Millennial Jews Do An About-Face, Start Keeping Kosher
By
NPR Staff |
NPR
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Update RequiredTo play audio, update browser or
Flash plugin.
University of Illinois student Stanley Dayan (from left) and Chabad Jewish Center employees Mordy Kurtz and Yosef Peysin work at the center's kosher food stand in 2013 at the university's State Farm Center basketball arena in Champaign, Ill.
David Mercer
/
AP
Many millennials — people born after 1980 — have embraced vintage items: vinyl records, thick-framed glasses ... and now, dietary laws.
"I'm 21 years old, and, yes, I do keep kosher," says Lisa Faulds.
She says she ate whatever she wanted growing up: "bacon, ham, all that fun stuff. Seafood, shellfish."
But that all stopped a few months ago.
According to a 2013 Pew Research Center study, nearly a fourth of millennial Jews are keeping kosher.
That's almost twice the rate of their baby-boomer parents — so this is not necessarily because of their parents' influence.
Millennial Margo Smith says it's about values, "taking the root idea of keeping kosher as an idea of being respectful and knowledgeable about the way in which your food is prepared and where it comes from and kind of combining it with the farm-to-table philosophy."
The Atlantic has reported that millennial kosher-keeping Jews are having a big influence on kosher cuisine.
There's now kosher grass-fed beef and kosher free-range chicken — organic, of course.
In uber-hip Brooklyn, a restaurant serves kosher banh mi — that's a Vietnamese sandwich.
And then there's The Gefilteria, a New York company offering small-batch, high-end versions of Bubbie's classic gefilte fish.
Call it kosher cool.
Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
View this story on npr.org
Follow us for more stories like this
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today