Fair Trade Your Shul/Jewish Organization

Here are some ideas of how you can easily add fair trade into your synagogue or organizational life.

Educate about Fair Trade

• Host a fair trade educational event or invite a speaker. One possibility is hosting a screening of “The Dark Side of Chocolate”, followed by a Fair Trade chocolate tasting using our comprehensive DVD Screening Kit.
• Provide information to families planning Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, and other events at the synagogue about fair trade options
• Talk about child slavery and cocoa as part of your Passover seder

Support the Fair Trade Movement

• Choose fair trade products when organizing fundraising efforts
• Include fair trade products in the synagogue’s Judaica gift store
• Host a fair trade Chanukah fair, or include fair trade vendors at your annual fair
• Organize a group to encourage local supermarkets and other vendors to include fair trade coffee/tea/cocoa in their inventory
• Pass a board resolution to only serve fair trade coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar/honey at synagogue events (see this example from Union for Reform Judaism)
• Support your local “Fair Trade Town” initiative
• Host a “fair trade day” on World Fair Trade Day or during Fair Trade Month

Use Fair Trade Products

• Serve only fair trade coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar at synagogue-sponsored events
• Purchase only certified fair trade sports balls for synagogue youth groups
• Use only fair trade flowers for synagogue-sponsored events
• Serve fair trade honey with apples at Rosh Hashanah
• Give a fair trade chocolate bar as the Afikomen at your Pesach seder (unfortunately there isn’t kosher for Passover fair trade chocolate yet)
• Give out fair trade gelt at Chanukah
• At outdoor events, make s’mores with fair trade chocolate
• Decorate your sukkah with fair trade crafts from around the world