Forget your parents’ nags to eat healthily, Cardozo has a different plan: class, study, pizza. Repeat. Cardozo is affiliated with Yeshiva University. Bearing this in mind, the Student Handbook sheds light on many clubs’ ostensible craving for the slices from Jerusalem II. Under the label “facilities,” the sub-section “Student Lounge and Café” elaborates on what Yeshiva University’s kosher food operation means for Cardozo students. All the food served for events at Cardozo is kosher, the food served at club meetings is kosher, and the cafeteria only serves kosher food.

For the students arriving at Cardozo without a clue as to what a “kosher food operation” entails, there is a useful explanation of the practice in the back of the handbook to help clear up some confusion. Generally, kosher rules require that certain foods be eaten separately; the handbook notes that the consumption of animals like pigs and shellfish is prohibited. For many Orthodox students at Cardozo, the kosher policy helps temper the stress of law school. Gershon Ackerman, 1L, explains: “The kosher food policy, not having classes on Jewish holidays, all these factors allow a person to attend a mainstream law school and balance it well with religious practices.”

Yet, there is a paradox to the school’s kosher policy, and the text reflects the tension that occurs when students from outside the Yeshiva umbrella arrive. Every student at Cardozo is not required to participate in the kosher food operation, and “individual students are free to bring…non-kosher food into the building for their own consumption.” How, then, does the school deal with the requirement that there should be “no contamination of items used in food preservation, storage and service?” The dining service for the cafeteria takes precautionary measures to keep microwaves and refrigerators separate by designating kosher and non-kosher microwaves and refrigerators. However, it seems that no one is employed strictly to guard against non-kosher food mixing with the kosher food. Consequently, the obligation to follow these rules is on the students. The premise of the honor bar in the cafeteria underlines a general idea that motivates the student body at Cardozo: the awareness of the need to respect others and the integrity to do so.

Madison Marcus, 1L, summarizes the benefits of Cardozo’s kosher food policy for many of its students, “there are so many rules for students who are kosher but students who are not can bring their own food in. They’re not missing out.” Whether Cardozo will ever feel the need to change certain policies in order to incentivize a larger number of applicants is food for thought. For now, as law students, the question as to whether or not we should eat pizza or not eat pizza is probably the least of our worries. As another 1L student phrased it, “I love any kind of pizza, and it’s not rocket science to learn to use a different microwave. The library hours are a different story.”