Associate Editor

For each of the past nine years, the Washington DC Jewish Community Center has staged a gastronomically ambitious fund-raiser featuring the cooking of master chefs who prepared gourmet kosher meals for donors.

Baruch Fellner, who keeps kosher, has attended several of these functions, and each time, he was gratified that his dietary preferences and those of other kosher-observant Jews had been so honored.

"There was a wonderful sense of inclusiveness that this created, and the food was delicious, too," added Fellner, 63, a District resident and a member of Kesher Israel Congregation, an Orthodox shul in the District.

But times change. As the 10th Anniversary DCJCC Gala nears, Fellner is not exactly smacking his lips in anticipation. Rather, he is boycotting the gala, feeling excluded under the function's new format. The April 19 event, which will be held at Union Station, is now kosher-optional and it is not the only Washington-area communal event where that term applies.

Several local Jewish institutions routinely provide nonmeat, so-called kosher-style meals at their big fund-raisers, offering kosher and vegetarian alternatives on request. This practice reflects an "unfortunate" shift during the past decade or so away from kosher-only meals being served at local communal events, according to Rabbi Zev Schechter, founder of the Metropolitan Rabbinical Kashrut Association, also known as Metro K.

In most cases, kosher-on-request meals are easily distinguished from those being eaten by the other diners at communal events. Instead of being served on china flanked by flatware, they typically are containerized, swathed in plastic wrap and accompanied by plastic cutlery.

"Separate but equal doesn't work for me," said Fellner.

Although the aesthetic contrast apparently will be minimized at the DCJCC gala, both Fellner and Kesher's Rabbi Barry Freundel contend that the new arrangement is an insult to kosher-keepers because it makes them feel like second-class citizens.

"The event should be inclusive so that everyone, including those that observe the laws of kashrut, are able to attend and participate fully," Freundel said in a recent e-mail to WJW.

Is Freundel right? In the interests of inclusiveness, should kosher-only affairs be the norm? And since individual and organizational standards vary, what precisely qualifies as kosher? To promote transparency, should fund-raiser attendees be notified in advance which kashrut-certifying organization is supervising the meal?

Those questions were posed to local rabbis and others, and their answers varied, reflecting the complexity surrounding communal food policy.

The chief reasons cited by representatives of local Jewish organizations for serving kosher-optional fare are that kosher meals are relatively costly and not particularly popular among attendees a combination that can reduce the net proceeds of fund-raisers. (Only 7.2 percent of local Jews eat strictly kosher food both in and outside of the home, according to the 2003 Greater Washington Jewish community survey.)

"Kosher meals appreciably add to the expense involved, but they do not appreciably add to the number of supporters who will come," said Marilyn Feldman, a spokesperson for the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington. The home, whose Rockville-based facilities are kosher, sponsors two major fund-raisers each year the Aunt Minnie Luncheon, held in the spring, and the Starlight Ball, a dinner dance that takes place in the winter.

Both events feature what Feldman called "kosher-style" menus (generally fish, dairy or pasta), with sealed kosher meals available for the few who request them. Until about 10 years ago, both fund-raisers were exclusively kosher, Feldman said, "but there seemed to be a declining interest in having glatt kosher menus." She said she has received very few complaints about the current set-up.

During the past three years, the local branch of ORT America's annual honoree dinner has been exclusively kosher twice and kosher-on-request once.

"I prefer doing kosher, but sometimes it gets too expensive," explained Esther Schaeffer, director of the Greater Washington Regional Office of ORT America.

There are exceptions, however, to the trend toward partially kosher functions. Jewish Women International, which has had a kosher-optional format for years, now plans to offer a kosher-only menu at its Women to Watch awards luncheon in December. It will be prepared under the oversight of a mashgiach, or kashrut supervisor, operating under the auspices of the Orthodox Vaad Harabonim of Greater Washington-Rabbinical Council.

"We wanted the entire community to be able to celebrate together without having to check a box," said JWI spokesperson Stephanie Friedman Schneider. The all-kosher arrangement will increase JWI's cost by about $5 per plate, adding "a few thousand dollars" to the event's total outlay, according to Schneider.

JWI board member Susan Turnbull, a Bethesda resident, said the extra cost was minimized in part because this year's venue will be a D.C. hotel that offers kosher catering.

"Kashrut-only makes a great deal of sense," said Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, president of the Washington Board of Rabbis, who emphasized that he was commenting primarily "as a Reconstructionist pulpit rabbi."

Rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Dobb cautioned that the issue of appropriate communal food policy is more nuanced than it initially might seem.

Ideally, true culinary pluralism should reflect many principles, he explained, including the conviction that it may be ethically desirable to raise lots of money for worthwhile communal causes, even if the bulk of those donations come from treif-eaters.

Still, Jewish organizations should be encouraged to serve only kosher meals "so that everyone feels comfortable," said David Butler, a member of an Orthodox shul and immediate past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, which requires that any food-related public event it sponsors be Vaad supervised.

Rabbi Avis Miller of Conservative Adas Israel Congregation in the District agreed, adding, "I don't think that Jews should have to request special kosher meals at communal events."

Rabbi Mindy Portnoy of the Reform Temple Sinai in the District, however, said she "has no problem with" kosher-style fare at such functions as long as a kosher option is available. She would, though, object to pork, shellfish or other overtly treif food being served at communal events (as well as meat that is not certified kosher).

Rabbi Amy Schwartzman of the Reform Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church said creative meal-serving approaches should be tried to prevent kosher-keepers from feeling marginalized. Barring that, she added, all-kosher fare should be the communal default position.

But whose kashrut standard should prevail? Until this year, kashrut supervision for the DCJCC galas was provided by Metro K, a non-Orthodox organization. Invitations to those galas did not specify that, according to Arna Meyer Mickelson, chief executive of the DCJCC, who said advance notification was not deemed necessary. "The people who are religious always call ahead," she added.

For that reason, Butler said, communal organizations should not be obligated to make that distinction on their invitations. "If an organization is making the effort to provide a kosher meal," he explained, "I don't think we should impose more burdens and have more hoops for them to jump through."

Portnoy disagreed. "The more transparency the better," she said. "For a Jewish communal dinner, people shouldn't have to make an extra phone call."

Miller, who argued for specifying the kashrut-certification agency because "information is useful to people," said more organizations might opt for kosher-only functions if communal policies existed to ensure that "serving kosher doesn't add more to the cost of a meal than is absolutely necessary."

In the case of the upcoming DCJCC gala, those who request kosher food will be provided with a facsimile of the main meal (not prepared by the 10 featured chefs) that has been cooked at the JCC Cafe under the oversight of a Vaad-affiliated mashgiach. The meals will be served on china that has never been in contact with nonkosher food, according to Mickelson, who said metal flatware will also be provided.

Asked if kosher-observant diners might feel marginalized because kashrut is now the exception rather than the rule at the gala, Mickelson said, "I imagine that could be the case, but I think I would have heard complaints by now, and I haven't."

Several reasons have been offered for the gala's menu change, including that kashrut requirements cramped the style of the chefs and prevented them from turning out top-rate meals. That, and the fact that the demand for strictly kosher food at the event has been minimal.

"We wanted to open this up to a larger epicurean format; we wanted to do something spectacular," said DCJCC board member Ellen Kassoff, who recruited the chefs for this year's event. (Her husband, Todd Gray of Equinox Restaurant in the District, is one of them.)

Kosher cooking precludes such an approach, Kassoff contended, adding, "everyone knows how limiting it can be."

Mickelson acknowledged that sentiment, but said "the fact is they can do spectacular and kosher."

The decision to opt for a kosher-on-request gala, Mickelson said, "is a reflection of our constituency. As long as they were comfortable eating dairy, vegetarian or fish out, we were comfortable with it."

Following this year's larger-than-usual splash, the gala is scheduled to return to the DCJCC, where the previous kashrut arrangement will be resumed.