City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called on the Department of Education to start providing kosher and halal food in schools.
Johnson, a 2021 mayoral hopeful, told WNYC radio’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on Tuesday he believes the DOE should use its purchasing power to help students with religious dietary restrictions.
“Yes, they should be offered because there are a lot of children who otherwise can’t get food that works for them and their families,” said Johnson, responding to a caller who complained his 5-year-old son didn’t have halal food at PS 134 on the Lower East Side.
“So I support us figuring out how we expand halal and kosher food across the entire system … [so] children have dietary options that work for them.”
Brooklyn Councilman Chaim Deutsch in 2018 secured a $1 million pot of legislative taxpayer funds to provide a pilot program offering free kosher and halal lunches at 10 city schools.
But The Post last May reported the program was plagued by delays, which Deutsch then attributed to the DOE trying to first figure out “how best to avoid bullying” of Muslim and Jewish students over their food choices.
It only moved forward this academic year after Councilman Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the education committee, ripped the DOE for the delays at a public hearing.
Treyger said Tuesday he agrees “all schools should have access” to kosher and halal foods if students and staff desire it, adding he believes the DOE should “work collaboratively with respective religious organizations.”
Roughly 430,000 students in city public schools are Jewish or Muslim, making it “possible” that “thousands” of them aren’t accepting DOE-provided lunches because of religious dietary guidelines, according to a May 2018 report by Comptroller Scott Stringer.
The DOE did not immediately return messages.