Nut Awareness

A core value of SVAJ is to include as many people as possible in synagogue life. One area of inclusion that has potential life and death consequences is awareness and sensitivity to those in our community with severe food allergies.

Recently there was an incident of someone in the community with a severe nut allergy having a reaction after nuts were served at Kiddush.

After consulting with our community member who had the reaction, the Kiddush Committee, medical professionals, and the shul leadership, we are implementing the following "nut-aware" policy in an effort to include all members in the community.

• We will refrain from serving open nuts during Skokie valley events events (raw peanuts, pistachios, mixed nuts, etc). However, there will likely still be products that contain nuts in kiddush. There will be signage alerting the community that nuts may be present.
• We will be offering a nut-free kiddush option each week for Kiddush. This nut-free option will be located in the kitchen in a sealed container, along with clean plasticware.
• If you or your children handle something with nuts, we ask that you clean your hands before handling other foods that do not contain nuts.
• We ask that if you bring snacks with nuts in the building you encourage your children to be mindful about where they are eaten and to wash hands after handling products with nuts.
• Snacks provided in groups will continue to be nut-free, and we remind parents that nuts should not be brought into rooms that Hillel Torah uses in order to respect their nut-free policy.