This post originally appeared on The Jew and the Carrot.
This past Sunday, as I marched with nearly 1,000 others, passing by 5-star hotels, bewildered tourists and students, I felt proud to be holding the new “Boston Jews for Fair Food” banner. A group of interfaith individuals, we were marching in support of the Coalition for Immokalee Workers and the “penny per pound” campaign. The campaign, which Whole Foods, Taco Bell and even McDonalds have already signed on to, promises one more cent paid per pound of tomatoes collected by workers in the Immokalee section of Florida, one of the largest tomato growing regions in the country (workers currently receive 50 cents for every 32 pounds they pick.) More specifically, we were protesting the Massachusetts-based Ahold company, which owns Stop and Shop grocery stores, and has refused to sign on to the agreement.
To start off the rally, two local rabbis stood in front of the crowd to give an invocation and read a segment of an interfaith statement endorsing the CIW campaign: “In Judaism, food matters — from how our food is harvested to the act of eating itself… Ensuring fair wages and working conditions for the people who grow our food has its roots in Biblical law,” said Rabbi Toba Spitzer of Dorshei Tzedek.
Throughout the rally and march, alongside the 69 farm workers who came up from Florida and a variety of other groups from across the Northeast, contingents from at least five Boston-area Jewish groups, played an integral role in marching through the streets.
But this is not where this battle started for the Jewish community.
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Aliza R. Wasserman studied food and agriculture policy and works for a local public health department. She is the founder of the three-year old “Farm-to-Shul” effort based at the Moishe Kavod House in Brookline, MA.
