Harvard Dining Services will be expanding kosher food options after a decades-long effort to introduce hot kosher lunches in undergraduate dining halls covered by the university’s undergraduate meal plan.
HUDS provides students with hot kosher meals for lunch and dinner six days a week in the Harvard Hillel dining hall and two undergraduate dining halls (Annenberg Hall and Pforzheimer House). All three dining halls serve cold kosher meals for lunch and dinner on Saturdays, the only day that hot meals are not served.
The expansion, which implements one of the preliminary recommendations issued by the Presidential Task Force on Anti-Semitism, comes as Harvard seeks to demonstrate its commitment to tackling anti-Semitism on campus.
Congress is currently investigating Harvard for its failure to address anti-Semitism following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and the university is also embroiled in a legal battle after six Jewish students filed a lawsuit over the university’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism on campus.
Harvard Hillel Executive Director Jason B. Rubenstein (Class of 2004) said in a statement Friday that he has been advocating for the expansion since he was an undergraduate at Harvard more than 20 years ago.
Expanding kosher food availability is a “big step for Harvard’s Jewish community and for the University’s diverse and vibrant religious and cultural communities,” Rubenstein wrote.
“These changes will enable Jewish students to eat better, be happier, and be more fully integrated into Harvard’s social life, so much of which takes place over meals together,” Rubenstein wrote. “We are grateful to HUDS leadership and staff for the many months of dedicated, careful work they have done to iron out all the details and make this generational dream a reality.”
The meals served at these three locations are prepared under the supervision of the mashgiach of the Boston Council of Rabbis, supervisors who oversee the preparation of the food and must certify it as kosher.
Meals at Hillel are also served under the supervision of the Mashgiach, while meals at Annenberg and Pforzheimer are served by students on a self-service basis without Mashgiach supervision.
While the lack of mashgiach will likely put off some students who follow strict kosher standards, former Hillel president Jacob M. Miller (Class of ’25) said the expansion of kosher options in undergraduate dining halls is a “huge win” for non-Orthodox Jewish students who only eat kosher meat.
Rubenstein also said there are “ongoing discussions” between Hillel and Harvard Dining Services about certifying that the food served at Annenberg and Pforzheimer is fully kosher.
A Harvard spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The kosher menu includes meat and parve options five days a week, and on Thursdays, dairy and fish entrees are available to students who keep kosher.
Before the change, kosher students could only eat hot meals at Hillel dining halls during dinner. While HUDS piloted a hot kosher lunch option in Quincy House in fall 2021, lunches were typically limited to cold sandwiches or prepackaged, reheated leftovers. Additionally, neither of the dining halls where most students eat (Annenberg or the upperclassmen dorms) offered hot kosher options.
Miller, now the Crimson’s editorial director, said the two previous kosher lunch options were “inadequate,” but said he believed the expanded options would “directly improve the quality of life for people who keep kosher or follow a kosher-style diet.”
“Because of the nature of this program, we will see a significant increase in people biking to Hillel in the afternoons, and we hope that will have a significant positive impact on the Jewish community,” he added.
Throughout the 2023-24 academic year, Miller and Hillel Rabbi Getzel Davis will meet regularly with HUDS Managing Director Smita S. Haneev and Sheila C. Timba, dean of the university’s School of Administration and Finance, to discuss expanding kosher food offerings.
According to Miller, the main constraint that prevented the serving of hot kosher food at lunchtime was limited storage space at Hillel’s facility, which was already “stretched” to store the food needed to serve dinner.
Miller said HUDS conducted a “feasibility study” on adding lunch at Hillel and decided that supplemental storage and cooking would be done in the dining hall at the Cronkite Center, a former graduate student residence hall that now serves as dorms for surplus undergraduate students living in the Radcliffe Quadrangle.
While the expansion of kosher food options was not announced with much fanfare on social media by Hillel, it is one of the first major changes the university has made in response to recommendations released by the Anti-Semitism Task Force.
In addition to expanding meal offerings, Rubenstein wrote that he would like to see the university continue to implement the recommendations of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Semitism.
“Going forward, we hope to continue expanding dining options for all Jewish students across Harvard and build on this step as the University implements the remaining recommendations from the Anti-Semitism Task Force,” he added.
Miller also said the expanded options would make Harvard more attractive to prospective kosher students.
“It’s easier to convince people to come to Harvard if you say, ‘We have a hot lunch and a hot dinner every day,'” Miller says. “Before, we had to say, ‘Dinner’s not an issue. Lunch, you know, is plenty good.'”
—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X. Follow or thread Follow.
