Jewish Food Justice: Aligning Actions with Values
The value of justice, tzedek, is at the very core of Jewish ethics and is meant to be incorporated into all aspects of life–including our food choices. Justice, is deeply woven into the fabric of the Torah and rabbinic teachings. Across Jewish texts, justice is not confined to fairness; it also embraces empathy and kindness.
Within a Jewish framework, justice often necessitates making moral compromises when one-size-fits-all rules don’t work for all of life’s complexities. Much like the concept of justice, food sustains us and allows us to engage meaningfully in the world.
Where Does Jewish Food Justice Come From?
Food justice as a broader movement is focused on increasing food sovereignty, dismantling systemic inequities, and restoring community-led food systems. Historically, the movement is inextricable from the legacy of Black and Indigenous-led activism. Indigenous communities have been fighting and advocating for food sovereignty and justice as long as their foodways have been exploited. For decades Black activists spearheaded racial and economic justice efforts and grassroots programs that are the foundation of the modern food justice movement.
Jewish Food Justice, like its secular counterpart, has no static definition but is rooted in Torah and rabbinic teachings that prioritize rest and redistribution for land, animals, and people. Perhaps the first practice to model Jewish food justice in our ancient tradition is shmita– the year of “release” or sabbatical to be taken after working the land for six years. The most notable aspect of shmita is the prioritization of the shared needs of the land, humans, and animals to rest and reset. This ethic ensures the viability and sustainability of a healthy and just food system.
What is Jewish Food Justice?
Jewish food justice emphasizes the need for repair, redistribution, and renewal within the food system. It recognizes the tensions within the modern food system and offers solutions based on Jewish ethical principles. Whether by reducing inequities, demanding sustainability, or fostering empathy for all participants—people, animals, and the planet—Jewish Food Justice motivates us to take action at every level, from personal food choices to systemic reform.
Principles of Jewish Food Justice
Jewish food justice rests on the interconnected well-being of people, animals, and our planet. Focusing on these three pillars we can examine where and how injustices exist in our food and farming systems. By doing so we work to bring justice to these areas and build a world that reflects Jewish teachings and addresses our ethical obligations to repair and sustain our planet and all the beings we share it with.
People
The industrial food system operates on a foundation of systemic injustice, perpetuating cycles of harm to workers, consumers, and entire communities. Nowhere is this violation of justice more visible than in industrial animal agriculture.
Oshek, a moral prohibition derived from the biblical Hebrew word meaning “to oppress,” forbids worker exploitation, particularly for those who are most vulnerable. Workers on factory farms and slaughterhouses face unsafe conditions, low wages, and few workplace protections. Most animal agriculture operations (96%) are exempt from OSHA oversight, leaving workers exposed to work-related injuries and exploitation. The agriculture industry is notorious for still employing child labor, with children as young as 12 performing hazardous jobs that may involve handling dangerous machinery. In 2024 the Department of Labor found 736 child labor law violations, including Tyson, one of the biggest meat corporations in the world.
In addition to exploiting employees, factory farms harm communities living in their proximity. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)—large-scale industrial farming facilities—are often deliberately located near lower-income, racially marginalized communities, perpetuating environmental racism. Residents near CAFOs face poor air and water quality due to pollutive runoff and airway contamination, putting them at greater risk of health issues.
Furthermore, the dominance of industrial animal agriculture undermines local food and farming sovereignty by eliminating competition from smaller, diversified farms. This corporate control of the food and farming systems diminishes rural economies and consolidates power among a few agribusiness giants. Jewish food justice reminds us of the need to prioritize fairness, safety, and equity, particularly for people most affected by these systems.
Animals
Our food system’s standard treatment of farmed animals directly conflicts with the Jewish principle of tza’ar ba’alei chayim that calls us to prevent unnecessary animal suffering. It’s estimated that 99% of farmed animals in the United States–including those who supply the kosher market–spend their shortened lives confined to factory farms.
To meet insatiable production demands, farmed animals are confined to cramped, unsanitary conditions that deprive them of natural environments and behaviors like grazing and nesting. For the past several decades, the industry has also intensified breeding practices to make animals grow bigger faster, or produce more eggs and milk than they would naturally. Even with better environmental conditions, most modern chickens and turkeys are genetically prone to life-long suffering.
These agricultural practices, driven by the pursuit of maximum efficiency and profit, neglect the animals' inherent needs and well-being. Each year in the United States we slaughter approximately 9.76 billion land animals per year for food. Whether it’s egg-laying hens in battery cages selectively bred and forced to lay hundreds of eggs per year or dairy cows in a repetitive cycle of forced milk production tethered in stalls with concrete floors, it’s clear that this extreme focus on productivity comes at the expense of welfare. Similarly, virtually all fish farmed for food come from overcrowded, industrial aquaculture farms with poor water quality in an environment prone to disease outbreaks. The conditions farmed animals endure are widely accepted as the industry norm, but they violate the Jewish obligation to minimize animal suffering and treat them with respect and care.
Farmed animals that supply the kosher market endure these same harsh conditions. Even though most consumers erroneously believe kosher certification ensures farmed animals are treated better throughout their lives than their counterparts. These realities should be a reckoning for Jewish communities, requiring us to question whether food sourced from factory farms is truly fit to eat and aligned with values we hold sacred.
Jewish food justice invites us to reduce our reliance on factory-farmed foods and advocate for more humane approaches to the treatment of farmed animals—emphasizing restraint, mindfulness, and welfare in production and consumption.
Planet
At the core of Jewish ethics is the responsibility to care for the Earth, reflected in two key principles: bal tashchit, avoiding unnecessary destruction, and sh’mirat ha’adamah, protecting the land. These teachings remind us of our duty to preserve our planet's natural resources and protect its biodiversity; after all, if we destroy our world there will be no one to repair it after us.
Yet industrial animal farming is one of the most destructive forces impacting the planet today and is a leading contributor to climate change. Its vast scale and poor environmental practices contribute to deforestation, the depletion and contamination of waterways, air pollution, and a dangerous amount of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, meat and dairy production are the top source of methane pollution in the United States and factory farms account for 55% of the country’s total water consumption. Globally, agriculture is the primary cause of deforestation and 77% of deforested land is used for animal agriculture. The industry’s unsustainable use of resources leads to unnecessary habitat destruction, waste, and biodiversity loss.
To reduce the environmental strain of feeding our world we must change the foods we produce as well as those that we buy, serve, and eat. This requires reducing our consumption of animal products in favor of plant-based ones. Studies show that compared to a typical gathering, a communal meal that is plant-based by default saves up to ⅔ in greenhouse gas emissions and water use and up to ¾ of food-related land use. With subtle shifts, our shared meals can have a big positive impact on the planet.
Our current food and farming systems cause irreparable harm to the environment and violate our sacred duty as stewards of the Earth. Jewish Food Justice demands that we rethink how we engage with the planet's finite resources. From reducing food waste to choosing less resource-intensive food sources, we must pursue more sustainable practices.
Community-Led Solutions
If secular food justice leaders have taught us anything, it is precisely those most impacted by the abuses of the food system who have the most stake in its reimagination. These leaders have inspired hope that even a relatively small community can reclaim the power to support healthier ways of producing food and standing up to the systems perpetuating inequity and harm. Drawing upon our own Jewish wisdom, shmita teaches us that restoring justice and natural resilience requires us to consider the interdependent well-being of all life connected to our food. Each of us can do more to learn about the impacts of the food we buy, the land we occupy, and the preservation of sustainable foodways. We can call for large-scale policy change but also directly influence and create communal policies to bring justice to our communities.
These efforts not only create alternative local food systems but also help to empower communities, particularly marginalized ones, to reclaim control over their food sources and resist corporate-driven agricultural practices. Jewish Food Justice resonates with these efforts, emphasizing the importance of collective responsibility and equitable access to resources while staying grounded in Jewish ethics. By supporting and investing in community-oriented solutions, we can begin to reshape our communal food practices to be better aligned with Jewish values.
To take meaningful action, consider developing a food policy for your community rooted in the principles of Jewish food justice. The Center for Jewish Food Ethics (CJFE) offers free consultations to help you craft a food policy tailored to your Jewish community’s needs. Reach out today and become part of the movement to transform our food system into one that reflects the Jewish world’s most fundamental values. Together, we can build a more just and compassionate future for all–people, animals, and our planet.
