Making Kansas Kosher

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
What images spring to mind when you think of Kansas? Toto, Dorothy, sunflowers and the Old Cowtown Museum, right? Well, now it’s time to add kosher kitchens to the mix.
There were 17,425 Jews in Kansas as of 2016, making them 0.6% of the state’s population.
And while Kansas is perhaps no capital of kosher like the tri-state meccas we coastal elites live in, the University of Kansas is finally offering its students kosher food. As the Lawrence World Journal reported, University of Kansas’ Oliver Hall has opened the first entirely kosher kitchen on campus, a product of a KU Chabad and KU’s Dining Services’ partnership.
When the original Oliver Hall kitchen fell in disrepair, the two groups saw an opportunity. They worked tirelessly through the fall semester to repurpose an old kitchen into a new, kosher space.
Between 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays students will be able to use their meal plans to purchase the kosher meal of their choosing. Enjoy that bagels and lox, kids!
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