Jews, Arabs Join in Bid to Modify Food Packaging : Manufacturing: Religious groups band together to convince the industry to be sensitive to their dietary laws. But even with a common goal, the two sides don’t always agree.

Take note of that oily film floating on the surface of your plastic foam cup of coffee. It represents the cutting edge of American Jewish-Muslim cooperation. So do plastic ketchup bottles and even steel food containers.

The reason is animal fat.

Specifically, it’s the tallow-derived oils used in the manufacturing of those items. The oils mix in minute but chemically discernible traces with the foods or drinks in the containers, presenting problems for observant Jews and Muslims, both of whom adhere to strict dietary regulations.

It’s a case of food technology prompting a rare instance of practical--if not entirely problem-free--cooperation between Jews and Muslims, two groups who often eye each other warily, in large part because of suspicions stemming from the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“This is important because it’s one of the few instances of religious Jews working with religious Muslims,” said Dena Shapiro of the Baltimore Jewish Council. “This builds relationships that can transcend any one issue.”

The fats involved are often derived from pork, prohibited in any form to those who follow Judaism’s kosher laws or Islam’s halal regulations. But even when derived from other animals, the fats remain unacceptable because they come from animals not slaughtered in accordance with the dictates of both faiths.

“We were quite surprised” that animal fats were present in the containers, said Muhammad Chaudry, who directs the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America. “If it was thought about at all, it was assumed these oils were either burned off in the production process or became inert in the final product.”

The solution was for Muslims and Jews jointly to approach food container manufacturers and get them to switch to vegetable-based oils. That practice has become widespread in the steel industry and recently took hold among plastics manufacturers. Plastic foam products are the next to be tackled.

“We all realize that this is a pioneering effort, but that was not our motivating factor,” said Avrom Pollak, president of Star-K, a Baltimore firm that is one of the world’s leading kosher certification agencies. With $1.8 million in annual revenues, Star-K officials go as far as China to inspect foods set for export to the United States.

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“We (Muslims and Jews) had a religious concern, and we figured it served both communities to work together,” Pollak said.

Muslim-Jewish cooperation on food packaging issues follows more than a decade of tentative dialogue between the groups, much of it growing out of local interfaith coalitions organized to tackle a variety of social and political issues.

In Baltimore, Jews and Muslims participate in interfaith anti-drug efforts. In Los Angeles, the groups are involved in an interfaith campaign to defeat Proposition 187 on the November ballot, which would deny certain educational, health and other state benefits to undocumented aliens.

Still, said Rabbi Lori Forman of the American Jewish Committee in New York, “the dialogue hasn’t gone very far yet. There’s resistance on both sides.”

Moreover, what dialogue there is tends to be limited to the most liberal elements of both communities. That’s even more the case for Jews, because Orthodox Jews, following rabbinic dictates, generally shy away from all interfaith involvements out of a desire to avoid theological debates.

That makes the cooperation between Jews and Muslims in the food packaging industry even more noteworthy. Conservative members of both faiths have taken the lead on this issue, and the concerns they grapple with are of importance only to those who are most observant.

Star-K, its offshoot, Certified Shipping Packaging Transport, and the 11-year-old Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America in Bedford Park, Ill., have been cooperating for more than three years. Working with them in subordinate capacities are vegetarian groups and Seventh-day Adventist leaders, who often shun the consumption of all meat.

They first tackled the steel-container industry, where manufacturers use oils as lubricants in the production process. The companies were more than willing to shift from animal-derived oils to vegetable oils. At stake, they noted, was far more than the $2-billion American kosher food industry or the smaller, but fast-growing domestic halal market.

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More important to food container manufacturers is the overseas market, particularly the 1 billion Muslims worldwide.

“There was some initial discussion of whether this was all necessary,” said John M. Madritch, a product metallurgist at Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point plant near Baltimore. “So we spoke to a number of our customers and their response was this was worth pursuing. We just listened to the marketplace.”

This past summer, Solvay Polymers Inc., a Houston plastics manufacturer, became the first in its industry to switch to vegetable-based oils in the production of plastic resins. “They’re chemically equivalent, and even though this costs us a bit more, frankly, it’s good P.R.,” said Mike Killough, a Solvay marketing executive. “We do lots of business in the Muslim world.”

Despite their successes, Jewish-Muslim food industry cooperation has not been problem-free. Loyalties to one side or the other in the Middle East conflict get in the way, as do desires to maintain religious separation. So do plain old business rivalries.

Muslims interviewed were far more sensitive on these points than were Jews. Representatives of both faiths suggested that was because Jews have been established in the kosher food certifying industry for decades, while American Muslims, most of them relatively recent immigrants, are new to the field and still seeking their niche.

“In theory, the Arab-Israeli situation is not supposed to interfere,” said Rabbi Jonah Gewirtz, a Star-K mashgiach, or kosher food certifier, during an interview in the company’s no-frills office in a northwest Baltimore neighborhood where many Orthodox Jews reside.

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“We’re supposed to be dealing with religious matters, not politics, so we avoid talking about the Middle East. But theory doesn’t always hold up,” he said. “I can recall one time I was introduced to an Arab group and I was asked not to say I was a rabbi.”

Ibrahim Hooper, a Washington activist with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Jewish-Muslim cooperation, even when focused on mutual concerns such as food packaging, is problematic because it involves “working with people who support Zionist principles.”

In the past, American food companies, which have far less knowledge about halal certification agencies than they do kosher certifiers, have approached Star-K and other Jewish groups for help in making their products acceptable to Muslims. Since Islam allows followers to eat kosher food when halal products are unavailable, Muslims also will patronize kosher establishments.

A few blocks south of Star-K’s offices, for example, religious Muslims and Jews often can be seen standing next to each other at check-out lines in Seven Mile Market, a large kosher outlet.

Star-K officials also said they routinely receive calls from the Washington embassies of Muslim nations asking where kosher meat can be purchased locally in the absence of halal meat.

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Because of all that, Abdurahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, another Washington Islamic public policy agency, believes kosher certifiers are reluctant to accept Muslims as equal partners, preferring instead to retain control of as much business as possible.

“We are sensitive to that. They have to bring us in,” he said.

Gewirtz denied any attempt to keep Muslims from gaining more influence in the food certification industry, where one steel plant might pay as much as $10,000 annually to be repeatedly inspected and deemed in accordance with kosher or halal rules.

“They publicly want to be seen as doing it all on their own and they want Jews to remain behind the scenes when it comes to the Muslim community,” he said. “I understand that. But the truth is we’ve been around a lot longer and we’re better organized at this point.”

Still, Muslims and Jews engaged in the dialogue process generally give high marks to the efforts taking place in the food packaging industry.

“This is another of God’s tests to see how far we can go beyond our prejudices on subjects of common concern,” said California Muslim food scholar Ahmad H. Sakr.