Halal: Buying Muslim

FRESH LOOK: Malaysia-based El Hajj markets skincare products such as moisturizer and facial cleanser to pilgrims headed to Mecca.

14 May 2009
By CARLA POWER

Khalfan Mohammed has long been buffeted by culture shock while staying in five-star hotels. As a devout Muslim he has learned to ask staff to remove the minibar's alcohol. He loathes lobbies with loud discos and drunken guests. When traveling with his parents, it is the bikinis that rankle most. "It was quite shocking for my mother to sit in a restaurant with undressed people," the Abu Dhabi-based businessman says. "My mom and dad are not used to seeing people in public wearing their underwear." To avoid such embarrassment, the Mohammeds took to renting furnished apartments.

No longer. On a trip to Dubai last year, Mohammed stayed in the Villa Rotana, one of a growing number of hotels catering to Muslim travelers. In the lobby — all white leather, brick and glass, with a small waterfall — quiet reigns. Men in dishdashas and veiled women glide by Westerners who are sometimes discreetly reminded to respect local customs. Minibars are stocked not with alcohol, but with Red Bull, Pepsi and the malt drink Barbican.

Time was, buying Muslim meant avoiding pork and alcohol and getting your meat from a halal butcher, who slaughtered in accordance with Islamic principles. But the halal food market has exploded in the past decade and is now worth an estimated $632 billion annually, according to the Halal Journal, a Kuala Lumpur-based magazine. That's about 16% of the entire global food industry. Throw in the fast-growing Islam-friendly finance sector and the myriad other products and services — cosmetics, real estate, hotels, fashion, insurance — that comply with Islamic law and the teachings of the Koran, and the sector is worth well over $1 trillion a year.

One reason for the rise of the halal economy is that the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are younger and, in some places at least, richer than ever. Seeking to tap that huge market, non-Muslim multinationals like Tesco, McDonald's and Nestlé have expanded their Muslim-friendly offerings and now control an estimated 90% of the global halal market.

At the same time, governments in Asia and the Middle East are pouring millions into efforts to become regional "halal hubs," providing tailor-made manufacturing centers and "halal logistics" — systems to maintain product purity during shipping and storage. The increased competition is changing manufacturing and supply chains in some unusual places. Most of Saudi Arabia's chicken is raised in Brazil, which means Brazilian suppliers have built elaborate halal slaughtering facilities. Abattoirs in New Zealand, the world's biggest exporter of halal lamb, have hosted delegations from Iran and Malaysia. And the Netherlands, keen to maximize Rotterdam's role as Europe's biggest port, has built halal warehouses so that imported halal goods aren't stored next to pork or alcohol.

Such arrangements cost, of course, but since the industry's anchor is food, business is booming, even in the economic crisis. "What downturn?" asks Nordin Abdullah, executive director of the Halal Journal. "You don't need your Gucci handbag, but you do need your hamburger."

Not just hamburgers. Drug companies such as the U.K.'s Principle Healthcare and Canada's Duchesnay now sell halal vitamins free of the gelatins and other animal derivatives that some Islamic scholars say make mainstream products haram, or unlawful. The Malaysia-based company Granulab produces synthetic bone graft material to avoid using animal bone, while Malaysian and Cuban scientists are collaborating on a halal meningitis vaccine.

In the Gulf, the Burooj real estate company is carving out a niche, not just because it deals exclusively with Islamic banks, but because it designs spas and swimming pools that segregate the sexes. For Muslim women concerned about skin-care products containing alcohol or lipsticks that use animal fats, a few cosmetics firms are creating halal makeup lines.

The burgeoning Islamic finance industry is using the global economic crisis to win new non-Muslim customers. Investors are attracted by Islamic banking's more conservative approach: Islamic law forbids banks from charging interest (though customers pay fees) and many scholars discourage investment in excessively leveraged companies. Though it currently accounts for just 1% of the global market, the Islamic finance industry's value is growing at around 15% a year, and could reach $4 trillion in five years, up from $500 billion today, according to a 2008 report from Moody's Investors Service.

Those who define the halal market in the traditional sense — as a matter of meat, and no more — see the industry stopping at Islamic food standards. But the movement's more bullish advocates envisage Muslim cars and halal furniture built in accordance with Muslim finance, labor and ethical principles. Citing the kosher and organic industries as successful examples of doing well by doing good, some entrepreneurs even see halal products moving into the mainstream and appealing to consumers looking for high-quality, ethical products. A few firms that comply with the Shari'a code — the religious laws that observant Muslims follow — point out that already many of their customers are non-Muslim. At the Jawhara Hotels, an alcohol-free Arabian Gulf chain run by the Islam-compliant Al Lotah conglomerate, 60% of the clientele are non-Muslims, drawn by the hotels' serenity and family-friendly atmosphere. Dutch-based company Marhaba, which sells cookies and chocolate, says a quarter of its customers are non-Muslims, mostly people concerned not about religious edicts but about food safety. "People are always looking for the next purity thing," says Mah Hussain-Gambles, founder of Saaf Pure Skincare, which markets halal makeup.

US's largest kosher market opens in NYC

Store sprawling over 20,000 sq. ft. in Woody Allen's home neighborhood of Midwood, Brooklyn, will offer upscale kosher products such as sushi, organic juice, even kishke; with rabbinical supervision, valet parking

21 August 2008
by AP

The US's biggest kosher supermarket opened in Brooklyn this week, hoping to bring an upscale grocery shopping experience to the city's tens of thousands of observant Jews.

Pomegranate, which sprawls over 20,000 square feet in Midwood – Woody Allen's childhood neighborhood – is also hoping to lure customers who don't keep kosher with its array of organic meats and chemical-free produce

Menachem Lubinsky, a kosher food industry consultant, said it is the biggest exclusively kosher supermarket in the country. "It's more upscale than previous attempts, with everything under one roof, from frozen to fresh to flowers," he said.

"You don't have to walk from the produce grocer to the meat grocer to the baker." The store offers delicacies like sushi, organic pear juice and fresh kumquats along with such traditional Jewish foods as gefilte fish, matzo meal and kishke, a kind of sausage. There's full-time rabbinical supervision, and even valet parking.

The supermarket will compete with mom-and-pop grocery stores in the neighborhood that have catered to generations of religious Jews who follow the strict dietary laws.

"That a market like that can open in a neighborhood like Midwood, where small independent kosher butchers have been going out of business, illustrates the growing globalization of kosher food production," says author

Sue Fishkoff, who is writing a book about kosher food in America. "Where are the goods coming from? All over the world."

Lubinsky said Pomegranate "may set off a price war" in New York's super-competitive grocery market, competing with kosher grocers as far away as Long Island and trendy chains like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.

Note:

For Muslims that eat Halal, most kosher markets and restaurants; will also fit these needs, I will contest, that the Deli's and restaurants; usually have very delicious food.

My mother introduced me to these types of places, when I was a young girl; I enjoy some of the sandwiches, which I admit, I have not had the opportunity to taste all and cheesecake.

Amid Beijing's boom, a Jewish community blooms

Rabbi Shimon Freundlich checks a fish with chef Xiao Wei in the kitchen at Dini's Kosher Restaurant (AP)

4 August 2008
By Dan Levin

Beijing - The Chabad House here sits at the end of a quiet street in an upscale gated community just inside this city's Fourth Ring road and down the block from the Israeli Embassy. A caged duck and a stroller guard the entrance, as does a small army of young Chinese men who patrol the neighborhood of gaudy McMansions.

Ask a local to describe Shimon Freundlich, Beijing's Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, and that person probably will raise hand to chin and stroke an invisible huzi, or beard.

"Sometimes they call me Bin Laden as a joke," Freundlich told the Forward. "They used to call me Santa before September 11. Then it changed."

Change defines much of Jewish life in Beijing. For nearly 30 years, ever since China opened its doors to the West, the world's Jews have been coming to take part in the rapid transformation and surging economic development of its most populous country. Where a handful of Jewish communists landed decades ago, a growing number of secular and then Orthodox Jews have settled, and they have brought their families and traditions with them. Today, roughly 2,000 Jews call this city of 17 million home. Yet, building a thriving Jewish community in Beijing takes patience, humor and flexibility, especially as the capital has been gearing up for the Olympic Games.

"We try to fly below the radar," Freundlich said.

As preparations for the Olympics have made clear, China is still a very centralized state - and one that has not historically had an easy relationship with religion of any color. Jewish locals take great care to work within the system, given that Chinese authorities are on constant alert against proselytizing and Western spiritual practices. Chabad allows only holders of foreign passports to attend prayer services and cultural activities, and refrains from public advertising. The synagogue is technically in Freundlich's home, since free-standing religious buildings are forbidden. Even bringing in Hebrew prayer books requires government permission.

Some Chinese have, in fact, expressed interest in conversion, according to Freundlich, who firmly discourages such inquiries.

"When you come to live in a country that has vastly different rules and regulations, you have to pay close attention to the government to make sure everything you do is respectful," Freundlich said. But "at the end of the day, they're not worried about us. We're not Mormons."

For many Chinese, the fascination with Jewish tradition and history is not driven by religious belief, according to Xu Xin, a Nanjing university professor who founded the Center of Jewish Studies there.

"In China everyone wants to get rich now," he said. "Many Chinese have heard that Jews have money, and this they respect. They think Jews know the secrets of success."

The success of Beijing's Jews, as a religious community, has come from many years of toil. Much of the groundwork was laid by a small group of liberal North American Jews who first came to Beijing in the late 1970s.

"When I first got here there was nothing but a few Jews living in hotels," said Roberta Lipson, one of the founders of the Kehillat Beijing congregation, which is affiliated with the Reform movement.

Lipson arrived in 1979 with the first handful of Western entrepreneurs, students and journalists. Along with some friends, Lipson, CEO of the medical technology company Chindex, organized the first Passover Seder in 1980 in a member's home and then High Holy Day services in a hotel conference room, starting Friday night Sabbath open houses shortly thereafter.

Over the next decade, they were joined by Jews from Europe and the Soviet Union, and in 1992, when China and Israel established diplomatic relations, Kehillat Beijing held a joint Seder with the Israeli Embassy. In 1995, the community began holding regular Friday night services in a local activities center, followed by the first brit milah in 1997, the same year that Kehillat Beijing established a Sunday school. Today that school, Ahavat Yitzchak, teaches 40 children. Despite never employing a permanent rabbi, Kehillat Beijing now has around 50 families.

Yet because Kehillat Beijing was a progressive community that held egalitarian religious services and lacked kosher food, Beijing (and China) remained a major headache for halachically observant Jews, who were coming in increasing numbers as China was becoming a major source for kosher-ingredient manufacturing and Jewish-owned businesses.

"When we were the only outlet for Jewish religious practice in Beijing, we felt a lot of pressure to be all things to all people," Lipson said. "We knew we weren't fulfilling more traditional religious needs."

Indeed, Orthodox Jews were forced to schlep suitcases of kosher food with them from abroad and to live and travel amid a society that was by and large ignorant of Judaism. To address these pressing issues, Chabad's Freundlich arrived in Beijing in 2001.

"My goal was to build a Jewish infrastructure starting from almost scratch," he said.

Freundlich's presence has provided a place for Jewish children of all stripes. In 2002 his wife, Dini, opened Ganeinu International School an accredited Montessori school that today educates 50 children, up to age 12, from a diverse range of Jewish backgrounds and various levels of observance. This openness is a major theme that connects Chabad and Kehillat Beijing.

"We focus on what unites us, not what divides us," Freundlich said. "I'm God's agent, not his policeman. I need to be able to balance a Satmar in a shtreimel with a guy who brings his non-Jewish girlfriend to Shabbat dinner."

Chabad provides teachers for Kehillat Beijing's Sunday school, which shares both Ganeinu's building and the financial responsibility for it, Lipson said. The two also come together for religious holidays and coordinate their Seders to avoid schedule conflicts.

"I'm sure some visitors will look askance at our close ties," Lipson said, "but we realize Jews come in all colors, shapes and sizes, and we are very grateful to Chabad for helping us make a community where all Jews can feel at home."

In the past seven years, the Jewish community has grown to 1,500 people from 700, Freundlich said, and Chabad has established a downtown location in the city's central business district as well as a community center, in addition to the Chabad House, that holds a synagogue. Satmar Hasids donated the funds for Mei Torah, a women's-only mikveh and spa complete with massage, showers and manicure and pedicures.

Just as vital for the observant community is a readily available supply of kosher food. A ritual slaughterer flies in from South Africa every three months to shecht beef and chicken for the Jewish community, including those who are customers at Dini's, Beijing's only kosher restaurant, which opened in March 2007.

Before the Olympics, it appeared that kosher food for participants and athletes could be a problem. But Freundlich dismissed such claims, saying that there has never been a shortage of kosher food in China under his watch and that Chabad has 7.5 tons of beef and 9 tons of chicken waiting for kosher visitors.

The restaurant, Dini's, will be open 24 hours, six days a week, during the Olympics and will provide kosher food for athletes in the Olympic village, as well as snack baskets for spectators. And just to be sure, five student rabbis are flying in for the games to help with kosher certification.