...

Reddy, Sumathi. "Hummus Maker Settles Wages Claim. WallStreetJournal.com. 7 May 2012.

A kosher-food manufacturer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has reached a $577,000 settlement with 20 of its formers workers, ending a more than four-year battle that cost it numerous big-name customers.

Flaum Appetizing Corp., best known for its hummus, will pay the mostly Mexican immigrants back wages and compensation, resolving National Labor Relations Board litigation and a federal lawsuit filed in Manhattan. Read More...

"Flaum's Settles Kosher Food Fight for $577,000." Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 7 May 2012.

Twenty former employees who complained about working conditions have reached a settlement with a Williamsburg kosher food manufacturer.

Flaum Appetizing agreed to pay $577,000 in back wages and other compensation, according to the ex-employees' attorney, Stuart Lichten. Read More...

Massey, Daniel. "Settlement Paves Way for End of Hummus Boycott." Crain's New York Business.com 7 May 2012.

The pressure on Flaum Appetizing Corp. had been building for years: More than 120 supermarkets stopped selling its hummus, herring and cheeses; the world's largest kosher dairy company severed ties with it; and the National Labor Relations board rejected its argument that workers shouldn't get hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay because they were undocumented. Read more...

"Flaum Appetizing Forced to Pay More than Half a Million Dollars to Exploited Workers." FailedMessiah.com 7 May 2012.

After enduring a withering worker-led campaign, Flaum Appetizing, a prominent producer and distributor of hummus and other kosher food products, has accepted a global settlement which will return $577,000 in unpaid wages and other compensation to workers and subject the Brooklyn-based factory to a binding code of conduct protecting workplace rights.  The victory comes after the workers' group, Focus on the Food Chain, in partnership with Orthodox social justice organization, Uri L'Tzedek, persuaded over 120 grocery store locations in New York City to stop selling Flaum products, including its Sonny & Joe's hummus, until workers' rights were respected.  The win is the biggest yet for Focus on the Food Chain, a joint effort of Brandworkers and the NYC Industrial Workers of the World, dedicated to creating good jobs and a sustainable food system in New York City's food processing and distribution sector. Read More...

"Flaum Appetizing Settles with Immigrant workers for overtime pay flap." JTA.com. 7 May 2012.

Flaum Appetizing, a kosher food distributor in Brooklyn, settled with 16 immigrant workers who claimed that the company did not pay them sufficiently for overtime work.

The $577,000 settlement that was sent to Manhattan federal court Monday comes after 18 months of activism by the Orthodox social justice group Uri L’Tzedek and Focus on the Food Chain, a coalition that advocates for food workers’ rights. Read More...

Hanau, Anna. "Uri L'Tzedek Celebrates Flaums Victory." The Foward: The Jew and the Carrot. 7 May 2012.

This morning the Orthodox Jewish social justice organization Uri L’Tzedek announced a major victory in their 2-year campaign against Flaum Appetizing, a Queens-based hummus producer and food distributor that had repeated labor violations, including wage theft and overtime violations. Flaums has accepted a global settlement which will return over $500,000 to workers for these violations. Read More...

Semple, Kirk. "Flaum Appetizing to Pay Back $577,000 in Settlement. New York Times Blog. 7 May 2012.

Flaum Appetizing, a manufacturer of hummus and other kosher foods in Brooklyn, has agreed to pay 20 former workers, most of them Mexican immigrants, $577,000 in back wages and other compensation as part of a settlement that would end several years of litigation and pickets of the company’s businesses, representatives from both sides of the dispute said Monday. Read More...

Hart, Ari. "Top 7 Reasons Why You Should Invest in Private Prisons!" Huffington Post. 21 March 2012.

Dear readers, do I have a hot stock opportunity for you.

Why invest in boring stocks like Exxon, McDonalds, or Lockheed Martin when you could invest in one of America's hottest growth sectors -- the private prison industry! Read More...

Chasan, Aliza. "Queens College Students Protest Grocery Store." The Knight News. 7 February 2012.

Some Queens College students, an adjunct sociology professor and concerned members of the public withstood the cold and held signs with phrases that read: “Orthodox Jews for Kashrut and Yashrut,” on the evening of Feb. 2.

‘Yashrut,’ the Hebrew term for ethical behavior, was what was being advocated to the people walking down Kissena Boulevard in Flushing shopping for groceries at Aron’s Kissena farms. Read More...

Shmaryahu, Tamar. "'Ethical Eating': Social Justice Meets Dialogue on Beren Campus." The Observer. 26 December 2011.

Their press release further claims the testimonials presented to YU students were not representative of the company's typical working conditions. Flaum's has maintained, since the labor dispute began in 2008, that the allegations "concerned only 11 employees of the thousands of people that [sic] have worked at Flaum's." Read More...

JTA. "Tnuva Dumps US Kosher Distributor." Jewish Daily Forward. 14 November 2011.

Tnuva, Israel’s largest dairy company, said it will not renew its contract with its Brooklyn distributor, which is accused of underpaying workers and firing employees illegally.

A campaign by organized labor and Jewish groups had urged Tnuva to break from Flaum Appetizing, which distributes the Israeli firm’s cheese in the United States and also produces hummus. Read More...

Massey, Daniel. "Fired Food Workers Gain Measure of Revenge." Crain's New York Business. 14 November 2011.

Responding to pressure from rabbis and workers, the world's largest kosher dairy company will cut ties to Brooklyn-based Flaum Appetizing, a company that in 2008 fired 17 employees who were organizing for better wages.

Carrying signs that read “Worker Exploitation Ain't Kosher” and “Rabbis Against Worker Exploitation,” rabbis, workers and activists rallied Tuesday in front of the Lexington Avenue headquarters of Apax Partners, the private equity firm that owns the Israeli-based kosher cheese giant Tnuva Food Industries. Read more...

Levin, Sam. "Rabbis joining with immigrant workers to pressure kosher producer into paying back wages." NYDailyNews.com. 2 August 2011.

Rabbis are joining forces to pressure a Brooklyn distributor of kosher products to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars they say is owed to former workers. Read more...

Hidden in the industrial corridor that stretches through East Williamsburg, Bushwick, Ridgewood, and Maspeth is an area of urban manufacturing warehouses that form a “sweatshop belt.” This belt of warehouses, many of which provide food processing and delivery services to specialty stores and restaurants throughout New York City, relies on the exploitation of a largely immigrant workforce. Workers suffer under harsh conditions with little to no voice on the job, but at one of these warehouses — Flaum Appetizing Co. in East Williamsburg — the workers are fighting back. Read more...

Gordon, Dan. "A season for social action." Washington Jewish Week. 25 March 2010.

The effort has been endorsed by no fewer than a dozen national Jewish organizations and about a dozen local ones in cities across the country. I'm impressed by the diversity among the national backers, which range from the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation to Uri l'Tzekek: The Orthodox Social Justice Movement, and from Rabbis for Human Rights to the secular, progressive group The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring. Read more...

Cottrell Furleiter, Talia.  "Every Little Bit Counts: Microfinancing in teh Jewish Tradition."  E-Jewish Philanthropy.  25 October 2009.

Maimonides, writing in 12th-century Egypt, could not have imagined the extension of loans beyond the limits of one’s own community and immediate surroundings.  Read more...

Elgot, Jessica.  "Rabbis Arrested for New York Protest."  The Jewish Community Online.  24 September 2009.

"More than 100 rabbis gathered in New York, to block the car of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was enroute to give his speech at the UN."  Watch video...

Orbach, Michael.  “Ohel Denies it will Oppose Bill to Allow Victims in Old Cases to Name Abusers.”  The Jewish Star.  26 April 2009.

"The Jewish social service organization Ohel is denying that it will oppose legislation that would allow victims of childhood sexual abuse currently beyond the statute of limitations to bring their cases to court."  Read more...

Winston, Hella.  “Sex-Abuse Statute Bill Clears Hurdle.”  The Jewish Week.  18 March 2009.

"A bill in the New York State legislature to extend the criminal and civil statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse, and to open a one-year window for victims to file civil suits regardless of when the alleged abuse took place, appears to be splitting the Orthodox community."  Read more...

Lipman, Steve.  “For Liberal Jews, Sunup on a Rare Ritual.”  The Jewish Week.  24 March 2009.

"At sunrise on April 8, the eve of Passover, a group of Jews from the Upper West Side will gather on the roof of the JCC in Manhattan. Organized by Hazon, the New York-based group that works for a “more sustainable Jewish community,” the early-morning risers will say some prayers, do some yoga and burn some chametz."  Read more...

Koenig, Leah. “Meaty Advice for the High Holidays.”  The Jew and the Carrot.  25 September 2008.

"Over the next four weeks, Jews will be sitting down to together to more celebratory meals in succession than they likely do the entire rest of the year.  Many of those meals will be kosher, and many more will include meat as either a main or side course – or both."  Read more...