Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on January 9, 2015

For two weeks every winter, laborers work in two eight-hour shifts daily to squeeze the 40,000 pounds of pomegranates used in Chesed 24/7s juice. (Uriel Heilman)/JTA

Get Rabbi Shulim Greenberg talking about the health benefits of pomegranate juice and he sounds like a homeopathic nutritionist with a Yiddish accent.

Every January, the Hasidic charity Greenberg runs obtains some 40,000 pounds of California pomegranates (donated by Pom Wonderful, the nations largest pomegranate producer), squeezes them into juice and ships the product in eight-ounce plastic bottles to ailing Jews.

The recipients mostly residents of the haredi Orthodox strongholds of Brooklyn, Lakewood, N.J., and New Yorks Rockland County, where the New Square Hasidic village is located apparently believe in the nectars healing powers.

People think it heals, but it doesnt heal, Greenberg says on a tour of the juice production line during its annual two-week run in January. Its keeping theblood count up, mainly forpeople taking chemo.If the blood count is good, the body has strength to fight the illness.

Many manufacturers of food and dietary supplements promote the supposed health benefits of pomegranates, which are high in antioxidants, and the fruit also occupies a prominent place in Jewish tradition. Pomegranates are said to have 613 seeds the same as the number of mitzvahs, or commandments, in the Torah. Pomegranate decorations adorned the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the robes of its high priest. Greenberg says there is also a reference in a medieval Jewish commentary to the fruits healing qualities.

But scant scientific evidence exists to establish these hypotheses as fact, and in 2010 the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to the nations largest pomegranate juice manufacturer, Pom Wonderful, for making unproven claims about the fruits disease-fighting properties.

None of that has deterred Greenberg, who says his product differs from manufactured pomegranate juice in one small but crucial way: His juice is unpasteurized.

Pasteurized is garbage, Greenberg said of the heating process meant to kill bacteria and prevent spoilage. The whole natural is out.

Pomegranate juice delivery is one small part of Chesed 24/7, a $4.5 million charity that focuses on the Jewish sick. (Until a couple of years ago it was called Chesed of New Square; chesed isthe Hebrew word forkindness.)

Continued here:

Pomegranate juice a vehicle for Hasidic help and healing

Category: Hasidic
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