The Jewish Theological Seminary is offering Jewish students at nearby Columbia University what its leadership is calling a response to months of turmoil at the Ivy League university: hot, kosher food.
JTS, the flagship university of Conservative Judaism, is allowing students on Columbia’s Flex Dining plan to use their meal points at the kosher JTS cafeteria.
The latest addition to the Columbia kosher meal plan means students at Columbia have one more option near campus for kosher dining. (Columbia’s affiliated women’s college, Barnard College, may be included in the plan in the future.)
JTS Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz, herself a Barnard alumna, said the new option was an “obvious” step nearly a year after Columbia became the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian college encampment movement, and amid reports that some Jewish students have reported feeling isolated and unsafe on campus.
“After the challenging year that we had last year, in one of many conversations that I had with Columbia leadership, we kind of revived this idea of what would it be to provide another space for Jewish students — in particular, their students who want kosher food — to have a space to be together, to eat where dining dollars would be accepted,” Rubin Schwartz told the New York Jewish Week.
She recalled that when she was a student in the mid-1970s, Jewish students at Barnard and Columbia would head up from their Upper Manhattan campus six blocks away to dine at JTS for kosher food. (JTS offers joint programs and double degrees with Columbia and Barnard.) “Columbia started to have its own dining service, and this kind of just fell by the wayside,” Rubin Schwartz said.
By 1978, a full kosher meal plan was instituted at Barnard’s Hewitt Dining Hall, following years of students campaigning for substantial meals that would include more frequent meat options and that would prevent them from being charged for Friday meals that students couldn’t use due to Shabbat. Hewitt Dining Hall, on the lower level of one of the Barnard buildings, remains the only place where Columbia University students can get hot kosher food three times a day. Otherwise, there are a few places around Columbia’s campus where students can get pre-packaged or to-go kosher food.
The new addition to the Columbia dining program means kosher-keeping students can access the JTS Café Mondays through Thursdays for breakfast and lunch.
And while a few students are certainly taking up the offer — between 10 and 20 students on the Columbia meal plan have done so every day since the program took effect in late January, according to dining hall staff and a representative from JTS — they’re mostly doing so for logistical, not safety, reasons, students say.
“I don’t want to speak for everyone but I have not seen a massive influx of Columbia students trekking to JTS for lunch,” one JTS Joint Program student, who requested anonymity, said. “I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of students who are taking advantage of using Flex Dollars at the JTS cafe are already at JTS by virtue of having class there or by living in the dorms.”
Another draw might be the menu: Lunch at Hewitt Dining Hall is almost exclusively a dairy meal, with the likes of fish, pasta, salad and soup. JTS diners can expect meat options like hot honey chicken, London broil or roasted herb chicken. Kosher certification is by Rabbi Aaron D. Mehlman of National Kosher Supervision.
“Eating food together and sharing meals is a great way to foster community and connections,” JTS dean of campus life Sara Horowitz wrote in an email. “We are delighted to have the opportunity to be another welcoming address for Columbia/Barnard students to connect with peers in the Morningside Heights community while enjoying kosher food on our campus.”
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