When it came time for Sivan Pardo, 31, to plan her wedding to her 28-year-old fiancé Scott Renwick, she knew she wanted a “big fat vegan wedding.” “As Scott and I are both vegans for ethical reasons, it was very clear to us that we wanted our wedding, and everything around it, to reflect our ethics and values,” said Pardo, the founder and director of “The Vegan Woman” website. Pardo has been vegan for one year and a vegetarian since she was 12. There will be no animal-derived products served at her reception on June 1. Scott Renwick and Sivan Pardo She is hardly the first bride to use her wedding menu to express her beliefs. In 2010, former first daughter Chelsea Clinton famously served a vegan menu and gluten-free cake during her nuptials to Marc Mezvinsky to reflect her own dietary choices. Clinton did, however, also offer the option of organic grass-fed beef to omnivorous attendees. She is among the brides and grooms meeting their guests halfway down the aisle on menu choices in the interest of making their big day more harmonious. It's a fine waltz between “it’s my wedding and I’ll serve seitan if I want to,” and appeasing the average guest’s palate. The compromise is one that Jennifer Fugo was willing to stomach. She was diagnosed with gluten sensitivity in 2008, and two years later, opted against a gluten-free wedding. “At first I wanted the entire wedding to be gluten-free, however I came to realize that the cost was just too much to bear,” said Philadelphia-based Fugo. She runs the “Gluten Free School,” an online educational resource for the gluten-free lifestyle. While her guests noshed on traditional wedding fare, Fugo enjoyed a personalized gluten-free meal. And when it came time to cut the cake, there was a gluten-free, vegan cupcake waiting for her. For those with gluten intolerance like Fugo, the flour in a regular wedding cake would have wreaked havoc on her digestive system. Sick and bloated is no way to spend your wedding day. “Most caterers should be able to accommodate health-related dietary restrictions individually and create a special meal for the bride or groom without serving it to all of the guests,” said Chicago-based wedding planner Camille McLamb . “But ultimately, whether the restrictions are health-related or due to religious or ethical reasons, it's the bride and groom's day, and they should choose a menu that they are most comfortable with.” For Pado and her fiancé, the menu with which they felt most at home was entirely vegan. “We could not imagine having our wedding tainted with the suffering of animals for the sake of keeping some of our guests pleased,” she said. “Especially as we know how wonderful, rich and exciting the world of vegan cuisine is , and that all people really need to do is just give it an honest try.” Among the items the couple will be serving: eggplant rolls with sun-dried tomatoes and vegan cream cheese, mushroom risotto, coconut milk-based penne pasta with peanuts and chives and honey-melon soup with mango sorbet. Pado says she and Scott are constantly invited to non-vegan events, and though the non-vegan food and drink “saddens” them, they attend as a sign of appreciation for the invitation – and hope for the same mutual respect on their big day. “We hope that by inviting our family and friends to an event that is cruelty-free, they will respect us and our chosen lifestyle on our very special day,” she said. McLamb says the menu can communicate something about the couple to the guests. “I've had couples that served curry to reflect their Indian heritage and hushpuppies to showcase their Southern roots,” she said. “Dietary restrictions based on religion, ethics, or beliefs are no different; they highlight something that's important to the couple and personalize the wedding.” When Siobhan Kent married her husband Aaron, they wanted to personalize their wedding with one of their favorite foods – Southern barbecue. The mother of the bride, however, advised the couple that since their officiating rabbi kept kosher, the reception should reflect the same, even if Siobhan's half-Catholic, half-Jewish family only kept kosher on major Jewish holidays. “I wasn't a bridezilla by any stretch, but I wasn't too mature about being denied bacon on what was supposed to be the best day of my life,” said Kent. In the end, her mother’s opinion meant more than her persuasion toward pork, especially since her parents paid for the wedding. No harm done. The Kents ended up getting more than their fill of barbecue on their big day, it just happened to be in the form of chicken. “The kicker on the whole day was that the rabbi ended up not being able to attend, so this delicious kosher buffet was served to an audience where absolutely no one kept kosher,” she said. Ultimately, the people invited to a wedding should know the bride and groom well enough to understand their choices. McLamb says a wedding should be treated like a dinner party; if you go to a vegetarian’s house for dinner, would you expect a T-bone? If guests know the hosts abide by certain dietary rules, they shouldn’t expect to be served outside those. And if your second cousin twice-removed does end up complaining because there isn’t any schnitzel, McLamb suggests the bride and groom can simply reply, “'I'm sorry you feel that way, but this is important to us.' In the end, most people understand that the bride and groom's preferences reign supreme on wedding day.” No further explanation needs to be served. Take Our Poll

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Here comes the bride … and her dietary restrictions

The Jewish leader who wants Germans to read Mein Kampf

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Viewpoint: Let Germans read Mein Kampf

Judaism and hip-hop. To some, the word association may seem odd or even contradictory. But an array of young Jewish musicians aims to change that perception. Whether Orthodox, Hasidic or Reform, hip-hop artists performing in the Washington Jewish Music Festival, running until May 21, are fusing the ancient tenets of Judaism with this relatively modern musical genre, one born of American urban culture. Read full article > >

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D.C. Jewish Music Festival has hip-hop flavor in its 13th year

Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs, writers and farmers we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian, living history interpreter and Jewish educator from the Washington D.C. area. He blogs at Afroculinaria.com and thecookinggene.com . As the originator of the Cooking Gene Project, he seeks to trace his ancestry through food. Edward Booker, Hattie Bellamy and Washington Twitty didn’t know what an organic farm was, but nearly everything they ate was organic. They enjoyed wild caught, sustainable fish; they were no strangers to free range chickens, and they ate with the seasons with almost nothing originating more than a mile or two away from their cabin door. They had gardens, composted, and ate no processed foods. Their food was fairly simple, often meatless; and it was a fusion cuisine, with ingredients drawn from five continents. They were not culinary revolutionaries living out of the foodie playbook – they were three enslaved individuals living among the over 4 million held in bondage before the Civil War, and they were my ancestors. In the upcoming months I will return to the fields, forests and waterways of the Old South in search of my culinary version of Roots, tracing my family tree through food from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom. The project is called The Cooking Gene: Southern Discomfort Tour . Slavery is not just a practice or moment in American history; it is a metaphor for our relationships to lifestyles and food systems that many of us view as beyond our control. Most of us are enslaved to food systems that aren’t sustainable, but eat we must. And because we must eat, food is a natural vehicle for telling the kinds of stories about historical slavery and the impact of “race” on how we eat , even as we critique and question our contemporary food politics. Food is our vehicle to move beyond race and into relationships and use those relationships to promote the kind of racial reconciliation and healing, our nation desperately needs. Food is not an afterthought in the story of race, class and power. It is the founding element in our American story. In human no enslaved people have transformed the food habits, tastes and relationship with the table of those who enslaved them, as Africans did in the Americas. We are – all of us Southerners – the products of a strange and painful, joyous and regret-free cuisine that is the confluence of mothers and men speaking over 100 languages struggling over the means to express a common culinary love in the middle of a heartbreaking and irrevocable exile. This is the heritage I am thrilled to carry in my DNA but like many of us, terrified to reclaim and own. Why now? In the words of one my faith’s greatest sages, “If not now, when?” We need this conversation because we have tired of our ancestors being referred to anonymous “slaves” lingering in the background of Southern culinary and cultural history even as children of color could be actively engaged in growing the heirloom crops of their ancestors in urban community gardens. We feel locked out of the epic story of barbecue, revised to erase its African/Diaspora ancestry. Our farmers are struggling to hold onto land purchased after the Civil War, when they could be producing quality organic food. Many of us are crying for a culinary voice that respects and embraces the best of our contributions rather than devaluing them with buzzwords centering on contemporary food practices which aren’t as healthy or wholesome as classic early African American cuisine actually was. As my team and I wind our way from Maryland to Louisiana and back we hope to find ourselves using this story to remedy these ills of historical and cultural obfuscation and overall lack of access to the contemporary food scene. Most of all I am hoping to sit down with the descendants of the families who owned my ancestors,and in some cases are my blood relatives. If nothing else, our names, the land, shared histories and Southern food bond us and connect us in ways other Americans are not. I’ve caught the DNA bug, and want to trace these tree lines back to West and Central Africa, Europe and Native America to understand where it all comes from so that we know where we’re going. American food culture today is an inquisitive and contested landscape in search of values, directions, and its own indigenous sense of rightness and self-worth. It is a culture looking towards American ecology, seasons and opportunities for new ways to invigorate and color the national palette. It is concerned with health, sustainability, local economies, environmental integrity and social justice. We could not ask for a better season to harvest the fruits of our common food Ancestors: the cooks of kitchens high and low in the Old and Deep South. It is these men and women who I hope to champion and elevate not just because the past needs us, but because we need the past; and the future needs us now. Follow Michael on his journey at thecookinggene.com and learn more about the fundraising effort at indiegogo.com . More on Southern Food : Old world ingredients you should know and use from the South Why it's different in the South Why diversity matters in a restaurant kitchen Hugh Acheson: Southern food, beyond the butter Why eating grits doesn't automatically make you a Southerner 5@5 – Overlooked Southern ingredients Mehepyewpleez? A love letter to K&W Cafeteria Boiled peanuts She-crab soup, shrimp and grits, benne seed wafers and the lowdown on Lowcountry cuisine 5@5 – Virginia Willis – Southern is a state of mind Talk with your mouth full – what is Southern food? Reclaiming the soul of Southern food Southern food: more voices from the field

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The cook who picks cotton: reclaiming my roots

Mr. Netanyahu, the father of the two-time Israeli prime minister Benjamin, fought for the creation of the Jewish state by lobbying in the United States.

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Benzion Netanyahu Dies at 102

Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas says Mel Gibson shelved a movie about Jewish hero Judah Maccabee because he “hates Jews”, but Gibson calls the accusation an “utter fabrication”.

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Gibson in new ‘anti-Jewish’ row

Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas says Mel Gibson shelved a movie about Jewish hero Judah Maccabee because he “hates Jews”, but Gibson calls the accusation an “utter fabrication”.

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Gibson in new ‘anti-Jewish’ row

“Iraqi Immigrants in California Town Fear a Hate Crime in a Woman’s Killing,” read a recent New York Times headline. The article reported that the murdered woman’s family had previously found a note with the words “This is my country. Go back to yours, terrorist,” taped to the door of their Orange County house. Although an ongoing police investigation has unearthed family tensions which may have led to the murder of Shaima Alawadi, the shame and the fear of violence directed at Arab and Muslim Americans is nevertheless very real. I know because I, too, am an Iraqi-American, born in Baghdad and raised here. First, some background. After graduating high school in Baghdad, my father received his medical degree from La Sorbonne in Paris. Returning to Baghdad, he founded a private hospital with an Iraqi partner also educated in Paris. My father was Jewish; his partner Shiite; their nurses Catholic nuns in the then multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Iraqi capital. Following Israel’s creation, anti-Semitism surged throughout the Arab world. My mother fled with me to Europe. Unable to get permission to legally emigrate, my father smuggled himself to Iran in a fishing boat. From there, he flew to Europe, rejoining us, and bringing us all to America. He got recertified here, and would treat thousands of patients in an office off Fifth Avenue.

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Reclaiming My Iraqi Identity

The Israeli minister of defense ordered the eviction of a group of Jewish settlers from a contested house, although the government has signaled support for more settlements.

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Israeli Police Evict Jewish Settlers From Hebron House

Sink your teeth into today's top stories from around the globe. No bunnies were harmed in the making of this bunny-shaped bread! – Serious Eats How do you like your Cadbury eggs? We like ours scrambled. – CakeSpy Even for non-Jewish people, matzo mania is in full swing during Passover. – Chicago Sun-Times To mark 60 years of the Queen's reign, one simply mustn't toast with another country's bubbly. – Reuters Japanese fugu (pufferfish) chefs are blowing steam over new lax laws about who can prepare the potentially deadly marine animal. – Financial Times

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Box lunch: Bunny bread and chocolate eggs

The one-state solution posits that the ongoing attempts to forge a two-state solution, one Israel and one Palestine, are a failure and untenable going forward. Following up on my initial piece on this subject, I now turn to the hurdles that would need to be overcome in order to accomplish a single state where both Israelis and Palestinians live in peace. The lines between separate states are blurring, argues Ahmed Moor, a student at Harvard’s Kennedy School and co-organizer of the recent One State Conference . 20% of Israelis are of Arab descent and 17% of the residents in the Occupied Territories are Jewish settlers. Israel is exercising control over Palestinian land and people in the West Bank by the construction of security walls that cleave cities and separate farmers from their land, and by destroying wells or buildings built without Israeli permits. Israeli settlements are expanding in contravention of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prevents an occupying force from moving its citizens onto occupied lands. So, the argument would go, if Israel controls who and what comes and goes in the West Bank and Gaza, exercises the right to build its own structures while destroying those built by Palestinians and maintains a security and military presence within the territories, how do we not already have a single, albeit imbalanced, state?

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Is a Single State the Solution? Tackling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Part Two

Former Argentine President Carlos Menem will stand trial accused of obstructing an inquiry into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural centre that killed 85 people.

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Argentina’s Menem in bomb trial

This forlorn wind-whipped rise is not much to look at. It is topped with a set of dingy trailers, a basketball hoop, a water tower and a pair of antennas. But in recent months, the hilltop settlement has taken on great symbolic weight as the focus of a legal fight whose outcome most everyone involved says could shape the direction of Israel. The case came closer to a head this week, when Israel’s supreme court upheld its previous ruling that 49 Jewish families were illegally living here on Palestinian-owned land and rejected a government plan to delay its destruction by three years. Read full article > >

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West Bank outpost at center of Israeli battle over rule of law

This article, written by MJ Rosenberg, appeared on the Huffington Post on March 27,2012 The schedule for the American Jewish Committee conference in Washington coming up in May highlights that Sohrab Ahmari, an Iranian-American, will be addressing the question: “Can Iran’s nuclear program be stopped?” Ahmari has been popping up more and more these days, especially at neoconservative organizations like the AJC.

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Neocons Do Not Speak for Iranian-Americans

Members of a Brooklyn food co-op voted down a controversial motion Tuesday night that would have paved the way for a referendum on the boycott of Israeli-made goods, effectively ending three years of heated internal debate at a community institution usually more concerned with sharing organic recipes than divisive geopolitical issues. The vote at the 16,000-plus member-owned Park Slope Food Co-Op would have brought the co-op one step closer to participating in the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS. BDS supporters aim to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by boycotting Israeli products and companies that do business with Israel. Those opposing the boycott defeated its supporters in a 1,005 to 653 vote. According to Joe Holtz, one of the organization’s founders, only a few Israeli products are sold at the co-op, including vegan marshmallows, pesto tapenade and Israeli couscous. Yet, the mere possibility of a boycott sparked extensive local media coverage and stoked tension amongst co-op members and New Yorkers on both sides of the issue. “We are saddened to announce that the Park Slope Food Co-op will not be holding a membership-wide referendum on whether to join the international BDS movement,” said a statement on the Web site of a group calling themselves the Park Slope Food Co-Op Members for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. “However, despite our loss in tonight’s vote, we have succeeded in one of our goals. BDS has entered into the consciousness of thousands of co-op members and has even made it into mainstream conversations thanks to the huge amount of media coverage.” Peter Raskin, a retired teacher and member of the co-op for 35 years, described a sense of unease that pervaded the co-op in the lead-up to the vote due to the presence of BDS supporters demonstrating outside. He said that while the co-op has long been a place of camaraderie to work and talk food, “this has touched on people’s nerves. I was feeling afraid to tell people I was a co-op member.” Founded in 1973 by a small group of neighborhood residents, the co-op’s rules stipulate that members must work 2 hours and 45 minutes once every four weeks. But Raskin believes the forces behind the BDS movement at the co-op were largely external and, according to him, anti-Semitic. He said that when his wife went shopping recently someone came in from outside the co-op and put a sign over the matzo indicating that it was made in Israel. “It’s Passover season,” Raskin said. “Anyone buying matzo is Jewish, they know it’s made in Israel,” he said. Still, some at the co-op simply wanted to keep food and politics separate. “I think we should just not have an opinion, it’s just too contentious an issue for most people,” Dakkan Abby, a co-op member told CNN affiliate WABC. “It’s too emotional and divides what’s otherwise a pretty united community,” he said. The co-op’s vote even got some attention from Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” Tuesday night, with correspondent Samantha Bee quipping that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Park Slope Food Co-Op is perhaps the “one victim of this war that may be the most tragic of all.”

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Brooklyn food co-op votes down boycott of Israeli-made goods