H eadlines
Balaban Continued from Page 1
the challenges you’ve found
since you came on?
Michael Balaban: From a
worldwide challenge, there are
three core areas that keep me
up at night — and likely keep
many in the Jewish world up
at night:
First, the rise of antisem-
itism. No matter what
direction you turn, it seems
to be approaching us, whether
it’s from domestic issues to
global issues. It raises the
question of, will we be safe
as Jews, especially in a land
that we thought we were pretty
secure in? I would encapsu-
late with that the anti-Zionism,
anti-Israel and anti-Jewish
[sentiment] that has boiled up
over the most recent years. I
think we all knew it was under
the surface. Now it’s attacking
us in broad daylight in all sorts
of places in the world.

Second, Jewish Federation’s
purpose is to care for the needs
of the Jewish people and work
to build a more vibrant Jewish
future. In caring for the needs,
there’s greater disparity for
the vulnerable out there today.

And COVID has exacerbated
this, whether it’s aging popula-
tions, frail Holocaust survivors,
individuals with disabilities or
individuals who are financially
insecure. We’ve seen an explo-
sion of need transpire over the
course of the past 18 months.

Third, it’s really the question
— and maybe it’s because of
the age that I’m at, will my
grandchildren be Jewish? And
what does that look like? I
worry about the state of Jewish
vibrancy — how do we engage
more of our youth, the next
generation, to desire to join in
rather than opt out? How do
we ensure, in a world where
denominationalism has dissi-
pated, in a world where we’re
seeing far more interfaith
marriages going on, how do we
embrace as opposed to judge
and project?
JE: And how do you plan to
address all that?
MB: It starts with a
business plan. I don’t know
of a successful business that
operates by luck, or without
a plan. We’re a legacy insti-
tution, and like many legacy
institutions, you get caught
up in this trap of thinking
we’ve been here forever, we’ll
continue to be here forever.

But the world continues to
rotate on its axis. That means
we need to keep evolving and
changing. At some point, we
stopped evolving, we’re still
utilizing the age-old model
for philanthropy that we were
founded under. Yes, we made
tweaks along the decades, but
it is time for a major change
of how we do business. We’re
looking at all of our strategic
core operating elements in
order to retool.

The basic elements are to
move from a sales model to
a service model. To elabo-
rate, we typically pick up the
phone and ask a person the
following: “Last year you gave
X, will you renew your gift to
the community and give Y?”
That was a model that worked
for 100 years. We need to view
our customer, the donor, as
a philanthropic investor.

Investors look for a return, our
job, our service, is to provide
the best solutions and oppor-
tunities for their philanthropic
investment to make the most
impact in the Jewish world.

Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia President and CEO Michael
Balaban Courtesy Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
JE: What’s your timeline?
MB: I am really excited
that Mark Fishman and Ben
Kirschner are chairing the
strategic plan for us. I antici-
pate being done with the plan
in six months, but the imple-
mentation is where the rubber
meets the road. My goal is for
us to have some quick wins for
the community, but for trans- and nonprofit world now for
formative change to take root, well over 30 years. There’s a
it will take time.

saying, where you stand
depends on where you sit. When
JE: What was your impres- I last worked in Philadelphia, I
sion of the Jewish Federation was a Director of Development
when you came aboard?
for Penn Medicine, so my
MB: While I may be a recent vantage point on the Jewish
returnee to Philadelphia, I’ve
See Balaban, Page 12
been in the Jewish Federation
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H eadlines
Area Restaurants Seek Hechshers
L OCA L
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
AFTER BEN & JERRY’S
announced it would stop selling
ice cream in Israel’s West Bank
settlements, pro-Israel organi-
zations such as Brooklyn-based
Amariah demanded that the ice
cream company’s hechsher, or
kosher certification, be removed.

Some Australian grocery stores,
as well as Australia’s Kashrut
Authority, have removed Ben &
Jerry’s from lists of kosher items.

But this is not the same as
removing the brand’s hechsher,
the process of which is not so
simple. Kof-K, the Teaneck,
New Jersey-based organization
that certifies Ben & Jerry’s, has
a contract with the ice cream
company’s Israeli distributor
that doesn’t expire for another
year-and-a-half. Though the
organization’s hands are tied until
then, it is working with Unilever,
Ben & Jerry’s parent company, to
pressure Ben & Jerry’s to recon-
sider its stance.

“We hope that we’ll get
it reversed,” said Rabbi
Yehuda Rosenbaum, a Kof-K
administrator. But while some are fervent
about wanting the hechsher
removed from Ben & Jerry’s,
some Philadelphia establishments
are just as eager to get their own
kosher certification.

Jessica Boese, co-owner of
Cherry Hill, New Jersey’s new
location of Nothing Bundt
Cakes, isn’t Jewish but wants her
franchise bakery location to be
kosher to accommodate Cherry
Hill’s Jewish population.

“It’s relatively simple for the
amount that it is appreciated by
the community,” Boese said.

Because she, along with her
husband and co-owner, Steve
Boese, knew they wanted a kosher
establishment before opening,
they didn’t need to worry about
buying new equipment or making
new rules about staff bringing
non-kosher food into the kitchen.

For franchises like Nothing
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Bundt Cakes or Insomnia
Cookies, getting a hechsher is
straightforward. “They have standardized
ingredients that are coming in:
They’re bound by the rules of their
franchise agreements to only use
certain suppliers that are coming
in, all with their own certifications
on it,” said Rabbi Yonah Gross,
an administrator for Keystone-K,
the Philadelphia organization that
supervises those area franchises.

One factor that complicates
the process of getting a hechsher,
according to Gross: serving meat.

Preparing meat at a kosher
restaurant requires not only
separation from dairy, but the
constant supervision of a Jewish
person to ensure the product is
being appropriately handled. That
can be a non-starter for many
restaurants that are most profit-
able on Friday and Saturday, as,
besides not being able to cook
meat on Shabbat, they wouldn’t be
able to hire a Shabbat-observant
supervisor, either.

“I don’t think we’d be able to
supervise a meat restaurant that’s
open on Shabbos,” Gross said.

Dairy restaurants also often
require continuous supervision,
but there are still more kosher
dairy than kosher meat restau-
rants in Center City.

Plant-based restaurants
Bar Bombón, Charlie Was a
sinner. and several HipCityVeg
locations around the city all
received kosher certification
from the International Kosher
Council on July 27. Supervised
by Rabbi Eliezer Hirsch of
Mekor Habracha Center City
Synagogue, these restaurants join
the ranks of other vegan kosher
restaurants in the area super-
vised by IKC, such as 20th Street
Pizza and Goldie.

“It really aligns with our
mission to bring plant-based
foods to people everywhere,” said
Nicole Marquis, founder and CEO
of Bar Bombón, Charlie Was a
sinner. and HipCityVeg. “Because
we really believe it’s the single
most important thing we can
do to have a positive impact on
our health, and, of course, on the
environment.” Marquis hopes for
her restaurants to become halal,
further expanding her clientele.

Like kosher establishments
that serve dairy or meat, vegan
restaurants also have to be vigilant
when washing produce and
checking them for bugs. Though
they don’t require constant
supervision, restaurants are still
required to have administrators
provide periodic checks to ensure
their standards are being upheld.

Not all vegan restaurants
are interested in becoming
kosher, Gross said. Some
restaurants source sauces with
animal byproducts because
customers requested them. That
these restaurants still advertise
themselves as vegan underscores
the importance that a kosher
certification has on guaranteeing
transparency between restau-
rants and customers.

Gross said he has noticed a
steady increase in restaurants in
the Philadelphia area applying for
certification. Marquis said that
she has seen a growing demand
for plant-based restaurants, and
members of the Jewish commu-
nity have asked for her restaurants
to get certified.

Despite Marquis’ anecdotal
evidence, there doesn’t appear
to be a major push from
Philadelphia-based restaurants
to become certified. Even so, the
establishments that are becoming
kosher — largely chains and
vegetarian and vegan restaurants
— indicate the growing desire of
restaurants to gain a more inclu-
sive consumer base, as well as
become more conscious of where
they source their food.

Conversely, kosher restaurants
may get the short end of the stick
if clientele are mostly limited to
the kosher-keeping community.

“For kosher restaurants to be
able to gain market share from
the non-kosher community,
that’s a big challenge for them,”
Gross said. l
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