New Hillel meal plan offers more options

If your dining hall has become as unappealing as an 8 a.m. recitation, have no fear -- there's an alternative. The University's kosher dining program serves lunch at Hillel and dinner at the Faculty Club, and is available to any student who is currently on a meal plan. According to Hillel Director Jeremy Brochin, this is the first year that the program has been run in conjunction with the University. In past years, lunch and dinner were both served at Hillel, and students who kept kosher were forced to purchase a separate meal plan, he added. "The Faculty Club served a lot of lunches but nothing during the dinner hour," he explained. Don Jacobs, executive director of Hospitality Services, said it made financial sense for the Faculty Club staff to begin making dinner for the kosher students. "The Faculty Club wasn't used for dinner," he said. "The addition of students at dinner offset expenses." Jacobs added that the kosher meal program does not cost the University any more than a traditional meal plan. But money was not foremost on anyone's mind when the idea for kosher meals was brought up. Brochin and Jacobs agreed that it was in the University's best interest to maintain the kosher dining program because it was part of the "one University" concept. "Our goal was that the students who choose Kashruth [kosherness] at Penn should not have to live specially," Jacobs explained. Brochin said he saw the program as an example of the University's effort to reach out to minorities on campus. "This is a model of a program doing its part of the mission of the University to help religious and ethnic groups affirm themselves," he said. "It allows people to mix in terms of diversity." And the new location in the Faculty Club will guarantee seating to all students choosing to attend Friday night or Saturday morning services at Hillel. Space constraints have been a problem in previous years, Brochin said, because both the Friday night meal and the services were held in Hillel, resulting in a 45-minute wait before services until the tables were set up for the meal. "Logistically, it's just that much easier," he added. "It allows people to eat together and celebrate Jewish holidays and Shabbat together." But while students may appreciate the technical aspects, when it comes down to it, they said they are much more concerned with the quality of the food served. "It's improved," said College junior Aaron Ross. "As long as I'm eating anywhere, I'm eating at kosher dining." Recent University graduate Yoram Gutfreund, who is a vegetarian, classified the dinner selection as "good." "I would prefer more vegetarian alternatives," he said. "But they do have a wide variety of food." For a vegetarian like Gutfreund, options are a necessity because kosher law dictates that meat and milk cannot be served at the same meal. Therefore, lunch is a dairy meal, while meat is served at dinner, according to Brochin. In addition, kosher food must be cooked in a special kitchen. So a new kitchen has been built at the Faculty Club for the kosher meals being prepared there, he added. Gutfreund pointed to several areas in need of improvement -- including long waits after Shabbat services. But Ross said the program was still a major improvement over its predecessor. "On the whole, I personally am pretty satisfied," he said. "It's kind of a test run, and for a test run I think it's wonderful."