Ruthie Blum and Latma, Brooklyn "Confusion" and Ashton's "Award"

Ruthie Blum's latest article concerns the big debate going on in a trendy food co-op in Brooklyn.

The Park Slope Co-op is a hippy-dippy creation for lovers of organic produce, composting, Zen music, and whole-grain cookery. Oh, yes, and for kosher-keepers, as well. To become a member, one has to pay an entrance fee and volunteer one’s services two to three hours per month. Only members are allowed to shop there. What they get in exchange is great food and other products at a far lower cost than is charged at regular supermarkets.
But something began eating at a bunch of members who had been sacrificing valuable iPad and yoga time to stack shelves and ring up purchases: A fair number of the items on sale at the Food Co-op are – gasp! – manufactured “beyond the Green Line.”

Such irony. A hundred years ago, Jews like my grandparents found that Brooklyn was the perfect American refuge after fleeing Eastern Europe. When I was growing up, we'd go to Brooklyn to visit relatives, driving quickly through the dangerous neighborhoods where they had once lived. Almost a half a century ago, my husband and I moved to Israel and now live in Shiloh. That didn't make our families very happy. And now Brooklyn Jews even think it immoral that Jews live and work in Shiloh. Do they want us back in Brooklyn? Let them first bring back the Dodgers...

And Latma is busy with Katherine Ashton, awarding her an award with an amazing name.  Watch the show and find out what it is:

Shabbat Shalom to All