At a Campus Kosher Cafeteria, She’s Prepping for Her Future

Next in a series of articles on the 40th anniversary year of the worldwide kosher campaign launched by the Rebbe in 1975.

She knows her way around a kitchen more than most. Shaina Stasi, a 19-year-old University of Kansas student majoring in speech, language and hearing, has a side job—a calling, she calls it—that often puts her in the hot seat. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Stasi who works weekly—sometimes twice a week—for two hours at a time cooking and serving up kosher hot dogs and corned-beef sandwiches to hungry students. There have been three other students in the position before her, one of them a woman as well. She filled this role last semester and is doing it again this semester.

More on Chabad.org

Keeping Kosher on Campus

She was trained for the position and is supervised in her work by Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, co-director of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life Serving K.U. and the Northeast Kansas Communities.

Teichtel and his wife, Nechama Dina, serve the roughly 2,000 Jewish students who attend the university in Lawrence, Kan., out of a total student body of about 23,000—a solid 10 percent of the population. The kosher deli stand that Stasi supervises is a project of Chabad at K.U., in partnership with K.U. Dining.

Q: Have you always kept kosher?

A: I grew up in a Reform household, became a bat mitzvah and was active in a high school Jewish youth group. Growing in Judaism, towards observance, was self-motivated. I had been to the Chabad House in Overland Park, Kan., where I’m from, and in 2011, I went to Israel on a youth-group trip with my older sister Melissa. That’s where I learned more about Jewish practice. I went again in 2014 on a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip.

With her father, Sam Stasi (Shaina's mother, Diana, took the photo)

It’s been a slow-moving, baby-step process. The more I learned, the more I took on—prayers, blessings, washing—it started with little things. Incrementally, I became more Shabbat-observant and then decided that eating kosher was important to me as well. But not all at once: First, I separated meat from milk; then I started waiting the appropriate time after eating meat and before consuming dairy; then I stopped eating non-kosher meat. It was even more difficult because I was living in a dorm at the time, but now I’m in an apartment with a kosher kitchen; it was koshered by Rabbi Tiechtel.

Shabbat was hard at first because not many people around me were doing it. But keeping it helped me focus on myself. It helped me relax; it’s a de-stressor, especially in college. As for kashrut, it can be a struggle because some people we have over don’t keep it, and don’t quite understand what happens when they put a piece of food on a wrong plate. If something becomes treif, then we have to kasher the item all over again. It’s a learning process.

I still go to Chabad for meals sometimes. I’m active there and was on the student board for a semester. I’ve coordinated women’s programming, helped with Shabbat dinners and have taken every single class they’ve ever offered. Seriously.

Stasi was trained for the position by Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, co-director of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life Serving K.U. and the Northeast Kansas Communities with his wife, Nechama Dina.

Q: How have you grown and gained from your path towards becoming more religious?

A: It’s a total change in lifestyle, if you’re not born with it. But there’s also a lot of support out there, too. Shabbat, keeping kosher ... it’s taught me incredible self-control, which is very valuable. You don’t realize you have that ability. It can be hard because it demands some serious self-control—“You mean, I can’t eat ice-cream for another three hours?!” Yet sometimes, it’s relieving, too, when you can’t have something right away and need to wait for it.

I’ve come a long way. In my own kitchen, for example, I’m getting very creative. It shows that you can learn anything, and that the learning never stops. You just keep going up the ladder.

Q: How did you get this job?

A: Technically, it was passed down to me from a friend. But it was made possible by Rabbi Tiechtel, who discussed the specifics of the job and gave me clear instruction. He not only told me what to do, but what is commonly done wrong and what not to do.

Q: So what exactly do you do?

A: I have my own equipment, my tools. I bring the glatt-kosher meat; bread; rolls; packets of ketchup, mustard and relish; and bowls of Dijon mustard, sauerkraut and pickles. Everything must be either new or untouched every time I prep and serve. I’m the only one who can handle the food, and none of it leaves my sight when I’m working. Everyone has to keep their hands off everything, even the table.

Stasi is all set up to serve at another campus venue: a monthly kosher dinner at Naismith Hall, a private student dormitory at K.U.

I cook the hot dogs in a hot dog roller. The corned beef comes packaged cold. I put it in a crockpot and heat it up for about 10 minutes. Then I make sandwiches out of it; again, I’m the only one who touches it.

Afterwards, I clean all the equipment, which takes about an hour. I wipe and sanitize the machine and the utensils, and then put tape over everything and write on it: “kosher,” “Tzivia” (my Hebrew name) and the date it was cleaned. This way, I can know if it’s been tampered with. It’s my job to make sure that everything is kosher, and it’s a serious job.

The sign for the stand at the K.U. marketplace

Q: Who are your customers, is business fairly routine, and what do you like most about the experience?

A: The customers are a diverse mix of Jewish students and faculty; there aren’t too many observant Jews on campus. There are also some Muslim students who adhere to halal standards and eat the food. And there are those who just want a good hot dog.

On any given day, I’ll make about 30 hot dogs, and seven or eight corned-beef sandwiches. Once, I sold 56 hot dogs in a single two-hour shift. It’s a lot of fun, and I like getting to meet all types of people. And it’s cool to answer peoples’ questions about kosher food and religion.

But what’s best is the impact it makes on people. I really enjoy being the provider to Jewish students who come over specifically to eat a kosher meal. I also enjoy the education I get to deliver to the public. I like giving people the means of eating kosher—it’s a spiritual thing; it’s good for your neshamah, your soul.