In 2011, insurance agent Adam Moskowitz took a trip to Israel with The Jewish Experience and came home inspired to become more observant in his Judaism.
Starting Jan. 1, 2012, he decided to eat only kosher meat. That was a big deal, he said, as he had been a card-carrying member of Bacon the Month Club — yes, there is such a thing. But his desire to live in a more Jewishly observant way overrode his affinity for bacon.
Some four years later, Moskowitz moved to his current home in Lowry, and at that point went completely kosher.
He purchased all new dishes and pots and pans — two sets of each.
Rabbi Raphael Leban, his friend and managing director of The Jewish Experience, worked with him in koshering the kitchen, which involved thoroughly washing every surface in the kitchen in in the appliances, which he says “involved a lot of boiling water”to remove the remnants of non-kosher food particles.
Moskowitz quickly “got sick of washing the milk dishes by hand,” so he figured out a way to fit a second, smaller dishwasher in his kitchen by removing a bank of drawers. He lost some storage in the kitchen but gained a lot of convenience.
Moskowitz’s three children, two of whom are now grown and out of the house, quickly and cooperatively adapted to kashrut in their home, and — a bonus — he says they quickly grew out of begging for things at the grocery store because they realized a lot of it wasn’t kosher.
The kids also taught their friends what they could and could not eat when visiting the Moskowitz home.
Moskowitz also let his friends know that his home was kosher. “I wanted people to feel comfortable eating here.”
On Aug. 13, 2023, Adam Moskowitz married Barbara Kelly in a ceremony at BMH-BJ. Barbara had embraced kashrut and many other mitzvahs long before she married Adam. Upon their marriage, Barbara moved into Adam’s home, and because he already had a fully-stocked kosher kitchen, she did not bring her kitchen accoutrements with her. Ironically, her dairy dishes pattern was the same as Adam’s meat dishes, so that could have been confusing.
The couple travels a great deal. They have learned to scope out kosher restaurants and Chabad houses for kosher meals wherever they go.
Kosher traveling hack: “Tuna packets come in handy in a pinch,” says Barbara.
They have a mountain home in Winter Park with two sets of dishes, pots and pans and utensils, just like their home in Lowry.
Together, the Moskowitzes lead an observant Jewish life — kashrut, shomer Shabbat, daily prayer and synagogue on Shabbat. They attend Aish Kodesh on the East Side.
Adam is board chair of The Jewish Experience, and both he and Barbara are co-chairing the annual JNF Breakfast for Israel on April 17. They recently traveled to Israel to lend their support during the war.
Reflecting on what keeping kosher means to them, Barbara says “it makes you thoughtful about what you put into your mouth.”
Adam calls it “the ultimate mindful eating: ‘Where did my food come from and how does it relate to what I was eating three hours ago, or will be eating three hours from now?’ Keeping kosher takes mindful eating to a whole other level.”
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