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Efforts to bring kosher and halal food to the dining halls has intensified in recent weeks as student leaders and administrators have begun to work together to devise a feasible plan to cater to the dietary needs of Muslim and Jewish students.

Since last spring, the Jewish Student Union and the Muslim Student Association have been working together on the campaign encouraging housing and dining officials to provide specialized kosher and halal food in the dorms.

Kosher and halal refer to the Jewish and Muslim dietary laws, respectively. Both sets of laws forbid all pork products, subscribe certain methods for slaughtering animals, and forbid the consumption of blood.

Connie Foster, associate director of Dining Services, said it is still too early to say whether or not kosher and halal food will be provided or when or how the food will be made available.

One hurdle to bringing the specialized food to on-campus housing is kosher and halal products are often more expensive than other food. Additionally, preparing the food would likely require separate cooking facilities to keep the food away from other food that is not permissible under the Jewish or Muslim laws.

MSA and JSU jointly brought this issue to the attention of Dining and the UCLA Housing Administration on Governance Day last spring when administrators and student leaders came together to address any concerns that student leaders have, said Nat Schuster, a third-year neuroscience student and president of JSU.

Discussion continued with Foster and Housing Director Michael Foraker throughout fall quarter and is ongoing, Schuster said.

Initially, Foraker was hesitant about providing kosher and halal food in the dining halls because he did not want to cater to one specific group, said Aliya Hussaini, a fourth-year political science and history student and external vice president of MSA.

But as discussion continued, the main concern for Dining became financial, and recently Housing and Dining have been ramping up efforts to find a solution, she said.

Schuster said JSU has developed a plan to achieve its goal and has had several meetings with administrators this quarter about the issue.

On Campus Housing Council and the Undergraduate Students Association Council have both passed resolutions in favor of kosher and halal food being served in the dining halls.

Meanwhile, per a recommendation from Housing, JSU and MSA have been working on collecting names of students who would be interested in kosher or halal food in order to determine how many people would eat the food, Schuster said.

“It’s been an intense month and a half,” Schuster said. “This has been an issue in the Jewish community for a while but there wasn’t an organized campaign.”

JSU and MSA leaders are both drafting proposals on possible courses of action for Housing and Dining to take to make the specialized food a reality.

“I think that things are looking very promising right now,” Schuster said, adding that he is hopeful that kosher food will be available by fall quarter of 2006.

Hussaini said MSA and JSU are not demanding sweeping changes immediately.

“We’re not asking for everything at once. We’re willing to take smaller steps,” Hussaini said.

She said they are currently trying to get cold cuts or a small refrigerator in each of the dining halls designated for kosher and halal food. Since kosher and halal food differ, this may mean that two separate changes would need to be made.

Eventually, they would like to have an entire kitchen designated for kosher and halal food, Hussaini said.

Schuster said Housing and Dining have been very supportive of the groups’ efforts.

Recently, Dining has puts signs up in Bruin Cafe, a residential restaurant on the Hill, indicating which pastries are kosher, Foster said.

Those kosher pastries are kept on a separate shelf.

“That was a very good show of effort,” Schuster said.

Foster has also been doing research on which kosher ingredients Dining is already using, Schuster said.

He said there are many other schools across the country that provide kosher and halal food for students and characterized the goals of the groups as “very obtainable.”

Schuster said some students are forced to choose between following dietary laws at home or in an apartment or not following the rules as strictly while living in on-campus housing.

He added that students “shouldn’t have to choose between their identity and living on campus.”

“I think that living in on-campus housing is an important part of the college experience,” Schuster said.

“When people don’t have that experience then I think they miss out on a lot and I don’t want anyone to be deprived of that.”