If You Live Long Enough

Yes, observance practices are not identical to what they may have been many decades ago as more and more 'strictness' is added in (I'm being nice today and not calling some of those practices by names they deserve more than 'strictness').  But some things that I occasionally overhear leave me truly scratching my head.  What caught my attention this time was an overheard conversation between two youngish women about freezers.

What can you possibly say about freezers that has anything to do with religious observance, you are asking yourself.  Allow me to tell you. There was an after Pesach sale on some items in the store I was in that represented an incredible buy.  Two women were picking out items and speaking to each other.  One said to the other,"Aren't you going to buy some of these for the freezer?"  The other one shook her head ruefully and answered: "I can't. My milchigs freezer is full."  The first woman looked puzzled (as did I) and asked: "You have a separate freezer just for milchigs?"  The second woman got a serious look on her face. "Of course I do.  You can't put milchigs and fleishigs into the same freezer. If one should leak on the other you would be far-treifing all the food in the freezer. Don't tell me, you don't freeze them separately?"  The first woman answered,"Of course I use the same freezer for both."  The second woman shook her head. "You really need to think about that. I know you want to have the highest level of kashrus that you can."

The women moved on and I was left with a whole bunch of questions I would have liked to ask Ms. Separate Freezers.  Does she also have a separate freezer for Pareve items?  And even more importantly, does she have separate milchig and fleishig refrigerators?  After all, if frozen milchig and fleishig items could leak on each other, rendering them as treif, how much more so the problem is in a refrigerator.

I understand perfectly the rationale for preferring separate sinks for milchigs and fleishigs, but freezers?  And if this is the new standard that someone is going to be pushing, can completely separate kitchens for milchigs, fleishigs and pareve be far behind?  When I mentioned this to a friend she said--tongue in cheek--that she can see someone pushing this also.  After all, kosher caterers must have completely separate kitchens for preparing milchigs and fleishigs, not just sections of one kitchen that are so designated.  If the caterers have to meet the proper standards for kashrus, why should it be any different for the rest of us?

Just how far are things going to go before someone says enough is enough?

A Pre-Pesach Weirdness

Every erev Pesach there go around some truly strange reports of what various rabbanim and others have decided can and can't be used for Pesach or that require kashering.

I spoke with a friend this morning so we could say a gutten yom tov leisurely instead of in a rush next week.  She is having a mixed bag of company for the sedorim, including one of her aunts and uncles.  And thereby came the weird tale.

This aunt and uncle are not youngsters and for many years both have had partial and/or full dentures.  They never had any concerns about their dentures pre-Pesach before, but the Rav of the shul they are now davening in told them they are going to have to "kasher" their dentures for Pesach.  He added that having a separate set would really be better, but if they couldn't do that, they would need to super clean the dentures, pour boiling water over them (obviously hagolah wouldn't work) and then leave them unused for 24-hours before Pesach.

Frankly, I thought she was giving me Purim Torah just a little bit late or perhaps this was an April Fools Day joke.  Unfortunately, she was quite serious.  I asked her if this aunt and uncle were really going to do this, as it would mean basically not eating for 24-hours.  She said no, they went to a "higher" authority who said that brushing the teeth well was all that was needed.

I was pretty certain that I had learned that plastic couldn't be kashered for Pesach, so those teeth wouldn't be kasherable if you held that they had to be.  But please, false teeth need to be kashered?!  Let's get real here.  If we are now going to mix kashruth into teeth, there are way more problems than just Pesach.  Would this same rabbi also pasken that people need to have two sets of dentures, one for fleishigs and one for milchigs?  Because if he is worried about the kashruth of dentures for Pesach, shouldn't he first be worried about their being treif? (For that matter, our mouths in total are treif.)

And yes, in other years there have been stories about other dental appliances, such as braces and spacers, which some rabbanim have outright assered for Pesach and which some rabbanim require to be "kashered" for Pesach.

Going to put this one into my mental file, along with others like the rabbi who paskened that raw potatoes in their peels had to be either purchased from a shomer shabbos vendor or had to have a hechsher for Pesach.

Does Anyone Know What This Is?

Someone asked me if I could offer any tips for her child who was going to be taking the BJE exams. I'd heard of the exams but did not know what the specific format was, so I did some research online. Yes, I found a sample copy of the test and directed my questioner to it. But I did some further viewing on the site and eventually ran across the following, which confused me no end.

First, what is the BJE? According to its website "Founded in 1910, BJE serves the entire metropolitan area, Nassau/Queens and Westchester County, and every denomination - Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, Reconstructionist and unaffiliated - with sensitivity to each. We provide comprehensive services to more than 700 Jewish day, congregational and nursery schools, serving 176,000 youngsters, as well as group leaders from community centers and camps."

Now the statement that has me puzzled. "KOSHER ONLY PRODUCTS
"Kosher Only" products must be certified by the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York (BJENY) in accordance with the applicable dietary (kosher) laws as established by the "613 Council of Kashruth." Note that this level of kosher is stricter than many other nationally accepted kosher certifications (such as "O-U" of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, or "O-K" of the Organized Kashrus Laboratories). Potential offerors’ manufacturing plants must be certified by BJENY for compliance with the aforementioned requirement. Failure to obtain such certification will result in an offer being deemed non-responsive. Additionally, there are kosher requirements applicable to the ingredients used to manufacture the final end product; this requires adherence to kosher requirements throughout the supply chain. […regardless if whether earlier steps in the supply chain are the direct responsibility of the Governments’ prime contractor.] (See bullets below.) Interested offerors should contact the USDA at 816 926-6050, to arrange for a rabbinic supervisor to be sent to certify compliance of the manufacturing plant with the dietary (kosher) laws. Contractor is not liable for fees associated with initial BJENY certification or with fees associated with the kosher certification of the plant or product."



I've never heard of the "613 Council of Kashruth" and can't find any info on it online either. And to read that it is of a kashruth level stricter than the OU and the OK is kind of puzzling as well.

Anyone out there actually know what this Kashruth Council is and what it does? If I am reading the other information correctly, BJE affiliated programs have to follow its guidelines.

Note: the following schools use the BJE exams. Does this also obligate them to the kashrus rulings of the BJE?

Bat Torah Yeshiva High School for Girls (Suffern)
Bruriah High School for Girls (Elizabeth)
Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys (Woodmere)
Hebrew Academy of Nassau County (Uniondale)
Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns & Rockaway (Cedarhurst)
Hillel Yeshiva High School (Ocean)
Ilan High School (Elberon)
Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls (Teaneck)
Magen David Yeshivah Celia Esses H.S. (Brooklyn)
Moshe Aaron Yeshiva High School (South River)
North Shore Hebrew Academy High School (Great Neck)
Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School (Livingston)
Ramaz Upper School (Manhattan)
Rambam Mesivta (Lawrence)

Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy - J.E.C. (Elizabeth)
SAR High School (Riverdale)
Shaare Torah High School, Boys (Brooklyn)
Shaare Torah High School, Girls (Brooklyn)
Shulamith High School for Girls (Brooklyn)
Stella K. Abraham HS for Girls (Hewlett Bay Park)
The Frisch School (Paramus)
The New Haven Judaics Academy
Torah Academy High School of Brooklyn
Torah Academy of Bergen County (Teaneck)
Westchester Hebrew High School (Mamaroneck)
Yeshiva Derech HaTorah (Brooklyn)
Yeshiva Or Chadash (Valley Stream)
Yeshiva University High School for Boys (Manhattan)
Yeshiva University High School for Girls (Holliswood)
Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman HS (Brooklyn)
Zvi Dov Roth Academy (Brooklyn)

So, at least technically, admission into these schools is based as much on what your exam scores are as they are on whether or not the school "likes" you and thinks you fit what they want to be known for.

The exam covers both secular and Judaic studies. The secular portion, one hour and 40 minutes in length, covers vocabulary, verbal analogies, grammar and word usage, reading comprehension and mathematics.

Kashruth Made Simple...Not

99.99% of the employees in my husband's company are frum (start right of middle and keep moving right until you fall off of the planet). Every year there is a Chanukah party for the employees with catered food at lunch. The majority of the employees come from Borough Park, Flatbush and Lakewood. The company offices are located on the border between Borough Park and Flatbush. So what's the problem? A meeting was held to decide on where the food was going to come from. And it took almost two weeks--two weeks!--for everyone to agree on a restaurant/caterer whose hechsher would be acceptable. In the end there was only one restaurant that everyone would agree on; yes, only one.

Now, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but Borough Park/Flatbush has dozens of restaurants/caterers, maybe even hundreds. It seems like every other day that a new restaurant opens. And yet there was only one restaurant "kosher enough" that everyone could agree to eat from?

I once made the comment that the way that Klal is heading, pretty soon we are all, each of us, going to be our own division of Yiddishkeit. Is there anything that we all agree on when it comes to Klal? Is there any area where achdus draws us together? Keeping kosher can get complicated, given all the wonders of chemistry and food additives and food production, but have we really gotten to the point where lunch requires the input of 60+ people and two weeks of arguing? Oh that this were only a one-off aberration, but it's not. Just what are we doing to ourselves?!

Some More Words on What Kosher Is...Or Isn't

Thanks to my hubby who sent the following article to me, that appeared in the Baltimore Jewish Times on July 10. I was going to post only the link, but decided to post the article in full. I'm making no editorial comments, other than to say that some of the kashrut problems that have been discussed on various blogs at various times are certainly mirrored in this article.


Hebrew National & Kosher Politics
What’s kosher about answering to a higher authority?
July 10, 2009

Kenneth Lasson
Special to the Jewish Times


“No one should see how laws or sausages are made.”

— Otto von Bismarck

Barbecued hot dogs are as American as apple pie on the Fourth of July — and as universal, for that matter, as Israeli cookouts on Yom Ha’atzmaut or Lag B’Omer. In fact, they’re consumed around the world, from Australia to Zambia, and have become a major part of the increasingly capitalistic fast-food business in communist China and Russia.

But nowhere are as many hot dogs eaten as in the United States. We bite into more than 20 billion of them a year — some 818 every second from Memorial Day to Labor Day, according to the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. (Yes, there is such a group, which also lists things like the biggest hot dog-selling cities — Baltimore/Washington is third behind New York and Los Angeles — as well as even more arcane trivia.)

It’s a $4 billion-a-year business, a large share of which is the kosher dog market (preferred by 6 million Americans, according to the NHD&SC, only a quarter of whom are Jewish). And that number is growing at twice the rate of consumption of all other kosher foods.

Little wonder, then, that the controversy surrounding the Hebrew National brand — which was recently rated by Consumer Reports as the best in overall quality among all hot dogs (Oscar Mayer, the largest producer, came in eighth) — is mushrooming by the day.

But the most fascinating fact may be that many Orthodox Jews will not eat any Hebrew National meat products. The underlying reasons for this irony are a hodgepodge of Halachah (Jewish law) and rabbinic infighting — power, profits and politics — much of it as juicy and spicy as what goes into the common sausage.

Here’s the story, in a variety of casings.

From Whence the Wiener?

One of the oldest forms of processed food, the common sausage can be traced as far back as the Roman Empire. (It was mentioned in Homer’s “Odyssey” in the ninth century B.C.)

According to food historians, the edible “dachshund” or “little dog” was created in the late 1600s by Johann Georghehner, a butcher in Coburg, Germany, who later traveled to Frankfurt-am-Mein to promote it. (In 1987, Frankfurt celebrated the 500th birthday of the frankfurter in that city, although the good burghers of Vienna (Wien), Austria, point to the term “wiener” as proof of the concoction’s true birthplace.)

Bruce Kraig, a professor emeritus in history and humanities at Roosevelt University in Chicago, writes that although many lay claim to the hot dog roll as their own invention, it is likely the Germans introduced the practice of first eating their dachshund sausages on warmed buns.

The American version probably made its first appearance in the 1860s, when German immigrants sold sausages with milk rolls and sauerkraut from pushcarts in New York City’s Bowery neighborhood.

In 1871, Charles Feltman, a German butcher, opened up the first Coney Island stand, selling some 3,684 dachshund sausages in rolls during his first year in business. (Nathan’s Famous Frankfurters, which didn’t start until 1916, sold more than 360 million in 2008.)

Another German peddler named Antonoine Feuchtwanger began selling hot frankfurters during the St. Louis “Louisiana Purchase Exposition” in 1904. He provided a white glove with each purchase so that his customers’ hands would not be burned. His wife suggested that he cut costs by putting the sausages in an elongated bun, which his brother-in-law, a baker, dutifully supplied.

The origin of the term “hot dog” is in some dispute. Visitors to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago consumed large quantities of the sausage sandwiches, which in the same year became the standard fare at baseball parks. They were also current at Yale as early as 1894, when “dog wagons” sold them at the dorms — the name a sarcastic comment on where the meat came from. (“A hot dog is a cartridge filled with the sweepings of abattoirs,” H. L. Mencken said years later. “I devoured them in Baltimore way back in 1886, and they were then very far from newfangled.”)

Various urban legends link the first hot dogs to baseball games — at either Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis (home of the Browns) or the Polo Grounds in New York. The latter is said to be where a sports cartoonist named Tad Dorgan was covering a Giants game there on a cold day in 1902, when he heard a vendor cry out, “Get your dachshund sausages while they’re red hot!” He hastily sketched some barking dachshunds tucked into warm rolls and captioned the drawing with a simpler reference to “hot dogs.” The cartoon, however, has never been found — so the story might be little more than, well, baloney.

Answering To A Higher Authority

A true immigrant success story, the Hebrew National saga began in 1905, in a six-story walk-up on East Broadway in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The Hebrew National Kosher Sausage Factory processed kosher meats for New York’s numerous delicatessens. In 1928, a Romanian immigrant butcher named Isadore Pinckowitz (later Pines), who had begun peddling meat from the back of a horse-drawn wagon, bought the Hebrew National plant and landed a contract with Waldbaum’s, the city’s largest grocery chain catering to Jewish households.

At first primarily aimed at the growing number of Eastern European Jews filtering through Ellis Island, the company gradually expanded its product line and consumer base. In 1935, Isadore’s son, Leonard, took over the business and began to take advantage of the newly booming supermarkets. By the middle of the 20th century, Hebrew National had become the largest, most recognized kosher brand in the United States.

In 1965, the company launched its famous “We Answer to a Higher Authority” advertising campaign. The slogan quickly achieved its purpose, morphing into a symbol for quality and appealing to both Jews and non-Jews alike. After a series of corporate buyouts, Hebrew National became National Foods and moved its headquarters and distribution center to a large processing plant in Indianapolis.

In 1993, National Foods was acquired by huge food conglomerate ConAgra, which sought to capitalize on the Hebrew National reputation for using pure beef and disdaining artificial coloring and flavoring additives. By now, Skip Pines, Leonard’s son, had taken over. In 2004, Hebrew National closed the Indianapolis operation and moved into a state-of-the-art kosher processing plant in Quincy, Mich.

Today, with a work force of 500 people in the U.S., Hebrew National is the largest kosher meat processor in the world, producing 720 million hot dogs a year. It’s the leading brand in Baltimore, San Diego, Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Denver and San Francisco.

Although Hebrew National also makes salami, bologna, knackwurst, polish sausage, deli meats — even its own brand of sauerkraut and mustard — it’s best known for its beef franks, which do a big business at ballparks around the country. Most of the hot dogs sold by Aramark, the Orioles concessionaire, are the Esskay brand (up to 15,000 at a single game and an estimated 750,000 a season), but Hebrew National dogs are also available at the concession stands (where they’re cooked on non-kosher grills).

Don’t look for them, though, at the kosher stand at Camden Yards; never have been there, probably never will be.

The Politics of Kashrut

More than one prominent Orthodox rabbi has suggested that modern kashrut “is 2 percent Halachah and 98 percent ego and money and politics,” which might explain why many of the people interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity.

Over the past half-century, kosher certification has become big business, and is not limited to food processing. The largest among them, certifying close to a half-million products, is the Orthodox Union. But there are at least a hundred other companies, many of them privately owned and operated, each with its own distinctive symbol, offering supervision for a price.

They come in all shapes (Circle K, Diamond K, Heart K, Triangle K) and from far and wide (California K, Florida K, Earth K). They apply their seals of approval to everything from hidden ingredients that need supervision (like chemicals and colorings) to products that, according to most rabbinic authorities, don’t (like aluminum foil, bottled water and peaches). They cover specialty confection stores (like the local Cinnabon in Towson Town Center) to franchises of international restaurant chains (like the two Dunkin’ Donuts and a Subway sandwich shop on Reisterstown Road).

Kosher meat is probably the most complicated food to supervise, with the simple strictures provided in the Torah to the detailed practices and processes interpreted and promulgated by rabbinic scholars over the centuries. Although disputes among Orthodox authorities about precise interpretations of halachic parameters have existed for ages, most will agree that there is a well-defined objective standard. Meat below this baseline is un-kosher; above it, kosher.

By the 1930s in Baltimore alone, there were more than 300 kosher butchers — at least, they called themselves kosher. According to a recent article by Rabbi Dovid Katz, a respected historian, this was also “a golden era for cheaters” — so much so that the local rabbis took out an ad in the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES appealing to Jewish housewives not to rely on the Hebrew sign on a butcher shop that read “Kosher.”

At the bottom of the notice was a message in Yiddish: “Koift nisht fun die chislers!” (“Don’t buy from the cheaters!”). In one incident, “genuine” kosher hot dogs were imported from New York and widely consumed, until it was discovered that they were not kosher at all.

In fact, there seemed to be a never-ending series of kashrut scandals at the time, many involving leading rabbis. Much of this was reported in the New York Times and later catalogued in a book by Harold Gastwirt titled “Fraud, Corruption, and Holiness: The Controversy Over The Supervision of Jewish Dietary Practice in New York City, 1881-1940,” which is a kosher version of Upton Sinclair’s classic 1906 muckraking of the meatpacking industry, “The Jungle.”

Which kosher supervision is considered the most reliable? It’s hard to get a definitive answer from anyone who has a stake in the business — but most will agree that what it boils down to is a matter of trust. The faith that many strictly Orthodox kosher consumers rely upon is that vested in their local rabbis, many of whom in turn appear to be more subject to peer pressure than knowledgeable about the technicalities of kashrut.

It’s been five years since Hebrew National decided to change from its longtime in-house kosher quality control to an independent supervisory authority. It chose the Triangle K, under the direction of the Ralbag family, to put into place the strict standards required by Halachah.

Rabbi Jehoseph H. Ralbag, the chief kosher supervisor of the organization, was born in Jerusalem, where he studied at the Yeshivas Etz Chaim and Merkaz Harav. For the credential-minded — who seem to make up a large part of the observant Orthodox community — he is proud to note that he received rabbinical ordination “with the highest honors (Yore Yore Yodin Yodin),” by the most pious rabbis of the Holy Land: Rabbi Iser Zalman Meltzer (rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Etz Chaim); Rabbi Yacov Moshe Charlap (rosh yeshiva of Merkaz Harav); and Rabbi Hirsh Pesach Frank (chief rabbi of Jerusalem).

Rabbi Ralbag is presently the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Israel in New York City. He is the author of the “Sefer Imre Yehosef,” a scholarly book on Jewish law, and has published numerous articles on various Torah subjects. He is also the kashrut consultant of the magazine The Synagogue Light, and is an executive member of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.

The everyday operations of Triangle K Kosher Supervision and Certification are currently overseen by Rabbi Aryeh L. Ralbag and his two sons (Rabbis Eliezer and Tzvi Ralbag). Like his father, Aryeh Ralbag received a high-order ordination in Jerusalem. He heads the beit din (rabbinical court) on the Agudath HaRabbonim, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and is also chief rabbi of the Orthodox community in Amsterdam.

Of the major brands under Triangle K supervision (which include Sunmaid, Minute Maid, Wonder Bread, Del Monte, Frito-Lay, Mogen-David, Birds Eye, Ocean Spray, Hawaiian Punch and Mott’s), Hebrew National is easily the most complicated.

It took Rabbi Ralbag two years to set up Triangle K’s certification process for Hebrew National. It’s a huge operation. To keep the supply of meat flowing requires four slaughtering houses, one salting facility and a central processing plant — all under round-the-clock rabbinical supervision.

“Our mashgichim [supervisors] are carefully selected, scrutinized and regularly tested for their knowledge of constantly changing technology. They are all God-fearing men who learn every night; all are well-paid and work three-day weeks, with substantial rest periods,” he said.

Soon after Triangle K took over in 2004, the top lawmaking body of the Conservative movement issued its seal of approval for all Hebrew National meat products. The decision was supposed to have a large impact on religiously observant Conservative Jews, especially those living in smaller communities with limited access to kosher food.

Orthodox Jews, however, continued to stay away in droves, for reasons that remain unclear but appear to be largely bound up in rumor, innuendo and ambiguity. Many ostensible adherents to strict Halachah consider Triangle K to be “unreliable.”

Others refrain from buying Hebrew National because its meat is not “glatt kosher.” That term is used to describe a more expensive and complicated form of rabbinical supervision that requires the lungs of a ritually slaughtered animal to be carefully scrutinized for any imperfections.

If none are found, the animal is considered “glatt.” Minor imperfections, however, do not render it unkosher. This, too, is a subject of some controversy.

A number of rabbinic experts feel that the term glatt is overused — that is, relatively few animals truly meet the standard, which has become more a marketing tool than guarantee of superior purity.

Rabbi Yitzchak Abadi, who studied in Lakewood, N.J., under the famed Rabbi Aaron Kotler and was once the exclusive halachic authority in the Haredi (fervently observant) stronghold of Lakewood, N.J., founded a popular Web site called kashrut.org . Rabbi Abadi’s son, Aharon, who now runs the Web site, declared that Hebrew National’s meat “is certainly kosher for all who do not eat only glatt.”

Although it is preferable to eat glatt when available, says Rabbi Abadi, it is a chumrah, a voluntarily accepted restriction. Those who don’t limit themselves to glatt are still keeping kosher.

At the time Hebrew National switched to Triangle K, the Jewish newspaper The Forward editorialized that, although the stricter glatt standards “could help put an end to the string of urban legends and sordid explanations for why Orthodox Jews won’t consume [Hebrew National’s products], for a variety of sociological and religious reasons, the decisions are unlikely to translate into a significant increase in sales.” That prediction has proven accurate.

The number of Conservative customers account for only a small share of the kosher market. For many of the Orthodox, the main problem remains that Hebrew National is not glatt kosher.

Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the Orthodox Union’s kashrut department, told The Forward that while the OU once certified both glatt and non-glatt meat, in the 1970s “market conditions” caused the organization to limit its supervision only to the former.

‘Kashrut Mafia’

But glatt continues to mean different things to different people.

“What’s glatt in Cleveland might not be glatt in Baltimore,” says Rabbi Don Moskovitz, a locally based mashgiach who works for several kosher certification organizations. Moreover, there are many Orthodox Jews — especially in smaller Jewish communities around the country — who do not limit themselves to glatt kosher meat but still consider themselves strictly kosher.

“Many people follow the higher glatt standard,” says Rabbi Moskovitz, “but there’s nothing wrong with Rabbi Ralbag’s hashgachah [endorsement] on meat. Hebrew National has to overcome some problems with its historical reputation.” He adds that he’s more concerned with the kashrut of everyday milk than he is about people eating Hebrew National.

“I’d love to make Hebrew National all glatt kosher,” says Rabbi Ralbag, “but there simply isn’t a large enough supply of meat in the world that would satisfy the traditional truly glatt standard ?and demand.”

Queried about the kashrus of Hebrew National, a spokesperson for the OU said that “we do not comment on other kosher certifications.”

The response was different, however, from the “Kashrus Hotline” of the Baltimore-based Star-K organization. “You should not eat Hebrew National.” When asked why, she said the Triangle K “is not considered reliable.”

Rabbi Aharon Abadi speaks bluntly about the multimillion-dollar kosher supervision business. “You want to do business in this industry, you need to follow the rules of the ‘Kashrut Mafia,’” he said. “Most are just businesses with a touch of religion. Just enough to use it to bully us into following their program. Ask anyone in the food industry. They know. Try getting an outside hashgachah in an area that is already someone’s turf.”

As to Triangle K, Rabbi Abadi wrote on the kashrut.org Web site, “Rabbi Ralbag is a G-d-fearing man and if he says it’s kosher, you sure can eat it. I can’t say the same for many of the other labels out there.”

“Do you remember when Drakes [a widely marketed brand of snack cakes] was under Rabbi Ralbag?” asked Rabbi Abadi. “It was treife [unkosher] according to some of these guys. Then the establishment organization got the account, now it’s kosher. Do you think they went out and kashered the whole plant, changed all the ingredients and so on? Please!”

According to Rabbi Ralbag, various Orthodox authorities summarily banned Coca-Cola when it was supervised by Triangle K in the early 1990s — but immediately accepted it as kosher the moment it was taken over by the OU (without any change in formula or processing). He says that Triangle K follows the traditional rules set down in the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law, and that its seal of approval is accepted categorically by the chief rabbi of Israel, where a large number of its products are widely distributed.

No Full Skinny

One local caterer who requested anonymity said, “You’ll never get the full skinny on kashrut supervision” — intimating that political and monetary considerations are paramount to candor.

Trustworthiness can be very subjective. The same Orthodox Baltimoreans who believe that Triangle K is not reliable because of past indiscretions broadly accept Star-K, even though it once certified a local non-Jewish caterer that served treife food on a “kosher” cruise.

The OU and Star-K have had numerous disputes over specific products. Each, for example, has had a policy prohibiting caterers under its supervision from using meats certified by the other.

Fans of kosher hot dogs might find this policy particularly egregious. Caterers under Star-K are currently forbidden to serve two brands of miniature hot-dogs-in-blankets, as well as 999 kosher hot dogs, all under the OU.

Star-K also bans sauerkraut marketed with the OU seal. (Consumers calling the Star-K’s kosher hotline are told that “we don’t have information” on those products. When asked if they can be used, the receptionist says, “I guess not.”)

For his part, Rabbi Ralbag has nothing negative to say about other kosher authorities. Instead, he refers obliquely to those who do with an old quote: “I think it’s sometimes more important what comes out of someone’s mouth than what goes into it.”

Kenneth Lasson, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, is a frequent contributor to the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES

A Straight Answer? Sigh.

Over the years I've had occasion to need to ask a kashrut question or two. What I've seen as a straightforward question never seems to be viewed that way by those who I may be asking the question of. What follows is a depiction of the types of problems I--and countless others--run into when we need kashrus information. All of the names and places and situations are strictly fictional and/or used without reference to actual situations/places and should not be construed in any way, shape or form as being a comment on a real place, person or product. I'm not looking for trouble.

I'm in the market and browsing the shelves. A new product for the market is being advertised on a really great special. I pick up the box and read. According to the nutrition label this product is a miracle in nutrition. It has everything a person needs in just the right form, the portions are satisfying, it comes in 16 great flavors, the calorie count is 33 calories per serving and it's on sale for 3 for $1.00. Do I grab all the boxes I can? Nope. First I start looking all over the box for kosher certification. On the bottom of a side panel I finally see a symbol. It sort of looks like it could be a kosher certification symbol but it's not one I've ever seen before. It's a small box with UMKSC in the box and three small mezuzot on the top of the box with an "M" in each mezuzah. Next to the box it says CKP. I copy down the information and head for home.

Conventionally, what answer do you get if you have a kashrus question that you ask a friend or acquaintance? "Consult your/a local orthodox rabbi." In addition, the answer "consult a competent rabbinic authority" has been popular for a while. (Just a note here: why add in the competent part? As opposed to consulting an incompetent rabbinic authority?! Never mind, I think I just answered my question.) Before I went to consult a rabbi I first got online to the listings of kosher supervision symbols that can be found all over the Internet. On the second list I found the symbol that was on the box. It's the symbol of the United M Kosher Supervision Consortium. Huh? Further reading told me that the M refers to the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri. It also gave a website for the Consortium and a contact phone number. I headed to the website.

The website gave me the name of the products that the Consortium supervises. The product I saw in the market is one of them. It listed the names of the rabbis from each of the M states who are the supervisors in their respective states. I recognized none of the names.

I put in a call to the rabbi of the shul we attend. He was out and would have to get back to me. That's okay, since there are plenty of orthodox rabbis locally. After all, either a product is kosher or it's not, so any local rabbi should do. I put in a call to one of them whom I know. I asked about the product and the certifying agency. He told me that he has never heard of the product nor of the agency. I mentioned the names of the rabbinic supervisors and he perked right up. "Of course I know Rabbi_____. We were in yeshiva together and he is a member of the same national rabbinic organization that I am. A fine, fine man. If he says you can trust this product, you can trust it."

Something is niggling at me so I call yet another local orthodox rabbi, also one whom I know. I give him the info I've got. His answer? He would be hesitant to say yes or no. He doesn't know the rabbis or the product. And besides, the three M states are not exactly known for their strong kashrus. They're very OOT and off the kashrus radar.

The call to a fourth local orthodox Rabbi gave me yet a different perspective. This rabbi had heard of the 3M Consortium and he was not recommending any products they supervise. So I asked: "So the products aren't kosher?" The rabbi answered: "Not exactly. I'm not saying they are treif. It's the supervision that is the problem." "So the supervisors can't be trusted on kashrus?" I asked. The rabbi was quick to assure me that it had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the supervisors directly. It's just that as a group they allow certain practices that he, personally, does not agree with, and so he won't recommend them. I'd come this far so I asked: "What practices?" The rabbi answered that he doesn't hold with any agencies which certify dairy products that are chalav stam, and he's been told by someone that the 3M does certify chalav stam products, so he doesn't recommend their products. "But this product is pareve" I wail. "Doesn't matter" the rabbi answered. "It's a question of consistency."

My shul rabbi still has not called back so I get on the phone to two friends, each living in a different community from mine. I ask if they have ever heard of the product or the supervising agency, and has their rabbi said anything about either. One friend begins to gush: "Their products are absolutely terrific. And our rabbi said that the supervising agency is small but can be trusted a lot more than some of the bigger agencies, because the supervisors are real hands-on and always in the plants." Friend number two has a different story to tell. Her rabbi gave a whole speech a few shabbosim before about the rise in certifying agencies bringing more harm than good. There is no way that every consumer nor every rabbi either can keep up with all the new agencies. This rabbi felt that you stick with the agencies that have a proven track record, are national in scope and that are easy to check out.The 3M is not on the list her rabbi has approved.

[I won't discuss the rabbi I called who basically told me it was too difficult a concept to be discussing with a woman, and would I please have my husband contact him. And I won't mention the rabbi I didn't call because someone, whom I asked for this rabbi's phone number, told me it is an open fact that this rabbi and one of the 3M rabbis have been in a real bitter public disagreement about a different issue, and I'm not likely to get a straight answer.]

My rabbi called back. I asked my questions once again. He told me that he doesn't really know anything about the products or the agency but he does know that the local Vaad HaKashrus, of which he is a member, has both on their list to investigate further since I am not the only one asking the questions. And then he casually mentioned that they hadn't hurried the investigation because someone had mentioned to one of the vaad members that one of the national certifying agencies is trying to either take over the whole certification process or at least be the one to certify the products that are manufactured for distribution in the NY area, or appear as a second hechsher on the product.

I got a sudden brainstorm. I know someone in the M state area, someone whose kashrus advice both my husband and I would consider as super reliable. So I made a phone call and asked my questions. When Rabbi_____ stopped laughing he told me the following. The product is made by a company that is strictly vegan. None of their products have any eggs, milk, fish or meat in them. They use zero questionable additives. In fact, the company came to the attention of the rabbi in one of the M states because the company contacted him for a list of suppliers of kosher commercial products that would 100% have no milk/meat in them and would not even be produced on machinery that had also produced milk products. The rabbi gives me all the information I asked for and then some, and he ended with this: "I should only be so sure about the kashrus of the big certifying agencies and the smaller ones in the NY area as I am about the 3M."

My hubby and I agree: I can buy the 3M product. I dash off to the market to buy the food. The product is all sold out. When I ask the manager when they are getting it back in, he mentions that there is a debate as to whether or not they will be carrying the product any more. He mentions that in some of the areas where his chain has stores there have been complaints about carrying a product marked as kosher that may or may not be kosher. He asks me if I know anything about this. I flee.

This story and variants of it are played out all over the US, and I would imagine globally as well, every day. We live in a time of instant communication and of plane service to just about every point on earth. We live in a time where rabbinic consultations are as close as your phone or your computer keyboard. We've got more rabbis per square foot of turf then at any other time in recent history. Despite the complexities of the world, kashrus information and supervision should be easier now than it was in the past. So why can't someone with a question get a straight answer? And substitute any other product requiring a hechsher for food and you are still going to run into the same variation of the old joke about 3 Jews and 5 opinions. I mention this to a friend and she tells me I'm being naive. Don't I know that kashrus supervision is big business? Don't I know that those supervision contracts are worth big bucks to whomever gets them? Don't I know that kashrus supervision can be a real dog-eat-dog world?

So I've got a different question now: Don't we deserve better than this when it comes to areas so important to our Jewish lives? Are we really so splintered as a Klal?

Addendum to the post: In Brooklyn, on Avenue J next to the subway station, is a Chock Full O Nuts tiny coffee shop. In the window is a huge printed sign that says "Yes, we are kosher." Inside are other signs that say "Our bourekas/knishes meet the standard for cholov Yisroel." They have both cholov stam and cholov Yisroel available for the coffee. There is not one single name anywhere as to who has said that the products are kosher. Never mind asking the workers--their English just about covers asking you what you'd like to drink. I've asked all over school about the kashrus. No one knows. Yet, the place is packed with frum Jews, or at least kipoh wearing ones. No black hats in sight.

Update on the Addendum: Tonight there was a small kashrus certificate put up in the store, behind the counter. It is signed by one R' Dovid Katz. But here is the strange part. At the top there is a magen david with a K. However, the Star K hechsher uses a plain magen david with no lines on the interior of the star. This star had lines running through the interior. Talk about confusion.