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In May, an
Illinois court ruled that McDonald’s must pay $1 million into education
about kosher laws. The money is part of $10 million that McDonald’s must
disburse as part of a settlement since they were found guilty of advertising
their french fries and hash browns as vegetarian when, in fact, they
contained beef flavoring. This mislabeling was denied by McDonald’s, but
they did admit that they “unintentionally gave vegetarian consumers
inaccurate information about our fries.” The $10 million included $6 million
assigned to vegetarian groups, $2 million to Hindu and Sikh organizations,
$1 million to children’s charities and $1 million to five Jewish groups.
The
plaintiff’s lawyers determined the allocation based on the number of
individuals that likely were affected by the mislabeling. Obviously, they
did not understand about kosher or they would not have given money to kosher
Jews who could not order the french fries even if McDonald’s would have
called them kosher.
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The $1
million Jewish money from McDonald’s breaks down as follows:
The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life will receive $300,000 in the
settlement. Jeff Rubin, director of communications for Hillel compared
the case to the miracle of Chanukah. “It’s another positive thing that
came out of hot oil,” he said. “This will help us to promote an
understanding of kashrut on college campuses around the world.” The bulk
of Hillel’s allotment will go toward building and renovating kosher
dining facilities on various campuses. The remaining amount will be used
for an educational program, “You Are What You Eat: A Kashrut
Conversation,” and to supply students with kosher recipes.
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Jewish
Community Centers Association will receive $200,000 to develop curricula
about kosher laws and practices. The curricula will be distributed to
JCC’s throughout the country and staff will be trained to develop new
educational programs.
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The
Orthodox Union will receive $150,000 for education about kosher
observances via meetings and publications and on its web site. The money
also will go toward educating mashgichim through national seminars.
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Star-K
and Torah.org will receive $300,000 to expand their web sites to offer
an online, interactive course for schools, hospitals, synagogues and
others on creating and maintaining a kosher kitchen. Among other
services, the site will respond to questions from individuals and will
provide research on the kosher status of nutritional supplements.
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CLAL —
National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership will get $50,000 to
host conferences on kashrut and disseminate the resulting ideas.
Several other Jewish organizations supplied educational proposals for
consideration, but the lawyers wanted to select only a handful of
groups.
The court rejected one of the groups already selected, National Ramah
Commission, which had been slated to receive $450,000, because a
McDonald’s attorney was affiliated with the Conservative camps. The
group was removed to avoid the appearance of impropriety. In its place,
the court approved Hillel.
The
remaining funds apportioned to Ramah were split between the JCCA, which
received an extra $50,000, and Star-K and Torah.org, which got an extra
$100,000.
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