Gas Prices, Immigration Raid Make It Harder To Find Kosher Meat

Posted: July 7, 2008 11:08 PM CDT



Gas Prices, Immigration Raid Make It Harder To Find Kosher Meat
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About Jewish dietary laws
Information on Kosher products and restaurants, travel guides and Passover
Jewish Federation of Nashville
Vanderbilt University








NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Finding kosher meats in Nashville is always tough, but these days it is nearly impossible.

Rising gas prices and a national shortage of meat are contributing factors as well as a recent immigration raid at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant.

About 400 workers at Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa were arrested.

The recent shortage is putting some Midstate business owners, who cater to a Jewish clientele, in a real bind.

"It's an inconvenience," said Goldie Shepard, a Nashville-based Jewish catering company owner.

Kashrut refers to Jewish dietary laws and kosher means foods that meet these standards. The foods have been prepared according to Jewish tradition; blessed by a rabbi; made with kosher ingredients and cooked in a kosher kitchen.

Shepard and her husband often drive to Atlanta or Memphis to buy meat such as beef brisket.

Right now, she is concerned about a looming deadline: Fall semester when hundreds of Jewish Vanderbilt University students and faculty return to campus.

"So today again, I ordered more chicken because I'm afraid I'm not going to have it for these kids who look forward to it every Friday night," she said of the dinner on Shabbat, which starts at sundown Friday.

Keeping kosher is already more costly. She said her beef brisket costs $12.99 a pound, which is three times the price of non-kosher beef.

Shepard said if worse comes to worst, she will have to scale back on the beef selection she serves to the students and offer more affordable alternatives such as chicken.

But limiting a college student's hearty appetite goes against everything her late mother taught her. Cooking kosher is a tradition local Jewish caterers really try and stick to, even if it means making a little less money.



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