Kosher Issue 2014

I S S U E • T H E

BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE KOSHER COMPANIES THAT ARE REVOLUTIONIZING THE INDUSTRY

from CATHOLICISM to Kosher

MARKETING & NUMBERS MENACHEM LUBINSKY AND ISAAC EIDLISZ EXPLAIN THE NEW FRONTIERS OF THE KOSHER MARKETPLACE

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KOSHER

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The Incredible Journey of Israel’s

ADVANCES, ADVENTURES AND EXPERIENCES IN KASHRUS

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THE KOSHER ISSUE N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 • 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

IVE EXCLUS W IE INTERV

46

Departments

14 18 22

EDITORIAL Feast and famine in Sefer Bereishis

26 30 32

IN THE NEWS

LETTERS ATIONAL AND N INTERNATIONAL NEWS YOS SI KRAUSZ

TURX

SIGHTINGS AND CITINGS BEN ROSEN

EWISH NEWS J Bris records found—Fear in Jerusalem— Solutions in Montreal?—Election Results and the Jews—The Law of Return DOVID LAPINSKY

36 38

BUSINESS CHANI E ASH ER

PYVIEW: S A TALE OF TWO MIT’S How Turkey manipulates the West to do its dirty work in Syria

216

ASK Only frum on the outside

220

HE SHUL T CHRONICLES On yahrzeits RABBI MOSH E TAUB

JOHN LOFTUS

210

HE HUMAN EXPERIENCE T Do you see me now?

212 214

MY WORD!

AS TOLD TO CHANY BARON

ASH ER V. FI NN

THE JOURNEY The food we eat RABBI SHOLOM FRI EDMANN

RABBI SHAI S TAUB

222

BETWEEN US Jewish state of mind RUCHAMA AND YI SRAEL FEUERMAN

224

STREETS OF LIFE Eats of life RABBI MORDECHAI KAM ENETZKY

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ROM COLOGNE TO KOSHER CUISINE F Master chef Tom Franz’s incredible journey to Judaism

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THE KOSHER ISSUE N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 • 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

RABBI YITZCHOK FRANKFURTER

CHANANYA BLEICH

62

XTREME KOSHER E How kashrus is ensured in challenging environments

72

EEPING KOSHER IN PHOTOS AND WORDS K Photos and essays about kosher food

YOSSI KRAUSZ

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

115

AGNIESZKA TRACZEWSKA, SARAH SHAPIRO, YEHUDA HENIG AND ANONYMOUS

KOSHER WORLD

82

45

NDERSTANDING THE RELIABILITY OF U KOSHER AGENCIES How can we know whom to trust?

RABBI SHOLEM FISHBANE

86

OW DO YOU SAY KOSHER IN CHINESE? H Inspecting products in the world’s fastest growing kosher producer SHIRA SCHMIDT

92

TAR-K S A talk with Rabbi Avrom Pollak

94

ONTEMPORARY KASHRUS CHALLENGES C Rabbi Usher Anshel Eckstein of Belz on complications of kosher certification

CHANY ASHER

DOVID LAPINSKY

98

HE CRC AND THE AKO T A revealing interview with Rabbi Sholem Fishbane TZIPPORAH FEINSTEIN

102

K KOSHER CERTIFICATION O What sets the OK apart

106

U KASHRUS O A Q & A with Rabbi Menachem Genack

110

ONDON BETH DIN L A kosher institution with roots going back to the 1700s

YOSSI KRAUSZ

168 170 171

HELLO COOKS

178 182 186 188

TOP 2014 KOSHER PRODUCTS

192

FOOD CURRENTS

READER’S KITCHEN

BY VICTORIA DWEK

HE SECRET’S OUT T Exclusives from a new book of secret restaurant recipes

BY LEAH SCHAPIRA AND VICTORIA DWEK

OVERTIME COOK

BY MIRIAM PASCAL

4 PM

BY CHAYIE SCHLISSELFELD

AMPERING PAREVE DESSERTS P Recipes for the final frontier

BY TOM FRANZ

BY RACHELI SOFER

WHISK 167 196

R. KOSHER M A talk with Menachem Lubinsky about Kosherfest and the kosher industry ALEX VOGEL

RABBI YITZCHOK FRANKFURTER

C. S. TEITELBAUM

KASHRUS AGENCIES

BY VICTORIA DWEK

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RANDSTORMING B Isaac Eidlisz explains advertising and marketing DAVID HOFFMANN

MARKETING & NUMBERS

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RABBI YITZCHOK FRANKFURTER

Feast and Famine in Sefer Bereishis

H

ave you ever noticed that almost every important episode in Sefer Bereishis involves eating or starvation?

In the beginning, G-d creates Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, and places them in the Garden of Eden, where they must refrain from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent tempts Eve to eat from the forbidden tree and she shares it with Adam, causing them to be immediately banished. We then witness Eisav selling his birthright to Yaakov for a bowl of lentil stew.

Later there is a famine in Eretz Yisrael, forcing Yaakov and his entire household of 70 people to gather their livestock and journey to Egypt for food, thus bringing about the Egyptian exodus. And there is so much more.

But perhaps no episode in Sefer Bereishis involving food is stranger than when Yitzchak asks his son Eisav to bring him food so that he may bless him. “Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die.” (27:4) Did our forefather Yitzchak really need to be refreshed by a hearty meal in order to bestow blessings upon his son?

However, the blessings that Yitzchak had in mind were not of the ordinary kind. It was through these blessings that Yitzchak wished to appoint Eisav as his heir apparent to the Patriarchal mission, declaring in effect that Eisav’s seed was destined to serve as G-d’s societal model for the world.

This would be an undertaking that involves not only the soul but also the physical body. As man is not a disembodied spirit but a single unit consisting of body and soul, Judaism objects to any forced separation of the two, and sees the nexus of body and soul as the key location for spiritual possibility.

It is for this reason that Yitzchak desired his body’s participation in the bestowal of his brachos.

The Talmud (Pesachim 68b) relates a debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua concerning how a person should con-

duct himself on Yom Tov: “Rabbi Eliezer said, ‘A person should spend a festival either eating or drinking, or else sitting and studying.’ Rabbi Yehoshua said, ‘A festival should be divided into two halves: half for eating and drinking, and half for the beis hamidrash [to spend in study].’”

After explaining the essence of the debate, the Talmud adds another layer to this discussion, marking Shavuos as unique among the festivals: “[The Amora] Rabbi Elazar said, ‘All agree with regard to Atzeres [Shavuos] that [the element] of “for you” is required.’

The practical consequence is that even Rabbi Eliezer requires eating and drinking on Shavuos. For what reason? Because it is the day on which the Torah was given.”

While the halachah regarding all of the holidays was ultimately decided according to Rabbi Yehoshua, why is it that with regard to Shavuos, even Rabbi Eliezer requires the consumption of festive meals? And what’s the connection between eating and drinking and the giving of the Torah?

In his commentary on Chumash, Meshech Chochmah, Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk explains that symbolically, the act of rejoicing with food and drink on Shavuos teaches us that the Torah is a means of sanctifying the material world and elevating it spiritually (Shemos 20:18).

In fact, it was Eisav’s corporeality and earthiness that convinced Yitzchak that he was the one to continue the mission of elevating the lower levels of the created universe. If man is to concern himself primarily with the purification of the mundane, who is best suited for this vocation, the man of the field or the scholar who dwells in the house of study? In the application of sacred laws and rituals in a world bound by space and time, certainly Eisav, Yitzchak believed, was the better candidate.

But as we all know, by being the first to bring a meal to his father, Yaakov outmaneuvered Eisav and was the recipient of his father’s blessings, thereby enabling us to infuse the here and now with a taste of eternity.

14 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

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LETTERS EXECUTIVE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Chesky Kauftheil EDITORIAL

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter SENIOR EDITOR

Rechy Frankfurter MANAGING EDITOR

CONQUERING THE CRISIS TOGETHER The haves and the have-nots In reference to “The Housing Crisis,” Issue 188

Dear Editor:

Yossi Krausz

RABBINIC EDITOR

Rabbi Moshe Taub CONTRIBUTORS

Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky Nesanel Gantz • John Loftus Shmuel Sokol • Maurice Stein Rabbi Shais Taub • Turx FEATURE EDITOR

Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum FOOD EDITORS

Victoria Dwek • Leah Schapira EDITORIAL COORDINATOR

Esty Cinner

COPY EDITORS

Basha Majerczyk Rabbi Yisroel Benedek EDITORS/PROOFREADERS

Dina Schreiber Yitzchok A. Preis ART

ART DIRECTORS

David Kniazuk Alex Katalkin

ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE ACCOUNT MANAGER

Zack Blumenfeld

EXECUTIVE SALES DIRECTORS

Surie Katz Esther Friedman

EUROPE/ISRAEL ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

Sarah Margulies

ADVERTISING COORDINATOR

Malky Weinberger Ami Magazine P: 718.534.8800 F: 718.484.7731 info@amimagazine.org

M E D I A PA RT N E R

Ami Magazine. Published by Mezoogmag LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form without prior written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher reserves the right to edit all articles for clarity, space, and editorial sensitivities. Ami Magazine assumes no responsibility for the content of articles or advertisements in the publication, nor for the contents of books that are referred to or excerpted herein.

Thanks for a great publication.

In regard to the housing crisis, the problem is no achdus.

Baruch Hashem, there are a lot of people who PART TWO OF A SERIES ON THE HOUSING CRISIS are gebentshed with parnasah and have a shefa.

By Yossi Krausz Between all the thriving Yiddishe neighborhoods & Ami Staff there are billions of dollars just sitting in the banks and doing nothing. Why are yeshivos struggling to pay the teachers and melamdim when it’s every parent’s job to learn Torah with his kids? Why do people owe hundreds of thousands for groceries? Why are so many people in foreclosure?

The source is influence.

We are being influenced by everything from Madison Avenue to Beverly Hills. We have to have Madison Avenue-style shopping, food and clothing, and Beverly Hills mansions, cars and vacations. Has it come to the point where you can only shop in a five-star grocery and you can only dine in a restaurant with a world-acclaimed chef? Can you only sleep well at night if you’ve showered in a $75,000 bathroom or you’ve eaten a dinner prepared in a $150,000 kitchen?

I have been in apartments that make a homeless shelter look like a five-star hotel. You have families of 12 living in a three-bedroom apartment, paying rent that’s three times the amount of their paycheck. And you have a couple with two kids living in a 6,000-squarefoot mansion. Have the Yomim Tovim become such a headache that you really have to spend Pesach in Cancun? Does every Tom, Dick and Harry have to own a home and charge crazy rent in order to be free of any mortgage costs? Is it really worth the headache?

Just take a look at the ads in all the publications. The list can go on and on.

The solution is achdus.

The highest level of giving tzedakah is not giving food and money to the poor. Rather, it’s helping a fellow get on his own two feet independently. One way to do this would be helping him set up a business, or finding him a job. The same would apply to the housing crisis. Not everyone has to own a million-dollar home, but everyone has to be able to afford rent.

While communism never worked and everyone can’t be on the same level, Hashem did give some more money than others. Why did Hashem do this? In order to help others out. One way to help others would be for a few families—and you don’t need many—to get together and pool their money to build affordable houses, sell them mamash at cost, and give private mortgages at a very, very low (affordable) interest rate.

We don’t need to turn to the government for every little thing. We don’t need grants.

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LETTERS to help, and a little less influence from the Joneses.

Is there an empty lot in a heimeshe neighborhood? Then do something good with it. You’ll sleep better at night knowing that a fellow Yid can sleep b’harchuvas hadas.

Another thing: Help to change the zoning in some areas of Brooklyn to build higher. In Monsey, you can change the zoning from single-family to multi-family.

Mi k’amcha Yisrael. We have so many great organizations to help people l’shem shamayim: too many to list them all.

Everyone wants to do chesed. We have to ask ourselves why we need them! Obviously, ain bayis asher ain shom meis. There is no other nation in the world that pulls themselves together, when in a crisis, like Klal Yisrael.

Brachah, hatzlachah and siyata dishmaya, Eli Jacob

ABLE TO WALK AWAY

Thankful after a crash—and an article In reference to “The Human Experience,” Issue 184

Dear Editor: We just wanted to say that the “Human Experience” article in Issue 184 made us extremely grateful. Not too long ago, we were in a car crash that could have resulted in terrible things for our whole family, and yet we walked out without a scratch. This article reminded us just how much we owe to the Ribbono Shel Olam. Thank you!

May your story only serve as an inspiration to others.

REDEMPTION AND UNITY Shabbos and geulah

In reference to “Q & A,” Issue 189

Dear Editor: In your interview of Rabbi Goldstein, chief rabbi of South Africa, you suggested that a possible reason why keeping Shabbos brings the geulah is that Shabbos is a taste of the geulah.

We also find that Jewish unity is connected to the geulah, since Yeshayahu (in chapter 11) and Yechezkel (chapter 37) speak about how, in the future redemption, Yosef and Ephraim will unite with Yehudah. It’s interesting that the ancient kingdom of Israel (Yosef, Ephraim) was generally secular, while the kingdom of Yehudah was generally “charedi.” And although they fought each other in the time of the first Beis Hamikdash, in the future they will become one people.

Indeed the Shabbos Project has brought out the pintele Yid for all to see, where all types of Jews have felt like one people. And, as it says in Yeshayahu, “Ephraim will no longer be jealous of Yehudah (as they feel their own intrinsic Jewish pride and sense of accomplishment), and Yehudah will not oppress Ephraim (as they see the pintele Yid in their brethren, and as we become one nation, one family).”

And as a result of this wonderful project, and other unifying efforts that many have engaged in worldwide, we will soon merit to go together to the Third Beis Hamikdash, when “Kahal gadol yashuvu heinah”—a great congregation (singular form) will return there.

Besoros tovos, Y. Janowski AMI MAGAZINE 1575 50th St., Brooklyn, NY 11219 letters@amimagazine.org Phone: (718) 534-8800 Fax: (718) 484-7731

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IIngredients: ngredients: mayonnaise mayonnaise (soybean (soybean oil, water, waterr,r, egg yyolk, olk, acetic acid, sugar, sugar, salt, spices, xanthan gum, edta [[to to protect quality]), scallions, dill pickles (cucumbers, water wa ter, distilled vinegar, vinegar, salt, garlic, spices, calcium water, cchloride, hloride, sodium benzoate benzoaate [preservative]), [preservative]), daikon radish, ccanola anola oil, water, water wa ter, onion, black pepper, pepper er,, garlic, salt, spices ((including including paprika, paprika, and turmeric), sugar, sugar, yellow yellow 5 lake, red 40 lake.

CCONTAINS ONTAINS EGG.

Nutrition N utrition Facts Facts SServ. rv. v. Size 2 Tbsp (30g), Servings About 7, erv Amount Per Serving: Calories Calories 170, 170, Fat Cal. 170, Total Total Fat 19g (29% DV), Sat. Amount Fat 3g (15% DV), Trans Trans Fat 0g, Cholest.

Fat Cholest. 10mg 10mg (3% DV), Sodium Sodium 180mg 180mg (8% DV), Total Total Carb. 1g (0% DV), Fiber 0g (0% DV), Sugars 0g, (8% Protein 0g, 0g, V itamin itamin A (0% DV), V itamin C (2% DV), Protein Vitamin Vitamin Calcium (0% DV), Iron Iron (0% DV).

Calcium Percent P ercent Daily V Values aluess are are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

eight Net N et W Weight 7.5oz (212g)

IIngredients: ngredients: m mayonnaise ayonnaise (so (soybean ybean oil, wa water, ter er,, egg yyolk, olk, acetic acid, sugar sugar,, salt, spices, xanthan gum, edta [[to to protect quality]), scallions, dill pickles (cucumbers, water wa ter, distilled vinegar water, vinegar,, salt, garlic, spices, calcium chloride, sodium benzoa tte [preser vatttive]), daikon radish, va benzoate [preservative]), canola oil, wa tter, onion, black pepper water, pepper,, garlic, salt, spices ((including including paprika, paprika, and turmeric), sugar w 5 lake, sugar,, yello yellow red 40 lake.

CCONTAINS ONTAINS EGG.

Nutrition N utrition Facts Facts Serv Serv. rv. Size 2 Tbsp (30g), Servings About 7, rv.

Amount Amount Per Serving: Calories Calories 170, Fat Cal. 170, Total Total Fat 19g (29% DV), Sat. Fat 3g (15% DV), Trans holest. 1 10mg 0mg (3% DV), S Sodium odium 180mg Trans Fat 0g, C Cholest.

(8% DV), Total Total Carb. 1g (0% DV), Fiber 0g (0% DV), Sugars 0g, Protein Protein 0g, 0g, Vitamin Viitamin tamin A (0% DV), V Vitamin itamin C (2% DV), Calcium Calcium (0% DV), Iron Iron (0% DV).

Percent Per cent Daily V Values aluess ar aree based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

DIPS

&

SID

ES

Dip Pickle N Net et W Weight eight 7.5oz (212g)

vuurp

Ingredients: Ingredients: mayonnaise mayonnaise (soybean (soybean oil, water, water er,, egg yolk, acetic acid, sugar, sugar, salt, spices, xanthan gum, edta yolk, [to protect quality]), scallions, dill pickles (cucumbers, [to w wa tter, distilled vinegar, vinegar, salt, garlic, spices, calcium water, chloride, sodium benzoate benzoatte [preservative]), [preservative]), daikon radish, ccanola anola oil, water, w ter, onion, black pepper, wa pepper, garlic, salt, spices (including paprika, paprika, and turmeric), sugar, sugar, yellow yellow 5 lake, (including rred ed 40 lake.

CCONTAINS ONTAINS EGG.

Nutrition N utrition Fact Facts s Serv Serv. rv. Size 2 Tbsp (30g), Servings About 7, rv.

9g (29% DV), Sat. Amount Per Serving: Calories Calories 170, 170, Fat Cal. 170, T otal Fat 1 Amount Total 19g Trans Fat 0g, C holest. 1 0mg (3% DV), S odium 180mg Fat 3g (15% DV), Trans Cholest.

10mg Sodium (8% DV), Total Total Carb. 1g (0% DV), Fiber 0g (0% DV), Sugars 0g, Protein 0g, 0g, Vitamin Vitamin A (0% DV), V itamin C (2% DV), Protein Vitamin Calcium Calcium (0% DV), Ir Iron on (0% DV).

Percent Per cent Daily Values Valuess ar aree based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

NEWS

NATIONAL AND WORLD

ANALYZING THE NEWS THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

What Does the Mid-Term Tidal Wave Mean for Israel?

A

THE MEANING OF THE ROUT BY THE REPUBLICANS

wave of red washed over the electoral map last week, as Republicans had extensive victories in the US Senate and House of Representatives, as well as in statehouses and governor’s mansions across the country.

The elections put the GOP in control of Congress, with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The debate has already begun among commentators: Will that change

anything in regard to the issues—like the conflict with the Palestinians and the Iran nuclear negotiations—that have created turmoil in relations between the Obama administration and the Israeli government?

Shimon Stein is a former longtime Israeli diplomat who had numerous postings, including in Washington, and was the ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2007. He says that some things probably won’t differ.

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“On the personal level, between the two leaders [Obama and Netanyahu], I don’t think things will change for the better. I do expect we will see continuity in the Obama administration’s view of various issues.

“The settlement issue and the White House’s belief that it is detrimental to peace won’t go away just because the Congress has changed.”

The deadline for a deal in Iranian nego-

BY YOSSI KRAUSZ

tiations is drawing near, with an agreement (or some sort of postponement) needed by November 24. Ambassador (ret.) Stein says that there are not too many options for the administration in any case.

Still, he said, “neither the US, nor the P5+1, nor Iran has an interest in a breakdown of talks. I fail to see how they could come up with a comprehensive agreement.

But they can push through a partial agreement with the need to continue negotiating.”

He points out that bipartisan opinion in Congress has, in any case, been strongly opposed to an Iran deal already. “The way Chairman Menendez [Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee] has been speaking, along with senators on the other side of the aisle, makes that clear.”

The fact that it will only grow more adversarial after the new year starts and the new legislators take office doesn’t mean that the White House can’t push through a partial deal with Iran, he says. “There are a number of different sanctions. UN sanctions are very difficult to lift. But some of the US sanctions can be lifted by the administration alone. Obama doesn’t need Congress’ approval for those.”

Dov Waxman, a professor of political science, international affairs and Israel studies and the co-director of the Middle East Center at Northeastern University, agrees that the level of distrust between the US and Israeli administrations is unlikely to be lessened.

“I don’t think it will fundamentally change the dynamics,” he says, with Iran and the settlements remaining points of contention.

And he too points out that Israel has had “very broad support in Congress for some time now.”

There are some changes to look for, however, he says. “It may encourage the Netanyahu government to appeal to Congress, particularly in regard to Iran. But at the same time, the Obama administration will have anticipated that. They won’t seek congressional approval for any deal; I don’t think they would have even before the change.”

Prof. Dov Waxman

“I don’t think it will fundamentally change the dynamics. Israel has broad support…”

He also says that it is doubtful that the administration can speed up any Iran deal to try to take advantage of the time remaining until the new Congress comes in.

“They’re already working as fast as they can on a deal.”

Prof. Waxman says that there still are a couple of definite differences between Democrats and Republicans in regard to Israel.

“Some parts of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party are heavily critical of Israel and supportive of the Palestinians.”

But that’s not the only difference. “There is also the question of whether this election strengthens a growing constituency within the Republicans that is opposed to foreign aid in general, including Israel.” He says that the assumption that the Republican takeover of Congress is necessarily positive for Israel is flawed. “It may empower more

isolationist voices.”

He says that there is another danger for Israel, if it is seen as being the patron of the Republican Party. “That might heighten a partisan debate over policy in regard to Israel.” Polls already show that Democratic voters are much less sympathetic to Israel than Republican voters, and it’s possible that that might increase with strong Republicanonly activism on behalf of the Jewish state.

He says that that consideration should guide Israel’s outreach to Congress, and that they should try to keep it bipartisan. “They should take the long view, not the short view. But Netanyahu has done this [appealed specifically to Republicans] in the past, and there will be people telling him to do so now.”

•

Will the Obama Administration Restart the Peace Process?

There has been a historical precedent: A second-term president facing a hostile Congress in his last two years of office moves from focusing on his domestic initiatives to working on foreign policy. Bill Clinton’s last two years are a classic example of that. Will President Obama have another round at Middle East peace?

Ambassador Stein told Ami: “I don’t know if Obama will relaunch a peace process. It seems that it would be highly unlikely to have any results. I didn’t expect the first attempt by Secretary Kerry to bear fruit, either.”

Prof. Waxman says that the historical pattern may not hold true in Obama’s case, anyway.

“He’s never shown as great an interest in foreign policy as in his domestic agenda. And even if he does [focus on foreign policy], I’m not sure that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is where he would want to focus.

“Still, I have heard rumors about Kerry introducing a new peace initiative. And now, they no longer have to worry about the mid-terms.” While President Obama may have faced pressure from his party to not rock the boat by pressuring Israel, that may not be an obstacle anymore.

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NEWS

NATIONAL AND WORLD

The ICC Says No Thanks WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE PALESTINIAN CLAIM? Last week, the International Criminal Court declined to investigate claims that Israel committed war crimes in its boarding of the Mavi Marmara, a boat used in the 2010 Gaza flotilla.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, of Gambia, stated that the flotilla did not qualify as a humanitarian mission “due to its apparent lack of neutrality and impartiality as evidenced in the flotilla’s explicit and primary political objectives (as opposed to a purpose limited to delivery of humanitarian aid), failure to obtain Israeli consent, and refusal to cooperate with the Israeli authorities in their proposals for alternative methods of distributing the relief supplies.” And she said the supposed violations by Israeli soldiers “lacked sufficient gravity” to be investigated.

While the decision was not a finding of innocence, it did show that the ICC was not eager to take Israel to task, as the UN almost always is. That may mean that threats by Palestinians to take Israel to the ICC will not be as easy as they seem to believe.

The President’s Persian Pen Pal THE AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI GETS A LETTER There are very few people that President Obama sends personal letters to. One who is becoming a regular recipient of such letters is the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, yet another dispatch went from Washington to Tehran recently, this time discussing the endgame of the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, in connection with the ISIS terrorist group.

This would be the fourth letter that Obama has sent to Khamenei.

The letter reportedly describes interest by the US to cooperate with Iran on defeating ISIS, the Sunni group that has conquered a swath of territory across the Middle East, and which Iran has shown deep opposition to. The US has been carrying out a series of airstrikes against ISIS targets. Obama goes on to say that such cooperation, however, is contingent on a final agreement being reached between Iran and the P5+1 nations on their nuclear program. Khamenei has previously rejected US help in fighting ISIS. Asked about the letter, administration spokesman Josh Earnest did not deny its existence, saying, “I’m not in a position to discuss private correspondence between the president and any world leader.”

He went on to say that “the United States will not cooperate militarily with Iran in that effort; we won’t share intelligence with them.”

But senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer eventually told CNN, “We work very closely with the Iraqis and the Iraqis have a relationship with the Iranians.”

Obama’s letter is reportedly angering many on Capitol Hill— Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have already publicly lambasted the move—and probably many in Jerusalem and in majority-Sunni capitals as well. But why would Obama get out his air mail stamps now?

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BY YOSSI KRAUSZ

It’s possible that Obama merely wished to present a further bone to toss Khamenei for a final nuclear deal. Meir Javedanfar of the Iran-Israel Observer says that it’s possible that Obama publicized his letter in order to make it difficult for Khamenei to retreat from a deal, by giving Iranians a reason to want a deal and to show that the US is willing to make that deal. Still, with Obama’s track record, it’s hard to say that his strategy will work well.

U P D AT E S

easy. simple. cash.

New Info on Stories We’ve Run We’ve previously reported on the lawsuit being brought against the Pine Bush Central School District in upstate New York by Jewish students who said that they were targeted with anti-Semitic slurs and actions by other students and that the school district failed to protect them. Last week US district court judge Kenneth Karas ruled that the lawsuit could go forward, after the school district asked for the case to be dismissed. Karas said that a “jury could reasonably find that plaintiffs have demonstrated the district’s substantial control over the circumstances of the harassment, that plaintiffs suffered severe and discriminatory harassment, that the district had actual knowledge of the harassment and that the district was deliberately indifferent to the harassment.”

We reported last week on two disasters that destroyed the vehicles of private spaceflight companies, including one that was being used by NASA. But it was revealed later in the week that the International Space Station (ISS) avoided its own possible disaster at the end of October. A piece of the Russian satellite Cosmos-2251, which had broken apart after slamming into a US satellite in 2009, was spotted heading towards the station, endangering the six astronauts onboard.

The piece was only about the size of a human hand, but it was travelling at immense speed and it could easily tear a devastating hole in the ISS. The station’s residents would normally use Russian supply spacecraft to maneuver the station out of the way of harm, but there were none available. So instead ground control used a different resupply craft, the Georges Lemaître, which had been launched to the station this past July, to push the station to a different orbit. By having the Georges Lemaître fire its thrusters for four minutes, they moved the ISS a mile away from its original orbit—and avoided the dangerous debris.

732.987.7765 WWW.SELLMILESNOW.COM

IN THE NEWS

BY TURX

A Series Of Amusing Events That Took Place a Week Before the Gas Prices Shot Up PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE

O

ne can only imagine the look on President Obama’s face when he found out the results of the midterm elections by reading about it in the news on the following day. I bet the reality was especially difficult on the president, as he had positively assured his Democratic base that, “If you like your Senate you can keep your Senate. Period.”

All around the United States of America, folks trickled into their particular polling stations in small numbers and voted to replace the false promises of “change” with another liar’s grand promises of an entirely different set of “change.”

Here’s the good news.

Change has arrived! And as is always the case when people vote for change, things remain the same. Not only will things remain exactly the same over the next two years, but there will be so much more of that sameness! Gridlock? You can bet on it! Alltime, lower-than-low congressional approval ratings?

Yep! Complete lack of honest representation? You got it! The only things that will increase by the next election will the amounts of money that special-interest groups dump into the political sewage system. But cheer up, people! It could be worse! In fact, it will be worse. Much worse. Just wait for 2016…

So what can we expect for the near future (if we even make it that far)? One party will become the party of “no” and the other party will not. And throughout it all, President Obama will still find out what’s going on in the world from reading about it in the news.

Now, most of the people I know (and even some of the people

I don’t know) spent absolutely no time at all following the midterm elections. In fact, it even seems that many of the politicians, battling for what should have otherwise been contentious races, failed to follow the midterm elections themselves. And the same thing, perhaps, can be suggested about most pollsters, who predicted everything, other than what happened.

Not only have the Republicans picked up a comfortable majority in the Senate, they’ve even managed to increase their lead in the House of Reps, in addition to picking up a number of gubernatorial seats. Seats that were assumed safe flipped; races predicted as close contests turned out to be landslides and landslides ended up being even greater landslides. Or they turned out to be really, really contentious mud-fests. And throughout it all, we, the American people and beyond, could literally care less (but not much less).

And so, here I have a compilation of interesting stories from the night of the midterms, which should somewhat amuse you regardless of how politically savvy you see yourself as being. Unless you’re a Democrat, of course, because it’s gonna take a whole lot more than an interesting article to help you get over that shellacking!

Most lopsided margins of victory:

Saying that the 2014 midterm elections were brutal for Democrats would be like suggesting that Pluto gets chilly in December.

But at the campaign offices of one Democratic senator they were partying as if it were the year, well, 2012. Brian Schatz won the largest margin of any Dem, defeating Cam Cavasso by a whopping

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IN THE NEWS 69.8% to 27.5% in the great state of Hawaii.

On the Republican side, Senator Mike Enzi retook the great state of Wyoming by a total of 72.2% to 17% against Charlie Hardy, a Catholic priest (at least the good news for Hardy is that he didn’t have to campaign all that hard to win the priesthood).

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican from the great state of Alabama, ran completely unopposed and as a result didn’t even have his ballots officially counted. And so, Sessions had the biggest landslide victory by winning just 0% of the vote.

Most committed winner:

Democrat Andrew Romanoff and Republican Mike Coffman running for Congress in the great state of Colorado made history shortly before the elections, when they both agreed to participate in the first-ever debates entirely in Spanish.

Romanoff, who spent a considerable amount of time in Central America, speaks Spanish fluently (or so he’s managed to convince me).

For Coffman it meant hiring a tutor and learning the Spanish language for an entire year! In the end all the work paid off, as Coffman won the contest by a comfortable margin.

BY TURX

Locals celebrated the extension of Prohibition by awkwardly clinking milk glasses as they voted to keep their 37 dry counties as alcohol-free as an ISIS mosque in the middle of the desert on the most remote island of Antarctica.

The least liberal referendum goes to:

Suppose radical Islam shows up in the great state of Alabama.

And suppose the Alabamians haven’t got enough guns to deal with them, or something. Well, guess what, they’ve got nothing to fear because shariah is now illegal! Checkmate, Abu Bakr alBaghdadi!

Three-quarters of Alaba-maniacs voted to ban shariah law from ever being instituted as that great state’s official judicial system, making them the seventh state to do so (not including Missouri where Governor Nixon vetoed such a measure last year).

In other news, about 100% of Muslims in the Middle East (with a 3.9% margin of error) said that they had never been all that interested in the great state of Alabama in the first place, even if it were handed to them for free.

It’s more black and white than people realize

Most impressive loser:

In losing the great state of Florida’s governor’s race to Rick Scott, former governor Charlie Crist has managed to lose statewide elections as a democrat, republican and independent in just four years. A whole stack of dollar bills says that Crist converts to Islam one of these days and runs for Caliph of the Islamic State.

The “Most Redneck State” award goes to:

That’s one small stagger for man, one giant leap backwards for *hic*… The great state of Arkansas wins the award for the Redneck category, and it’s not like they had stiff competition either.

The question before them was whether or not they were interested in repealing a law from the 1920s prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages. Yep. That law. Prohibition is still in effect in close to half of Arkansas’ counties with designated drivers having to hit the trails for a round trip of 120 miles in some areas, for a friend with a pre-hangover-oriented craving.

The GOP had two major victories within the African American community, with South Carolina’s Tim Scott becoming the first black senator to be elected in the South since Reconstruction and Mia Love becoming the first black Republican congresswoman.

Yep, it’s gonna be the Jews again:

The racist elements of the GOP have something to get all excited over. When Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress lost in the primary, many in the anti-Semitic community were concerned that they wouldn’t have any Jews to blame all of their party’s problem’s on. Now all their fears can be laid to rest as Lee Zeldin, the incoming congressman from New York, is as Jewish as apple pie with a “baked after Pesach” sticker on it.

Okay, in conclusion, here’s the silver lining for the depressed Democrats out there: by the next midterm elections much of the Republican voting base will have died from old age… Cheers!

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Synopses of and excerpts from interesting items that have recently appeared here and there — and sometimes way over there —in the media

&

Sightings Citin

By Ben Rosen

Baristas and Bots Rise of the silicon salesman

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

Israeli Druze men pray next to the coffin, draped in the Israeli flag, of Border Police Officer Jaddan Assad. Assad was killed when a Palastinian driver crashed into pedestrians during a terror attack near East Jerusalem.

Moving Crimea to Israel

The Obama administration’s latest smart ideas During the recent oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, in which Menachem Zivotofsky and his parents are suing to have “Israel” listed on his passport as his place of birth rather than “Jerusalem,” several Obama appointees made disconcerting arguments.

First there was Solicitor

General Donald B. Verrelli’s argument that the case of Jerusalem should be compared to that of the Russian invasion of Crimea.

Then came a number of assertions by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that Congress’ law to allow “Israel” on passports for the Jerusalem-born would cause the president and State Department to “lie.” And then came a final exchange between Justice Elena Kagan and the Zivotofsky’s lawyer, Alyza D. Lewin, Esq. Justice Kagan: “Can I say that this seems a particularly unfortunate week to be making this kind of, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal’ argument. I mean, history sug-

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gests that everything is a big deal with respect to the status of Jerusalem. And right now Jerusalem is a tinderbox because of issues about the status of and access to a particularly holy site there. And so sort of everything matters, doesn’t it?”

Ms. Lewin: “Well, the—it is a sensitive issue, but to suggest that what will go on a passport as a place of birth is going to implicate or make it worse, there’s no evidence of that.”

Unless the Obama administration makes it a big deal, of course.

Reuters reported that a dearth of salespeople in Japan has caused Nestle SA, the giant food manufacturer, to move to robots for selling its coffee makers. It is installing 20 of SoftBank’s Pepper robots in stores in December and is looking to eventually have 1,000 of the friendly-looking units.

The robot, which is already being used in SoftBank’s mobile phone stores, retails for $1,830, but it is unclear how much Nestle is paying for its units. Pepper is capable of recognizing and responding to human emotions.

Nestle Japan president Kohzoh Takaoka said in a statement, “We hope this new type of made-inJapan customer service will take off around the world.”

Suspiciously, right afterward he asked to be plugged in.

Breaking News from Bashar

Syria informs its enemies and allies According to an interview by AFP with the director general of SANA, the official Syrian government-run news agency, a new

ngs

LYING IN THE HEADLINES

Hebrew language version of their news site has been launched.

SANA already has versions of its news in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Turkish, Russian and Chinese. But providing a Hebrew language version was a more difficult task, because there are very few Hebrew speakers in the country. The new service is being manned mainly by people trained in Hebrew in a Syrian army program that went on between 1978 and 1990.

SANA is also starting a Farsi service, for Iranians.

The director general told AFP that its Hebrew language service is intended to reach both Jewish and Arab Israelis. He said, “We want to diffuse impartial informa-

“Driver hits pedestrians in Jerusalem” “East Jerusalem pedestrians hit by driver” “Jerusalem attack: New Palestinian car attack kills one” —The succeeding headlines that the BBC ran on the murderous attack last week in Yerushalayim; as pointed out by Honest Reporting, the second revision made it sound as though Palestinians were hit.

“Jew-hater mangles headline in London.” tion… on the attacks and violations committed against the Palestinian and Syrian people.”

You mean the attacks and violations that the Assad government is carrying out?

“I have no idea whether Israel has a Palestinian partner for a secure peace. Given Israel’s predicament, it should be doing everything to test, test, test, test, and test again whether it has such a Palestinian partner.”

—New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, speaking to Israel Army Radio last week.

He seems to have no idea about more than just one thing.

JEWISHNEWS

Bris Records Found Two 300-year-old books up for auction at the Kedem auction house in Jerusalem were found to include details of the birth and mohel of Rav Akiva Eiger.

The books belonged to Rabbi Binyamin Wolf Tavin, a mohel and parnes of Pressburg (Bratislava), who was born in 1732 and performed over 1,200 brisim from 1748 to 1803, beginning at the age of 15. The books are presently in the possession of Rabbi Yitzchak Weiss, the av beis din of Vrbove (Verboi), Slovakia.

Rav Akiva Eiger is number 221 in the mohel’s list for 1761. The entry says: “On Friday Erev Shabbos Kodesh, 9 Marcheshvan, I was the only mohel for the child Akiva ben (shochet ubodek haTorani) Moshe Ginz.”

This shows that Rabbi Akiva Eiger's bris was in Pressburg where his mother’s parents lived, and not in Eisenstadt, where his parents lived. He may have been born in Pressburg, too.

A wimpel embroidered by his mother at his birth mentions he was born on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5522. If his bris was on 9 Cheshvan, either his bris was delayed or he was born at twilight.

At the end of the second book of brisim, Rabbi Tavin thanks Hashem for allowing him to finish a second “613” of making brisim for Jewish children, and writes, “I hope that this number will join the first 613 and be a meilitz for me…”

Fear in Jerusalem Streets The rash of terrorist attacks in Jerusalem has traumatized not just the unwitting victims and their families but the entire Jewish populace, who don’t know if they will return home intact after a short excursion to the street. Since one-third of Jerusalem’s population is Arab and they travel in cars with yellow Israeli license plates, it is impossible to know if an oncoming car is driven by a Jew or an Arab, and whether the driver has a murderous agenda or not. The fear is even more palpable than 12 years ago, when one couldn’t be sure if the bus he was traveling on would suddenly explode.

On November 5, on Shimon Hatzadik Street near a light rail station, border policeman Jidan Assad, 38, from the Druze village of Beit Jaan, was killed, leaving behind a pregnant wife and young son. Fourteen others were hurt in the attack.

One severely injured chareidi youth could not be identified; his picture was publicized so the public could assist in his identification. In the end, he was identified from his cell phone as the grandson of Rav Shimon Baadani from the Moetzet

Chachmei HaTorah.

(In a second incident hours later, several soldiers were seriously injured after being hit by a car near Gush Etzion. The Palestinian driver turned himself in the next day, and is under investigation.)

Jerusalem District Commander Major General Moshe Edri ordered that concrete barriers be set up close to the French Hill/Givat HaMivtar, Jaffa, Herzl and Cheil Hahandasa bus stations to prevent cars from hitting pedestrians.

The recent terror attacks were celebrated in the streets by Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, who shot fireworks, handed out sweets, clapped hands and waved flags.

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Jewish Woes in Montreal Near a Resolution?

Last April, Education Minister Yves Bolduc ominously promised to crack down on illegal chasidic schools in Quebec.

The chasidic community has found its own solution—an accommodation with the English Montreal School Board which supervises homeschooling families. EMSB chairperson Angela Mancini said the board will do everything possible to help Yeshiva Toras Moshe Academy in Outremont’s 150 students receive secular instruction at home, while they continue to attend the school for religious lessons. The out-of-court settlement will prevent further legal wrangling over the academy’s largely religious curriculum.

Some Québécois also took umbrage over the construction of sukkos, which they felt were a blight on their manicured neighborhoods. After 30 complaints about sukkos were registered last year, borough councillor Mindy Pollak, a chasidic woman elected to public office in Montreal, proposed changing zoning laws to give city residents a period of 15 days to erect and disassemble their sukkos.

Montreal Mayor Marie CinqMar held a public meeting attended by over 200 people, most of whom were agreeable. So far, the only Montreal borough that restricts sukkos is Côte-des-Neiges, which has a seven-days-beforeand-after-Sukkos restriction. A second borough council vote on the motion will take place in the near future.

JEWISHNEWS

BY NESANEL GANTZ

Election Results and the Jews A number of Jews and pro-Israel candidates were elected in the recent midterm elections.

Lee Zeldin of Long Island was elected the sole Jewish Republican in Congress, while Senators Al Franken of Minnesota and Brian Schatz of Hawaii defeated Republican challengers for a second term.

Among the wins for candidates with Jewish and Israeli ties was that of Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), currently the only African American Republican in Congress. He is close to Nick Muzin, an Orthodox Jew who formerly served as his chief of staff and who now advises Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), who also won, once headed a Jewish studies group at Oxford University and is close to New Jersey’s Jewish community.

Tom Wolfe, who has warm ties with the Jewish community in his native York, Pennsylvania and is a major contributor to the local Jewish Community Center, was voted in as Pennsylvania’s governor. Sam Brownback, an outspoken supporter of Israel, was reelected governor of Kansas.

The midterms showed that the general American Jewish population remained unfailingly Democrat, and 69 percent of its vote went to Democrats. But other traditional Democrat-voting populations, fed up with the economy, had no compunctions about putting Republicans in charge of the US Senate, and giving them a larger majority in the US House of Representatives.

Being Smart About the Law of Return Israel’s Chief Rabbi David Lau says it is time to change the Law of Return, so that it confers Israeli citizenship only on those who are Jewish according to halachah.

He says that a new study by Professor Sergio Della Pergola, from the Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, puts the number of Jews (people born to Jewish mothers) at 14,212,800 today. But if you include those born to Jewish fathers and nonJewish mothers, the number rises to 17,236,850, while the number of those with Jewish ancestry three generations back is 22,921,500. The latter are eligible for citizenship according to Israeli criteria.

“Israel can decide to be the Third World’s welfare

state, but as long as that decision has not been taken, we have to stop allowing nonJews to make aliyah,” he says.

He believes the greatest danger that the influx of a large number of non-Jews of Jewish ancestry poses is an increase in interfaith marriages in Israel.

The recent giyur reform proposed by Tnuah MK Elazar Stern would facilitate mass fraud in the state giyur process, which is already full of holes.

At a recent meeting of the chasidic Moetzes Gedolei Torah, a resolution was accepted to establish yichusin (lineage) records, in the event that the giyur law passes its final hurdles.

BUSINESS

l NEWS

B Y C HA NI E A S HE R

6 THINGS:

New GOP Majority Brings Hope to Energy Industry Energy companies are optimistic after last Tuesday’s elections, thanks to the new Republican majority. Although it has been a year of ongoing losses, energy stocks were on the rise the day after Election Day. Republicans have long said they would pass legislation to pursue the transnational Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands down to Gulf Coast refineries. These companies are also hopeful that other pro-energy legislative reforms for crude and natural gas exports will pass. As early as the first quarter of 2015, we may see some positive changes for the industry. (Fortune)

34X

HOW TO PREDICT AND MANAGE CUSTOMER INTEREST

STUDY WHERE YOU STAND. Is there acceptance of your product in the market? Are you creating a market or disrupting the market?

Data Point Business travelers check their smartphones an average of 34 times a day and work 240 more hours per year than the average US worker. (PC Housing/Inc.)

Cybersecurity: College Building a Brand Degree Not Required Is Less Important Companies are desperately seeking analysts Than Giving It to look at network logs and administer systems settings, among other entry-level cyberYour All security tasks. According to security industry experts, there is a mismatch between a broad college education and the realities of entrylevel cyber-security jobs, and more vocational training could meet companies’ needs better. In fact, an estimated 15-20 percent of the more than 300,000 job openings in this field could be filled by individuals with no college degree. To help alleviate this shortage, Symantec is funding a $2 million pilot project to train urban youth, hoping to train as many as 15,000 people a year in four years. After 16 weeks of classes, they will be placed in 10-week internships with one of ten companies. Within a few months they can be ready for entry-level tech jobs that can lead to a lucrative career.

(Bloomberg Businessweek)

Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes that millennial entrepreneurs make is focusing first on building their personal brand rather than doing what it takes to make the best product possible. Marketing experts contend the value of your product or service can be compromised and your efforts may be counterproductive if the focus is overwhelmingly on the “me” of it. Instead, entrepreneurs need to concentrate on doing their best work to satisfy the consumer and being a good person so word will get around; the personal brand will grow as a byproduct. (Entrepreneur)

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ENGAGE IN TREND SPOTTING. Look at macro trends and patterns you’ve seen before.

UNDERSTAND SEASONAL AND TIMEBASED DEMANDS. There are some products that largely build demand over time, but most are affected by market forces of some kind. Know what they are.

DATA IS YOUR FRIEND. Utilize data and analytics to obtain interconnected inventory management and supplychain information so you can be more responsive with regard to supply.

FIGURE OUT WHO WOULD BUY YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE. Determine who will be purchasing your product— even though they may not be the ones to use it—and make sure you appeal to them.

LISTEN TO THE MARKET. Sometimes the market shows you a demand you never anticipated. (Wall Street Journal)

THE OTHER

MIT

How Turkey manipulates the West to do its dirty work in Syria

by John Loftus

Turkey, Marmaris

by John Loftus

I

hate MIT. No, not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The other one, the Turkish MIT. The initials (in Turkish) stand for the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey. MIT is the nastiest, sleaziest spy service in the Middle East, which is to say it’s one of the worst in the world.

The Turkish MIT makes the Mossad look like Boy Scouts. Behind the scenes, the Turks ally themselves with the most extreme Islamist forces. The overseas command headquarters of Hamas are in Turkey. When Qatar evicted the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders, MIT relocated them to Turkey.

And then there is Turkey’s support for the terrorists of ISIS. When the US Air Force struck one of the ISIS camps in Syria, they killed a Turkish citizen, Yakup Bulent Alniak, whom the president of Turkey had previously declared a “hero” for his role in attacking Israeli soldiers trying to inspect the Gaza flotilla. How did such a prominent Turkish activist end up in an ISIS training camp?

Turkey ain’t saying. Neither is Washington, except for Joe Biden, as was reported: “Last week, US Vice President Joe Biden had to zigzag between the truth that accidentally spilled out of him and Washington’s pragmatism. In a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Biden said: ‘[Turkish] President (Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan—he is an old friend—said you were right; we let too many people through. Now we are trying to seal the border.’

“The ‘people,’ however, whom Erdoğan said Ankara had ‘let through’ were the jihadists whom Turkey had supported with arms and money, and who have now become an international nightmare.

“In other words, the US vice president was publicly saying that the Turkish president had confessed to supporting terrorists.

“Then Erdoğan threatened: ‘If [Biden] really said that, he would become history for me.’

“Finally, a White House statement announced: ‘The vice president apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and

partners in the region had intentionally supplied and facilitated the growth of ISIL or other extremists in Syria.’”

You know, most of the time Biden’s foot-inmouth disease is just an act; he is the intentional deliverer of blunt public messages. In this case, he (and President Obama) are telling Turkey, “We know what MIT is up to in secret.

Stop it before it becomes public.”

Long before Biden’s public message was ignored, the US government had leaked secret information that Turkey had done some very, very nasty things to help the Syrian Islamists defeat the secular Assad government. The secrets were leaked to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh and published in a series of articles in the London Review of Books.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I was one of the secret sources for Seymour Hersh’s book The Price of Power, which savagely attacked Henry Kissinger. From time to time Hersh has consulted with me about other topics. Hersh is one of the few journalists to be trusted by the NSA, which I suppose accounts for the fact that the secret stunts of the Turkish MIT were leaked to him.

Not that the NSA is incapable of planting stories on its own. In 2014, the head of MIT was Hakan Fidan. Somehow a tape recording of his voice was leaked to YouTube and then dispersed via Twitter across the Internet. The tape records Fidan in discussion with a senior Turkish general and the Turkish foreign minister about whether there were legitimate grounds for Turkey to invade Syria. Fidan, the spy chief, then says: “[I]f legitimacy [of a possible incursion into Syria] is an issue, I can simply send a few men [across the Syria-

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Turkey border] and have them launch missiles over to us. Legitimacy is not a problem.

Legitimacy can be manufactured.”

In essence, the MIT chief admitted in this telephone call that he had the power to send his MIT agents into ISIS-held territory in Syria, and then fire ISIS-controlled missiles. It sort of sounds like ISIS is a proxy force of the Turkish Secret Service.

When the tape of the MIT chief hit the Internet, the Turkish government went absolutely nuts to prevent the Turkish public from hearing it. They shut down Twitter, then YouTube, then the Google servers themselves.

Erdoğan’s government closed down the entire Turkish Internet rather than let the conversation leak out.

This unprecedented censorship emphasizes the sensitivity and veracity of the MIT director’s plans to launch a phony attack from Syria that would start a larger war. What Hersh suggests is that the deception was part of MIT’s plan to trick President Obama into attacking Syria. In short, Turkey wanted the stupid Americans to launch missiles bombing Assad’s army into oblivion so that the Turks could take over Syria through their Islamist proxies, the al-Nusra Front.

The essence of the deception was for Turkey to supply its pet Syrian terrorists with a small supply of Russian-made sarin nerve gas.

Obama had declared that if Assad ever used nerve gas on his own people, it would be a “red line” that would force America into war.

MIT’s goal was to trick Obama into thinking that the red line had been crossed.

As Hersh stated: “One high-level special operations adviser told me that the ill-conceived American missile attack on Syrian

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military airfields and missile emplacements, as initially envisaged by the White House, would have been ‘like providing close air support for al-Nusra.’ In other words, Obama would be helping Turkey’s Islamist proxies conquer Syria on the ground while Assad’s forces were destroyed from the air.”

The Turkish Trap Is Set The first Syrian military aircraft was shot down on November 28, 2012. The Washington Post reported, “The Obama administration has steadfastly opposed arming Syrian opposition forces with such missiles, warning that ‘the weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used to shoot down commercial aircraft.’”

The Turks were not amused by Obama’s reticence. “The American decision to end CIA support of the weapons shipments into Syria left Erdoğan exposed politically and militarily. ‘One of the issues…was the fact that Turkey is the only avenue to supply the rebels in Syria,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘It can’t come through Jordan because the terrain in the south is wide open and the Syrians are all over it. And it can’t come through the valleys and hills of Lebanon—you can’t be sure who you’d meet on the other side.’

“Without US military support for the rebels, the former intelligence official said, ‘Erdoğan’s dream of having a client state in Syria is evaporating and he thinks we’re the reason why. When Syria wins the war, he knows the rebels are just as likely to turn on him—where else can they go? So now he will have thousands of radicals in his backyard.’”

It should be noted that the Turkish MIT was actually the one arming both of the main radical factions. They did not fear Islamic radicals as long as they were Sunni Islamic radicals. Truth be told, Erdoğan wanted to manipulate Obama into destroying his secular and Shiite opponents.

The Turks were ready to fight Syria down to the last American. They had little trust that they could defeat Assad’s Air Force on their own.

But Obama was not about to be pulled back into the Syrian swamp.

By the end of 2012, it was believed throughout the American intelligence community that the rebels were losing the war. That was when MIT came up with a nasty plan to force Obama to get back in the fight in Syria. The Turks had to trick Obama into believing that Assad had crossed Obama’s red line and used poison gas on civilians. MIT was teaching the terrorists how to make sarin. Obama believed only Assad’s forces possessed this advanced nerve gas.

It took a while, but the American intelligence community started to put the pieces together. “In spring 2013, US intelligence learned that the Turkish government…was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists, it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics. Erdoğan’s hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line.

But Obama didn’t respond in March and April.”

ptexgroup.com

Whoever said print is dead was dead wrong.

You’re reading this, aren’t you?

Conflicting Information The truth is that Obama was getting conflicting information. The CIA was telling him that only Assad could be using nerve gas, but the defense department was more than skeptical. Still, Obama knew that MIT was secretly helping the Syrian rebels obtain chemical weapons.

Obama waited until both President Erdoğan and the MIT boss were at the White House for a working dinner. This is Hersh’s account: “The meal was dominated by the Turks’ insistence that Syria had

Print that respects the permanence of print.

by John Loftus

crossed the red line and their complaints that Obama was reluctant to do anything about it.

Obama was accompanied by John Kerry and Tom Donilon, the national security adviser who would soon leave the job. Erdoğan was joined by Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey’s foreign minister, and Hakan Fidan, the head of the MIT. Fidan is known to be fiercely loyal to Erdoğan and has been seen as a consistent backer of the radical rebel opposition in Syria.”

In other words, Fidan was the man behind ISIS and the ANF. According to Hersh, “Erdoğan had sought the meeting to demonstrate to Obama that the red line had been crossed, and had brought Fidan along to state

what I’ve got!’ There was a lot of political pressure to bring Obama to the table to help the rebels, and there was wishful thinking that [tying Assad to the sarin attack] would force Obama’s hand.”

The Russian GRU, who had sold the sarin to Turkey in the first place, began its own research. “Russian military intelligence operatives had recovered samples of the chemical agent from Ghouta. They analyzed it and passed it on to British Military Intelligence.”

But there was a problem. The sarin found in Syria did not match the batches that Russia had sold to Assad. They did match batches sold to Turkey. The UK defense staff relayed

When the tape hit the Internet, Erdoğan’s government closed down the entire Turkish Internet rather than let his spy chief’s conversation about attacking Syria leak out. the case. When Erdoğan tried to draw Fidan into the conversation and Fidan began speaking, Obama cut him off and said: ‘We know.’”

Now, Erdoğan is a bit of an egomaniac and a bully. “Erdoğan tried to bring Fidan in a second time, and Obama again cut him off and said: ‘We know.’ At that point, an exasperated Erdoğan said, ‘But your red line has been crossed!’ and, the expert told me, ‘Donilon said Erdoğan ‘waved his finger at the president inside the White House.’ Obama then pointed at Fidan and said: ‘We know what you’re doing with the radicals in Syria.’”

After the nerve gas attack in Syria on August 21, the whole world began to investigate. “The immediate assumption was that Assad had done it,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “The new director of the CIA, [John] Brennan, jumped to that conclusion… [He] drives to the White House and says: ‘Look at

the findings to the Americans: “We’re being set up here.”

“The report caused the joint chiefs to go to the president with a more serious worry: that the attack [on Syria] sought by the White House would be an unjustified act of aggression. It was the joint chiefs who led Obama to change course.” Eventually the CIA changed course and agreed that Assad’s regime was not the source of the sarin used on Syrian civilians.

The Attack Goes On Hold By the end of August, “the attack was a few days away, and American, British and French planes, ships and submarines were at the ready.” Obama was ready to launch a massive air attack to punish Assad for using nerve gas.

He was on the verge of taking America to war: “By the last days of August, the president had given the joint chiefs a fixed deadline for

the launch. ‘H-hour was to begin no later than Monday morning [September 2], a massive assault to neutralize Assad,’ the former intelligence official said. So it was a surprise to many when, during a speech in the White House Rose Garden on August 31, Obama said that the attack would be put on hold, and he would turn to Congress and put it to a vote.”

Obama had put the brakes on. He knew Congress would never vote to go to war in an election year. Bit by bit, the evidence of the Turkish set-up was being assembled.

“A US intelligence consultant told me that a few weeks before August 21 he saw a highly classified briefing prepared for the defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, which described ‘the acute anxiety’ of the Erdoğan administration about the rebels’ dwindling prospects. The analysis warned that the Turkish leadership had expressed ‘the need to do something that would precipitate a US military response.’

“By late summer, the Syrian army still had the advantage over the rebels, the former intelligence official said, and only American air power could turn the tide. In the autumn, the former intelligence official went on, the US intelligence analysts who kept working on the events of August 21 ‘sensed that Syria had not done the gas attack. But the 500-pound gorilla was, how did it happen? The immediate suspect was the Turks, because they had all the pieces to make it happen.’

“As intercepts and other data related to the August 21 attacks were gathered, the intelligence community saw evidence to support its suspicions. ‘We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdoğan’s people to push Obama over the red line,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘They had to escalate to a gas attack in or near Damascus when the UN inspectors’—who arrived in Damascus on August 18 to investigate the earlier use of gas—‘were there. The deal was to do something spectacular. Our senior military officers have been told by the DIA and other intelligence assets that the sarin was supplied through Turkey—that it could only have gotten there with Turkish support. The Turks also provided the training in producing the sarin and handling it.’

‫בס״ד‬

ptexgroup.com

“Much of the support for that assessment came from the Turks themselves, via intercepted conversations in the immediate aftermath of the attack. ‘Principal evidence came from the Turkish post-attack joy and back-slapping in numerous intercepts. Operations are always so super-secret in the planning, but that all flies out the window when it comes to crowing afterwards. There is no greater vulnerability than in the perpetrators claiming credit for success.’

“Erdoğan’s problems in Syria would soon be over: ‘Off goes the gas and Obama will say “red line” and attack Syria, or at least that was the idea. But it did not work out that way.’”

So why hasn’t Turkey been punished, or at least exposed? Hersh asked his sources “if there was any way to stop Erdoğan’s continued support for the rebels, especially now that it’s going so wrong.” The answer was that there wasn’t. “We could go public if it was somebody other than Erdoğan, but Turkey is a special case. They’re a NATO ally.

The Turks don’t trust the West. They can’t live with us if we take any active role against Turkish interests. If we went public with what we know about Erdoğan’s role with the gas, it’d be disastrous. The Turks would say: ‘We hate you for telling us what we can and can’t do.’”

Actually, the whole world, including Turkey, has signed a treaty banning the use of chemical weapons. It is one thing to help Islamists to shoot down Assad’s helicopters. It is another for the Turks to give poison gas to terrorist groups.

“The CIA had briefed the Obama administration on al-Nusra and its work with sarin and had sent alarming reports that another Sunni fundamentalist group active in Syria, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), also understood the science of producing sarin.”

This is the same ANF that works for MIT. This is the same al-Qaeda faction that became ISIS. So Seymour Hersh did a good job in laying this out, but sometimes I think he goes too far. In one of his London essays, he revealed the existence of an Israeli-made ground sensor that detects poison gas and then relays its signals to an American satellite.

That is why groups like Hezbollah are digging like crazy all over the Middle East trying to find the Israeli sensors. Hersh should have kept quiet about that one, I think.

Obama and the Russians convinced Assad to hand over his sarin stockpiles. The Turks quietly made their terrorist proxies return theirs.

But to encourage the Islamists to kill off more enemies of the Sunnis, MIT taught the Islamists how to make a legal form of poison gas. “The ISIL fighters seized some quantities of chlorine after seizing control of some water purification plants or sites where chlorine was kept,” said the senior official, adding that the “IS group has some experts who were able to manufacture chlorine shells.”

How about that? Kudos to “No Drama Obama” for keeping his cool and not getting rushed into war with Syria. How much do you want to bet that the Turkish betrayal never comes up in congressional hearings?

•

Attorney John Loftus, author of America’s Nazi Secret, is a retired Army officer, intelligence analyst and federal prosecutor. He previously held a Q clearance for nuclear top secrets while working for the US government.

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Keeping kosher isn't just a way of eating; it's a way of life. From the new high-tech world of shemittah observance to the lessons a master chef learned in his kitchen to the way prisons, airlines and five-star mountain resorts provide kosher food, these are the experiences that make kashrus a part of our existence. With personal stories and incredible photos, we'll bring you into the kosher world.

THE KOSHER ISSUE

From Cologne to Kosher Cuisine—Drones, Smartphones & Wicker Baskets—Extreme Kosher—Photo Essay

KOSHER WORLD “In some cases, we send drones up over the fields to film the proceedings from above."

"Where a person in their home might cook a small piece of flanken, we cook 85 pounds."

—Rabbi Meir David Bergman, the Badatz Eidah Hachareidis' chief inspector for shemittah produce

—Executive Chef Steven Weintraub of Borenstein Caterers and El Al Airlines

"Infinite stays infinite even if I have to modify a recipe a little because of the rules of kashrus."

—MasterChef Tom Franz

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KOSHER WORLD

THE KOSHER ISSUE

FROM CATHOLICISM TO

KOSHER CUISINE MASTERCHEF TOM FRANZ’S INCREDIBLE JOURNEY

“In 2015, Germany and Israel will be celebrating the

fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of relations between the two countries. They have a lot of events planned for the celebration. I’m planning to do an event in my native city of Cologne with other representatives. And it’s very funny that in my native town I will be representing Israel as an Israeli and a Jew. It’s totally crazy.”

While it may not exactly be crazy, it is certainly ironic.

In fact, everything about Tom Franz is fraught with ironies.

With his towering height, striking good looks, quick mind, and mastery of the culinary arts, Tom is uniquely endowed.

The fact that he is a German convert to Judaism certainly augments his uniqueness.

Tom first came to Israel 25 years ago as a high-school exchange student and later returned to volunteer in a hospital. Some years later he moved to Israel, learned Hebrew, converted to Judaism and got married, and he and his wife now keep a strictly kosher home.

Artistic expression eschews limitations, such as those cooking only kosher seems to impose. But Tom sees it differently.

“If you know the rules of kashrus, it would simply be ridiculous to say there are no limitations, because there are,” Tom says candidly. “But if you ask me whether I feel subjectively limited, the answer is no. Just because I can’t use some ingredients or combine certain things doesn’t mean I’m limited. In fact, I feel enriched because I own two kitchens instead of one.

“I can express my creativity in two distinct areas. I have the ability to work with dairy or meat, and each has infinite options. Infinite stays infinite even if I have to modify an idea a little because of the rules of kashrus. In fact, the

objective limitations sharpen my senses and creativity.”

Student Exchanges “I was born in Cologne and raised in a small town close to Cologne,” Tom begins. “My parents are both Catholic, though not overly religious. We had mostly a secular upbringing and I didn’t learn too much about my own religion. But we observed Christmas and Easter.”

I ask him what he felt toward Jews when he was growing up.

“The truth is I never met a Jewish person in my life, and had no contact with Jewish people—until I met this delegation of about 20 Jewish students who came to my school from Israel when I was 16 years old. I knew about Jews only from information on the Holocaust I had studied in history books in school. I knew there was a Jewish community in Cologne, but if you don’t have a reason to go there, you don’t really meet any of its members.

“They no longer have student exchanges in the school I attended, but for many years a delegation of Israeli kids came to us and we sent a delegation of German kids to Israel the next year. I came to Israel with a delegation in 1990.”

“Were the students in your school all German?” I ask.

“Out of the 500 students, there were a few immigrants.

Not too many. Most of the students were German.”

“How did a group of 20 Israeli kids fit into a German school?” I wonder.

“They didn’t come to study with us for a year. They came for two weeks to visit, so they didn’t really have to fit in.

I wanted to get to know them the moment I saw them.

First of all, they looked different, and they behaved differ-

BY RABBI YITZCHOK FRANKFURTER PHOTOS OF TOM FRANZ: DAN PEREZ

THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD

ently. They had a certain joyfulness about life. I could feel it.

It was something strange and amazing to me. They sang, they danced, they had a party wherever they came together and they were always entertaining. You know how Israeli kids are.”

“How did the other students react?”

“There were some kids who didn’t have a good opinion of Israel because of the Palestinian conflict. But it wasn’t something I was very aware of. So I bonded with them, and that feeling never let go of me.”

“Did you share your feelings with your parents at the time?”

“While the Israeli kids were in Germany, I went out with them every night, so my parents knew something was going on. And afterward they started finding one or two letters from Israel in our mailbox almost daily. We wrote letters to each other like crazy for years. So they knew very well about my relationship with the Israeli kids.”

“What was your parents’ attitude toward Jews?”

“We never really spoke about it. I never felt my parents had anything against Jews. My father was born in ’43, my mother in ’45; they were the first generation after the Holocaust, but they never talked about it. They were very open-minded and had no prejudices against Jews. They didn’t really know much about what happened; I think in their generation not too much about the Holocaust was taught in school.”

“Why were you chosen as part of the delegation to Israel?”

“Initially I wasn’t. When one of the kids who was chosen canceled in order to prepare for his examinations, I immediately volunteered to take his place. We arrived in Israel during Pesach 1990, though I missed leil Seder. I remember that it was Pesach because there was no bread. They explained the reason for that, but I didn’t understand what they were talking about… We were there for two weeks, and the second week we went to school, when it was back in session.”

“I stayed with a very nice family in Holon. It’s not the most beautiful place in Israel, but it was perfect for me. Every time I went back to Israel, I went there. Each time it was sort of like a homecoming. It was my second home, although I didn’t realize it then.”

Volunteering “Were you thinking at that point about coming to Israel to stay?” I ask.

“No. I had another two and a half years to go in school, and I concentrated on my studies. But I had a lot of contact with Israel, and I knew that at some point I’d want to stay there for a longer period of time. I applied to do national service in Israel with an organization called Action Reconciliation Peace Service, which organized volunteer programs for Germans in Israel for 60 years. I later studied banking for a couple of years, and in the mid-1990s I returned to Israel and stayed for a year and a half.

“I felt I needed to be there for longer and get to know it better, learn some Hebrew. During 1995 and ’96, I was in Yad Eliyahu, Tel Aviv, where I worked in a hospital for the chronically ill, mostly as a volunteer. They just gave us a flat to sleep in and some pocket change. That was my morning 48 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

‘job.’ In the afternoon I visited German-speaking Holocaust survivors in an old-age home. I listened to their life stories and played chess with them. Meeting them was important for me. Twenty-five years ago, there were a lot of Holocaust survivors everywhere in Israel, and when they heard that I was German, there was always someone pulling up his sleeve and showing me his number.”

“Did you find it important to meet them because as a German you harbored some guilt?” I ask him openly.

“I’m always asked this question. I didn’t have any guilt. I never heard any stories about my grandparents doing terrible things. My personal motivation to come to Israel was out of my attraction to the people and the country. I chose this organization because that was the way I could get there. I don’t think guilt had anything to do with it.”

“How did the survivors react to you?” I ask next.

“The survivors I visited were 90 or 95 years old. They were mostly in their thirties during the Holocaust. Some had left Europe before the war, and some were in concentration camps. But they had all lived in Germany before the war, so they were used to non-Jewish German people and they were comfortable with me. It was very interesting; I expected there might be some rejection, but there never was. For them, it was a great opportunity to tell me things about their youth in Germany and about other experiences, some of which they had never even told their own children. I remember someone saying to me, ‘I’m telling you things now that I never told my daughter.’ They somehow felt comfortable davka talking to a German.”

“Maybe they felt your empathy?”

“I’m quite sure if I hadn’t had empathy for them, it wouldn’t have happened,” he allows.

“They also probably sensed your Yiddishe neshamah,” I say, only half in jest. “What emotions did the survivors evoke in you as a German?”

“I don’t remember ever going home feeling guilty about what my people had done. I thought I was doing some important work with these people, giving them something, even if it was just a little fun during their leisure time.”

Conversion “Why did you convert to Judaism?” I pose.

“Apparently because my soul was Jewish in a way and wanted to come home. My soul was obviously already Jewish when I did volunteer work. I just didn’t know it yet.”

“So you later returned to Germany?”

“Yes, and I did not go back to Israel for eight years. I believed I was through with Israel; I had nothing left to do there and thought I would concentrate on my life. I started studying law and subsequently became a lawyer in Germany.

I planned my life according to what I thought it should be and what my parents expected me to do, without their ever saying so explicitly. That is the life I would have had if spirituality had allowed me. But it didn’t allow me. It followed me.

“I was about 30 and felt a desire to return to Israel even

Street scene in Cologne, Germany

though I had no family there. It was like a seed that was growing in me, and I had no control over it.”

“Would you define this feeling as a religious inclination?”

“Not initially. I think I was somewhat Zionistic. I always asked myself, ‘How can one be Zionistic without being Jewish?’ But those were the feelings I had. I wouldn’t call them religious because I didn’t know much about the Jewish religion at the time. But I started having a sense of belief in G-d, which I had not had before. Slowly I started to believe that there is a Creator ruling our lives and that there is hashgachah pratis. But I didn’t study Judaism until I decided to convert.”

“Did you make that momentous decision from one minute to the next?”

“From the moment I started to develop religious beliefs until I made the decision, it took eight years. When I came to the decision, it became the focus of my life. I told my parents I was going to do it, but I did not ask permission from anyone.”

“Did you discuss it with anybody?”

“No. I just let people know. The only person I really spoke to about it in detail was a Jewish pen pal I had for years, who later became a chozer b’teshuvah. He told me to go for it.

“I met with the rabbi of Cologne and told him I wanted to convert. I actually could have converted in Cologne, but as you know, a rabbi first tries to convince you not to go through with it. Then he told me that if I really wanted to do it and I was able to go to Israel, it would be better to go through the conversion process there. In the end I went. My intention was to go

as a tourist in order to convert, but then I said, ‘Okay I’m staying here.’”

“How were you supporting yourself at the time?”

“I was practicing international law in Germany and making good money. I think if I’d stayed another five years I wouldn’t have been able to give it up, because you get used to the money.

But at that time my priority was not money; spirituality, Judaism and family life were more important to me. I decided that after I had achieved all that, I would pursue a career. So in October 2004, 15 years after my first visit, I returned to Israel to convert to Judaism.

“I went to the Rabbanut’s conversion department in Tel Aviv and asked them to convert me. I was told to go to synagogue on Shabbat, learn a little and return a year later. I pleaded with them, saying that I only had a tourist visa for three months, but they were adamant that I wait a year.

“I joined a conversion class in the Rabbinate. They have classes in different languages, but they didn’t have one in German, so I joined a class in Hebrew. It was a very tough time. But I was so motivated that I studied for the conversion two hours a day, and I studied the Hebrew language two hours a day, and I went to prayers. Everything they asked from me I did.

“I came back after a year and said, ‘I gave up my life to do this.

I did what you said, and I want to complete the conversion process.’ It was a long fight. It took months, but in the end they let me do it.

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the Israeli government had a policy allowing people to live here and convert, but they wouldn’t give them work permits.

I was prepared to give up my career for Judaism, and now I had to prove that I actually had the wherewithal to live a life of paucity. Since I wasn’t able to work, I used up all my savings and I had to ask for money from my parents and friends.

But I survived. I had nothing, but I was so happy.

“In 2007, I converted to Judaism. I had actually gone to the hospital right when I came to Israel and asked for a circumcision, even before I went to the Rabbinate. I felt I needed to do it. Then I started learning Torah and keeping Shabbat, and felt I was Jewish. The conversion later on was all a formality, in a sense; I did it, but I didn’t feel it. I felt that the circumcision I had done earlier was my brit with Hashem.

“After my conversion I could make aliyah, which meant I could then go to work…except that I hadn’t worked in my profession for two and a half years, so my law career was dead.

I was actually working in law as a freelancer in Tel Aviv, but I don’t call that a career. I had previously been a lawyer in an international law firm, where the expectations were high and the money was good. This job was not at all what I had once had, but a career was no longer as important to me.

“Not even a month after I finished my conversion, I met my wife. Hashem is wonderful; He sent me a shidduch right away.

My wife took me as I was and never complained. I was very happy.”

Park in Holon, Israel

Mastering Cooking “My wife was a public relations worker, a spin doctor for chefs and restaurants. She really understood good cooking. When I cooked dinner for her for the first time, she started to cry because she was so excited about my cooking skills.

“A couple of years after we got married, my wife left her PR job because she was chozer b’teshuvah and couldn’t promote nonkosher restaurants anymore. She started her own line of modest sports fashions for Orthodox women.”

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“When did your interest in cooking begin?”

“When I left home and didn’t have my mother’s food anymore. But at that time I was just cooking to survive. Later on I cooked for fun, for myself and also for friends. And when I got married, we both spent a lot of time cooking and we hosted friends often.

“My wife kept on insisting that I had a talent for cooking.

She had eaten in all the good restaurants and witnessed many cooking techniques. She told me that I had unique hands, the kind that very few chefs have—hands that transform the food they touch. I told her I was already 40. How could I learn to be a chef now?”

“But she eventually convinced you?”

“She didn’t succeed in making me a chef in a restaurant kitchen. But you know the MasterChef TV program? It’s a reality cooking competition show that debuted in Israel in 2010. It’s based on the British show of the same name. From the first season on, she pushed me to try out for this contest.

The first two seasons, I wouldn’t hear of it. Only in 2013, the third season, was she finally able to convince me to go on the show and compete. We haven’t had a TV at home for many years, but she showed me the second season on the Internet.

I said it looked nice, and was ready to join.

“Hundreds of people auditioned for the show. I was shocked to make it past the auditions. The grand finale, which fea-

THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD

tured a run-off between me, an Orthodox Jewish woman, and an Israeli Arab, was the highest-rated TV program ever in Israel.

The first two seasons drew only a local audience, but since the third-season contestants were an international group, the show drew a worldwide viewership.

“I started with German food. As the show progressed, I added Mediterranean styles and Moroccan food to my repertoire.

When I won, it was much more than a personal victory. When I came to the competition, I was asked, ‘What’s your agenda?

What do you want to tell the judges?’ And I said I wanted to prove that kosher cooking can be gourmet cuisine.

“I started with German cuisine because I wanted to show the food that I had grown up on. I played with it and changed it, twisted it, gave it a nice look. Later on I had to prove my skill with Moroccan and Israeli cuisine.

“Today I do both. In Israel I cook German food, and when I’m in Germany, people expect me to cook Israeli dishes.

“There’s a debate about what Israeli food is. Polish food is as Israeli as Moroccan, Persian, Yemenite or Russian food. It’s all Israeli, because it’s all cuisine the Jews brought back to Israel from around the world. Generally, people expect Israeli cuisine to be more Mediterranean-Oriental-Middle Eastern style, but it could just as well be Austrian or German or Polish. And it’s just as Israeli or Jewish.”

“What’s your personal preference?”

“I love to cook everything. And when I’m in the right mood, it comes out great. I like when the food comes out better than I anticipated. You know you’ve done a great job when you put together one ingredient plus another and another, and the result is not three but five.”

A Kosher Ambassador “Do you always surprise yourself with your dishes?” I want to know.

“I don’t cook according to recipes,” Tom tells me softly. “I read recipes to get inspiration and an idea. But it’s hard for me to cook even according to my own recipes. I’m always improvising.”

“So how did you manage to write a cookbook with specific recipes? That’s the opposite of improvising.”

“It’s based on dishes I’ve cooked that came out great. Since the MasterChef contest, I’ve been asked to write recipe books. I’m not a chef who worked in a restaurant and has dozens of recipes in a drawer. I had about a month’s time to write my book, so I cooked in my head, sat down and wrote up some recipes. Somehow my experience was broad enough that the recipes were very precise. People really enjoy them, and I’ve had no complaints that something did not work out.

“Cooking is an art. It’s a form of meditation. It’s creativity.

It’s the expression of emotions, a way you can give to people. I became sort of a culinary ambassador from Israel to Germany and from Germany to Israel.”

“And also a kashrut ambassador,” I say.

“Yes. I appeared in dozens of TV programs in Germany, speaking about the kosher kitchen, showing some dishes and presenting my book The Kosher Cuisine. It was interesting for 52 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

people; they don’t want to hear from someone who is ultraOrthodox about kashrut, but if someone looks like me and can talk to them in their language, they’re suddenly interested in something they didn’t want to hear about before.”

“Do you plan to open a restaurant?”

“I’m very busy with my new career, producing food for companies and shows, and I also don’t want to be overcommitted to one project. I’m currently in the middle of making a documentary for Germany on Israeli food. It’s going to be five chapters, each one lasting half an hour. We’re visiting different people here in Israel for the documentary; I ‘sneak’ into their kitchens and they cook with me for the camera.”

“Do you also like to bake?”

“I like it very much. But because I cook more, this is my wife’s department. We’re a great team.”

“What would you advise an aspiring cook? To experiment?”

“I think ‘experiment’ is actually a key word. In cooking, you have to be ready to make mistakes. What makes someone a good cook is his ability to learn from his mistakes and do it differently next time. It’s the same with teshuvah; you can’t become a pure person without falling. You have to get up and start again and be mitchazek. Falling and rising are part of the process.”

“Would you recommend that people buy your book and improvise with your recipes?”

“Yes, I strongly recommend it. When they make a dough, the ingredients should.” be precise, but the rest can be their own interpretation. Right now, however, the book is only in German.

It hasn’t been translated yet.”

“Most people don’t understand that cooking is an art. Does tasting good food do the same for you?”

“Yes, but I haven’t often had the chance to eat food that I’m really excited about. If you go to a good restaurant and have high expectations, you might be disappointed.”

“How would you suggest a person experiment while cooking?”

“Whenever I work with a new ingredient, I put it in my mouth. I put a new spice on my tongue. I want to come to know it. If I’m making meatballs, I’ll spice the meat and taste it raw. You try to get to know the item and see how the ingredients come together. If you don’t know the ingredients well, it’s hard to combine them. It’s like an orchestra; if you don’t know the sound of each instrument, you can’t create a symphony.”

“But doesn’t the taste of the ingredients change with cooking?”

“Yes. There are also different interactions. It’s complex, but with experience you develop an intuition for it.”

“Do you think cooking as an art form is for everybody?”

“I don’t think it’s for everyone. Some people meditate as they cook, others can’t. Also, there are mothers who cook for many children. How can you expect them to meditate if they have to feed a large family every day? It would be ridiculous to tell them to relax while cooking. But it’s like painting, singing and dancing. It can be a hobby; it can be art; it can be meditation.”

“Does it always work for you as an aesthetic experience?”

“Not always, but often. And when I read good recipes, I get excited. I actually have butterflies in my stomach. And yes—you can cook strictly kosher and have these experiences.”

THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD

TOM'S WIFE'S STORY DANA FRANZ I was born in Albert Einstein

Hospital in the Bronx and made aliyah with my family when I was two and a half years old.

My mother is American, one of four children. Her parents are Holocaust survivors who came to the US after the war. They were the sole survivors of very large families in Poland. My mother decided to go to Israel on a special students’ trip to support the country after the 1973 war. When she came here, she met my father and got engaged. My parents then moved to the States for two years, where I was born.

My father was raised on a secular kibbutz, so he kind of lost religion. But it was very important for my mother to have a traditional kosher home.

When I married Tom, I was very worried that my parents wouldn’t accept the fact that he was German and had 54 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

not been born Jewish. But the opposite happened—my father told me that it is very important to respect a ger tzedek. Tom gets along beautifully with my family.

When I first met Tom, I was totally secular. He was keeping kosher, and I was working as an executive in a PR firm representing the best chefs in Israel. I was frequenting the best restaurants in Israel, most of them not kosher. But after I met him, I started to think more about religion. I enrolled in a midrashah, and slowly, slowly, I became frum. I left my job because I didn’t want to represent nonkosher businesses anymore. Tom persuaded me to pursue a dream I had to create a fashion line of modest sportswear and swimwear for religious women, something that didn’t exist.

I noticed Tom’s cooking skills and started encouraging him to compete

on the MasterChef show. After two years, he finally listened, and I’m so proud that he did it because he’s very happy now. He actually went to consult with our rabbi, Rabbi Yona Lebov, a descendant of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, and the rabbi said to him, “I’m behind you.

You’re going to succeed.” So he went.

The judges said his food was very special, flavorful and creative, and that Tom had proved kosher food can be superior.

When Tom won the MasterChef contest, they asked him, “Tom, you’re on TV now. All of Israel is watching. What would you like to tell them?” Tom said he had had a lot of siyata didhmaya, that G-d had helped him win. Everyone’s reaction was that he created a true kiddush Hashem by thanking G-d on live TV in front of so many people.

He now sees promoting kosher food as a shelichut. Even before he was Jewish, kashrut was the first thing he connected to. That was his first mitzvah. When he was still a student, he studied for a year in Spain and did not eat seafood, pork, or milk and meat together. At home, his mom cooked special food for him.

Tom’s dishes are really amazing

because he uses kosher ingredients as they are and doesn’t try to make them taste like nonkosher food. He’s not trying to make kosher versions of quiche Loraine or clam chowder. He’s taking all his knowledge and technique and incorporating them into something new. He’s creating a new language. A food journalist from Germany said that Tom has created his own style, and that’s very rare.

His success is in the flavors he creates. He knows how to get the essence of the flavor out of any product he’s using. He really has the gift of flavor in his hands. If I’m cooking, he will come by and smell it and say it’s missing some salt—and he’s right. He has a magical connection to the food. He’s very spiritual; he says that he received the gift of flavor because of the sacrifices he made to keep kosher and become Jewish.

Tom has become a star in Israel and is loved by the whole country. And it’s really quite amazing that someone German suddenly represents something good to the Jewish people.

We were recently informed that a friend’s father was niftar. They called and asked if Tom could come to the shivah and lead the prayers because they didn’t know how to do that. That’s how crazy it is—Tom, who’s a ger, has to go to an Israeli family and lead the prayers because they don’t know how.

I guess we can be described as Modern Orthodox, but in our emphasis on avodat Hashem b’simchah we really connect to Breslov.

Tom’s Hebrew name is Tam, from the word temimut. His birth name was Thomas. We have two children. Dovid Boruch is two and a half. He’s named for Dovid Hamelech, the great-grandson of Ruth, the famous convert, as well as for my grandfather’s first son, who died in the Holocaust. He is also named Boruch after both my grandfathers. Our second child, Gabriel Adam, is a year old.

For us it’s just the beginning. We’re a young family, and we are also finding our way as chozrim b’teshuvah. We are concerned about our children’s chinuch, and we have to pray a lot that we will succeed since there are such great cultural differences in our backgrounds. We’re very excited about our new path and look forward, b’ezrat Hashem, to the future. 

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD

How the Eidah Hachareidis uses cutting-edge technology in the observance of shemittah

BY CHANANYA BLEICH

BETWEEN DRONES & SMARTPHONES

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"STOP!"

cautions the red warning sign in three languages. “This road leads to Area A and is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Entry by Israelis is prohibited, dangerous and constitutes a criminal offense.”

It is six o’clock in the morning. Next to the sign, ten Palestinian traders are having an animated discussion in Arabic with a full-bearded chasid, his tzitzis swirling in the breeze. Each one will be given a sophisticated camera equipped with a GPS function that will track and transmit his every move. The meeting ends with a wish of “sabah al khair” (good morning), and everyone goes on his way.

At this time of day, the valley comes to life as thousands of people head off to work. Shepherds must chase after their flocks to keep them away from the cars speeding by on the roadways. As the sun rises, the landscape is painted with the colors of the desert. The rocky terrain and dusty earth are dotted with palm trees, and in the distance you can make out the Dead Sea. Along with the shepherds and commuters, another group of early risers are hard at work—the dedicated mashgichim of the Eidah Hachareidis. “This is the harvest season,” one of them explains to me, prompting a Druze employee to remark in Hebrew, “If there isn’t a supervisor in the area, you cannot eat the vegetables.”

For observant Jews living in Eretz Yisrael, procuring fruits and vegetables during the shemittah year presents a considerable challenge. There are three options: using crops from the previous year that have been stored or preserved; buying produce grown in Eretz Yisrael

EIDAH HACHAREIDIS/ BADAATZ Established 97 years ago 600+ factories 400 Mashgichim

on land owned by non-Jews; or buying agricultural products from abroad.

Rabbi Moshe Greenwald is a mashgiach for the beis din tzedek (Badatz) of the Eidah Hachareidis. His job is to ensure that any Arab-grown food is halachically acceptable for consumption. “And that isn’t always easy,” he sighs. Rabbi Greenwald is very familiar with the areas he supervises and knows how to get around, even without a GPS. He also carries a gun and drives a white Land Rover, which resembles a military personnel carrier.

“This vehicle used to belong to the American Embassy,” he tells me. “It’s probably the best-protected car in the whole vicinity. The doors, windows and hood are bulletproof—even the floorboards and the roof; it’s like a bomb shelter on wheels. It cost about $700,000.

Not cheap. But in a place like this, such

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protection isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

He adds that so far this year there haven’t been any incidents. But during the last shemittah year seven years ago, when he visited one of the fields and had to reject some of the merchandise, the situation quickly turned dangerous. “From all sides they suddenly started throwing things—stones, iron bars, and of course, vegetables. I jumped into the car and sped away.”

In the back seat of the vehicle is a box filled with the tools of the trade: kashrus certificates and seals, printouts, barcode scanners and bottles of drinking water.

As we drive along, the off-road vehicle bounces on its springs between guava and banana groves, passing greenhouses filled with cucumbers, zucchini and eggplant. Along the way there are boys and old men in traditional dress, gathering

“Our security is at such a high level that anyone who would take measures to trick us would have to spend so much capital as to make the endeavor absurd.”

vegetables in the fields and putting them in baskets, just like in the olden days.

Aside from the fact that I am traveling in a Land Rover, it’s a scene straight out of another century.

Yivul Nachri

Six months ago the Orthodox kashrus organizations in Israel started collecting hundreds of thousands of tons of fruits and vegetables and storing them in optimal conditions to keep them fresh. It was a huge logistical challenge, requiring constant vigilance against the accidental (or intentional) introduction of any forbidden shemittah-year produce. Still, that was nothing compared to the enormous challenge of supervising “yivul nachri” (non-Jewish crops) that originate in conflict-prone areas under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

Rabbi Pinchas Friedman, inspector of kashrus and storage for the Eidah Hachareidis in Israel’s northern region, recalls that up until 5760 (2000) there were no problems with the Palestinian farmers during shemittah. But on Erev Rosh Hashanah of that year, Ariel Sharon famously declared, “The Har Habayis is in our hands,” and the second intifada broke out. In addition to all the Israeli casualties—and there were many— the kosher community was also greatly affected.

“We had an excellent yivul nachri set to arrive from Gaza that year,” Rabbi Friedman says. “We knew who was selling, who was buying. The mashgichim had easy access to the farms. It was a relatively calm and relaxed period. Then the trouble started.” The mashgichim had to start traveling around with armed guards, and they still do.

Using Smartphone Technology for Kashrus

Rabbi Greenwald takes out a smartphone embossed with a large seal of approval from the Badatz’s communications department. It can be used only for the work that has been assigned to him.

He turns on the GPS. “Okay, now we’re connected to the office in Jerusalem. There are inspectors there all the time to whom I can direct

any problems or questions.” The special map on the phone shows him the particular region he is in, sector by sector. A red marker indicates that a sector has not been approved for shemittah use. But in order to understand what makes a sector not kosher, one must first understand the concepts of yivul nachri and heter mechirah. “They are as different as heaven and earth,” says Rabbi Friedman.

A heter mechirah means that a Jewishowned field and its produce have been “sold” by means of a document to a nonJew. However, the Eidah Hachareidis rejects this halachic subterfuge, considering it fraudulent. “It has no meaning to us. Yivul nachri, by contrast, is produce from a field that has long been registered to a non-Jew and has been run as a business by non-Jews for the past six years.

The gedolim have always permitted consumption of this produce.”

The Eidah Hachareidis maintains a special department, headed by the renowned Rabbi Avraham Ber Litmanowitz, dedicated to doing background investigation. For the past six months, the deed for every single parcel of land in the country has been reviewed with a fine-toothed comb and compared to the records of the Israel Lands Administration and the Jewish National Fund. All of the data is then entered into an elaborate, innovative computer system. Only after

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a field passes this rigorous scrutiny is it approved for use.

In areas like the Jordan Valley, where there are conflicting claims of ownership, the task becomes much more difficult. There have been instances in which an Arab field has been divided in two; one half is deemed kosher, while the other half, leased to a Jewish farmer, is disqualified. The department often has the challenging task of making a determination under an assortment of unusual and questionable conditions.

Based on the research, the GPS on the smartphone can detect the field and tell the mashgiach if it is kosher or not, but that alone is insufficient. When it comes to proper kashrus supervision, it is necessary to have “eyes on the ground.”

“Experience has taught us that Arab traders will do everything they can to add a few boxes from a forbidden area to the shipment,” says Rabbi Greenwald.

“Just yesterday we had to disqualify an entire area because we found suspicious produce.”

The fear is that once a Jewish overseer turns a blind eye, Arabs will supply Jewish markets with prohibited goods and try to pass them off as yivul nachri.

It is an acute concern; without adequate supervision, there is little doubt that it will happen. This means that one must watch the entire harvest from start to finish, either in person or virtually.

Rabbi Greenwald is also busy supervising the packing sheds and loading areas. As soon as he gives his approval, all the crates of picked produce are sealed with plastic wrap. The goods are treated almost as if they are more valuable than gold. Rabbi Greenwald records and numbers the boxes and affixes special adhesive tape printed with the Badatz logo. “From that point on they cannot be opened. If we see even a small tear in any of the seals, the shipment is disqualified,” he says.

The goods are then loaded onto trucks, each of which is given a specific barcode and kashrus certificate before being delivered to the wholesalers. All of this information is automatically transmitted to the office in Jerusalem. As an added measure, surprise inspections and spot checks are also conducted from

time to time at various locations.

Rabbi Greenwald’s workday begins with his early-morning drive to Yericho, where he meets with dozens of Arab traders and wholesalers. “A lot of their products are imported from Area A and other dangerous places that are off limits to me,” he explains. To get around the problem, the Arab workers are equipped with cameras that not only verify their location but allow the inspectors back in Jerusalem to watch as each area is harvested. They see exactly what the worker sees and what he is doing.

But that still isn’t strict enough to satisfy the Badatz. Rabbi Meir David Bergman, the chief inspector for shemittah produce, explains: “In some cases, we send drones up over the fields to film the proceedings

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from above. We can keep track of everyone’s movements so they don’t even try to deceive us. Our supervision is at such a high level of security that anyone who would take measures to trick us would have to spend so much capital as to make the endeavor absurd.”

Watching Every Fruit and Vegetable

The offices of the Eidah Hachareidis department overseeing the shemittah operations could pass for a military installation. Monitors receive constant online feeds from all over the country, from Metula to Eilat. Various data—numbers, quantities and shipment information— flow through the computer terminals as shemittah-approved goods are transported

“We see so much siyata diShmaya as we strive to keep this mitzvah. It’s a real blessing. I guarantee that anyone who keeps shemittah will not miss out on a single fruit or vegetable the whole year long. And he’ll be able to get them at fair prices.”

What About the Other Six Years?

nationwide. The Eidah Hachareidis also maintains a few dozen refrigerated warehouses full of produce. These buildings are sealed and barcoded with information about when they will be opened for distribution over the course of the year.

I find Rabbi Bergman overseeing a wholesale packing facility near Beit Shemesh, confirming barcodes and making sure that all of the seals are intact as huge trucks unload crates in a secured compound. His cell phone rings constantly. He listens to a report about a shoulder-mounted camera on an Arab field worker that has suddenly malfunctioned and stopped broadcasting. A local

trader who has been working with the Badatz for years confirms that the camera is broken. “I have no choice,” he says. “I have to reject the whole lot.”

He gets another call. This one is an anonymous report about a problem near Nablus. He cannot share any details.

The phone rings again. The rabbi listens and is clearly pained. “A truckload of lettuce from Jordan was just banned from entering Israel. The Ministry of Agriculture said that it wasn’t properly disinfected. It’s a cost of doing business, but the ministry doesn’t cut us any slack for shemittah. We still have to pay for it.”

But Rabbi Bergman remains upbeat.

During non-shemittah years, much of the Badatz’s cutting-edge technology is used for other purposes, such as maintaining its vast computerized database of food ingredients and raw materials all over the world, along with information about their production and use.

Another area of attention are other Jewish agricultural laws, such as orlah.

Farms and fields across Eretz Yisrael are registered and tracked. Dates of planting and types of produce are all recorded and kept in the database.

As for the factories that produce foodstuffs, cameras are of little use. If a mashgiach cannot personally access a facility, the Badatz will not vouch for it.

In indoor facilities where cameras are used, such as restaurants and pizzerias, they are only for the purpose of supplementing the mashgiach’s visits. Nothing is more important than the physical presence of a mashgiach; modern technology only adds an additional layer of assurance. 

THE KOSHER ISSUE

r e h s Ko

KOSHER WORLD

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By Yossi Krausz

Inmate on work duty in the prison kitchen 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5 / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / A M I M A G A Z I N E 63

THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD

How Do Inmates Get Kosher Food? prison sentence is always an ordeal.

But Jewish prisoners face particular A hardships when attempting to maintain their Yiddishkeit in prison. Kashrus is often one of the most difficult mitzvos to keep behind bars.

One of the preeminent organizations that advocates for Jewish prisoners is the Aleph Institute. Through education, advocacy and, when needed, legal action, Aleph fights for kosher food and other aspects of Jewish observance in local, state and federal prisons across the US. Rabbi Menachem M. Katz, Aleph’s director of prison and military outreach, says that there have been both major improvements and backsliding in assuring Jewish inmates’ rights to kosher food.

“Twenty years ago, kosher food was an uphill battle in the state and county corrections systems. Even in the federal system, there were a lot of issues involving the handling of kosher food.

Furthermore, the menus were atrocious.

There were almost no hot meals provided; in fact, those that were hot were just an entrée. Inmates were choosing to eat nonkosher.”

Advocacy is necessary, and often suc-

cessful. “Now, in the federal system, prisoners receive about 15 or 16 hot meals a week, and that includes the entire meal, not just the entrée. And many state prisons and county jails have also begun serving kosher meals.”

In the federal system, as well as in many state systems, no actual cooking takes place; pre-packaged meals are simply heated. Rabbi Katz says that those prisons that do have cooking in a kosher kitchen require a great deal of supervision, as well as special security arrangements, to really be acceptably kosher.

It’s not all good news. “A number of state prison systems have gone backward.

That includes Michigan and Nevada. I recently flew to Michigan to meet with the attorney general and members of the governor’s office. And we found an attorney who is representing an inmate in a lawsuit against the state.”

In Florida, where Aleph is based, the state has been stubborn about kashrus in the last few years. Like many states, he says, “they really don’t want to give kosher meals, so they give unpalatable, unbalanced ones.”

Aleph initiated a recent lawsuit by the US Department of Justice that forced Florida to provide kosher food to state inmates (which ran parallel to a lawsuit by a specific inmate who was represented by the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty). Florida was ordered by a federal court to provide kosher food for all

inmates by this past July.

Rabbi Katz says that so far only about half of Jewish inmates in Florida prisons are actually able to receive kosher food.

And the kosher menu is, to put it mildly, Spartan, consisting of sardines, plain cabbage, peanut butter and bread.

He says that the excuse many state systems have used to curtail their provision of kosher food is that there are too many people asking for kosher options who really don’t need it. This recently became an issue in Connecticut, where convicted murderer Steven Hayes claimed that he had “self-converted” to Orthodox Judaism and would now need kosher food.

But Rabbi Katz says that the states’ excuse simply doesn’t work.

“The federal system has a way of making sure that doesn’t happen. The states are not willing to make the effort to do that.”

The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) requires that a prisoner requesting kosher food explain to the chaplain why the vegan meal plan, which contains no meat or other animal products, can’t fulfill their religious needs. Since those prisoners who really don’t keep kosher don’t understand the intricacies of the halachos involved, they can’t explain their need. That alone weeds out most of those who don’t really need a kosher option.

Furthermore, Rabbi Katz says, if a federal inmate on the kosher plan buys nonkosher foods from the prison com-

missary, he is immediately taken off the plan.

Rabbi Moshe Duvid Niederman of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg has also been an advocate for kosher food in prisons for over 25 years. He says that prior to that time, getting kosher food of a specific level of kashrus needed a special court order, even in federal prisons.

“A heimishe Yid was put in prison at that time. He refused to eat. The warden thought he was engaging in a hunger strike, and he wanted to start force-feeding. I intervened.”

Rabbi Niederman says that it wasn’t merely a question of needing a heimishe hechsher.

“There were definitely serious flaws in what the BOP considered to be kosher. For example, they used regular utensils, which were being washed in a dishwasher with the utensils used for nonkosher food. The meals were also prepared in the same kitchen with nonkosher food.”

By showing the prison authorities the problems with their methods, Rabbi Niederman was able to convince them to make changes.

Kosher food was only one of the issues that were problematic for Jewish inmates. Prisoners would be transferred from one prison to another without a yarmulke or tzitzis because of security issues. Their tefillin would be transferred separately, meaning that sometimes they would not have them for days or even weeks. “Pesach,” Rabbi Niederman says, “was totally impossible.”

Now federal prison authorities are extremely receptive to religious issues. “They really accommodate sincere religious beliefs. They have lived up to their mandate of securing religious beliefs,” he says. Rabbi Niederman attributes much of that progress to US Attorney General Eric Holder, who was deputy attorney general during the Clinton presidency, when these issues were first being addressed.

He, too, says that on the state and local levels things aren’t as rosy, and religious rights, including kashrus, need better protection. He points out that New York State’s kosher menu still does not necessarily include hot foods and that the state has attempted to require that prisoners’ beards be shaved off. The Nassau County prison system had a policy in place that forced prisoners to remove their yarmulkes even when moving inside a single prison.

New York State’s Kosher in Prison Policy Simply because of its large Jewish population, New York is one of the US states with the most kashrus-observant inmates entering its system. Patrick J. Bailey, an information officer for the New York Department of Correctional Services, answered Ami’s questions about kosher food in state prisons.

How does an inmate request kosher food?

He or she fills out an application.

At what point in the prison intake process does that take place?

As early as the first day.

Do inmates have to show some evidence that they observe kosher dietary laws?

Yes. [He referred us to the department’s regulations concerning religious programs and practices, which require that an inmate’s need for kosher meals be verified by the director of ministerial, family and volunteer services and the assistant commissioner for health services, though a temporary request for kosher food can be made immediately, while the verification process is still ongoing. Later violations of kosher laws can result in that prisoner’s kosher menu being revoked.]

How many inmates receive kosher food system-wide?

There are approximately 2,000 inmates who receive a kosher diet statewide.

How does the prison system provide kosher food? Is it fresh or frozen food? Is it prepared in prison kitchens? How expensive is it for the system to provide this option?

It costs $5.25 per inmate per day

for the kosher diet. In comparison, the general confinement menu costs us $2.74 per inmate per day. With the exception of the Green Haven prison, which has a kosher kitchen and provides hot kosher meals, our facilities do not have kosher kitchens and therefore can’t maintain kosher integrity [in the kitchens].

So the kosher diet consist of mostly prepackaged kosher-certified items like individual cold and hot cereals and individual soups. The DOCCS Food Production Center produces individual cold cuts, cheese, salads and juices under the supervision of the Orthodox Union for this diet.

The diet also includes many fresh fruits and vegetables.

What other food options—such as vegetarian or halal—does the corrections system provide to inmates? Are is there a difference in how those options are provided?

We provide a religious alternative that meets kosher standards. There is a meatless alternative that anyone can take advantage of. The meatless alternative takes into consideration halal and vegetarian [needs]. Other than the kosher and alternative diets, we also provide meals for religious holidays throughout the year for several religious groups. We also have about 3,000 inmates who require a therapeutic diet for medical reasons.

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65

THE KOSHER ISSUE

How Do You Get Five-Star Kosher Food to a Remote Mountain Resort?

KOSHER WORLD

ost people have had the experience of hauling a picnic M up to a secluded place out in the country, and everyone is familiar with the extensive preparations needed for Shabbos and Yom Tov. But what is it like to prepare a Shabbos meal for hundreds of people at a remote mountain resort, at a five-star level of service?

We spoke to Baruch Werner of KMR. Along with his brothers, Baruch runs summer vacation programs in the luxury Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, Canada and in Vail, Colorado, as well as Pesach programs in California. He says that when discussing the kosher food aspect of the programs with these hotels, one of the first things that KMR has had to do is simply dispel their misconceptions about what kosher means.

“They think we bless the food. We tell them that it’s really more like a sterilization process for the kitchen.” These initial clarifications aside, he says he has found that the hotels have “tremendous derech eretz for kashrus.”

Coming into the kitchen of a five-star hotel to make it kosher requires a good deal of planning. “We bring kashrus professionals beforehand to plan the process,” he says. “There is a lot of preparing on paper” before any physical preparations.

Dealing with mashgichim who are expert at what they do is a priority, he says, and that emphasis is based on experience.

“The difference between someone good and someone great is night and day. It’s not like a shochet, where a good shochet’s meat is also kosher. Having someone great for hashgachah can really mean an important difference in the kashrus.”

For most of the year, kashrus preparation in the kitchen for these programs starts about four days before guests arrive. But Pesach is a whole separate procedure, he says. The preparation starts three to four weeks before Pesach, with a special nine-man team.

One practical decision they have to make up front, of course,

The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

KMR's Baruch Werner

Interior of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

is whether they will use a particular kitchen for meat or dairy.

But once a kitchen is kashered, one of the most important issues they have to consider is how to keep outside equipment from entering the kitchen. “It’s easy to get things mixed up,” he says, if strict procedures aren’t put in place.

Bringing massive quantities of food to the hotels for these programs requires a complex set of logistics.

“We generally ship in everything from New York. But for the Canadian programs, we ship fish, meat and dairy from Montreal, because those cannot be imported.” They do apply for an import permit for one product—the dairy ingredients that go into the Werner’s special recipe for ice cream.

For the program in Banff, the frozen and cooled products are transported and stored by VersaCold, a supply-chain solutions company that specializes in temperature-sensitive products.

The food comes to VersaCold’s storage facility in Calgary and is then transported to Banff.

A Pesach program, he says, requires five 18-wheelers full of food. Team drivers can make a run from New York to California in about 48 hours, he says. “And you have to have the trucks in on time.”

Produce is sourced at the site of the hotels.

“The toughest thing,” he says, “is when you’re missing something.” When they have an emergency, they use overnight cargo services to get items as soon as possible.

He says that it requires drive to make sure that the expected level of service is provided at the highest level of kashrus. “You have to give your heart to it.”

•

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD

How Do You Launch Lunch (and Dinner and Breakfast) into the Air? he phrase “airline food” has unavoidable negative T connotations for most people. But for those who’ve eaten meals on flights out of the New York area in recent years, one bite is all it’s taking to change that perception. The man behind this revolution in eating on high is Steven Weintraub, the executive chef of Borenstein Caterers, Inc., the largest kosher airline caterer in North America.

Borenstein is owned by El Al, but it provides food for all the major US air carriers, as well as international carriers like British Airways, Lufthansa, Alitalia and numerous others. They cater to over 50 airlines. Most of their food is fresh, but they also have frozen foods for certain long-haul flights.

Borenstein provides regular glatt kosher meals certified by the OU and “ultra-glatt” meals with the Volover Rav’s hashgachah as well. Mr. Weintraub says that in the slow season, the Borenstein kitchens, located near John F. Kennedy International Airport, produce between 7,000 and 9,000 meals a day. “During the heavier seasons, that doubles or triples,” he says. Borenstein has a staff of about 100 people.

Weintraub has been the executive chef at Borenstein for eight years, and he says that cooking for airline meals was a learning process. What works on the ground simply won’t work at 30,000 feet, for a number of reasons.

One reason is overcooking by the airplane’s crew members, who aren’t necessarily careful about monitoring the food. “Originally I was preparing boneless ribeye, using just the eye. We would place them on board raw and they would still get overcooked.”

What he eventually discovered was that liquids, like sauces and syrups, were the answer. “Now we are serving what we call braised short ribs—actually flanken, because short ribs aren’t kosher. They are braised in silan, date syrup, for five hours, and they still aren’t overcooked on the flight. Nothing is served without a sauce.”

For chicken breast, served in economy sections of the plane, he uses a special marinade that includes cornstarch. The chicken is marinated for 24 hours. “Regular chicken would have a small window until it would be overcooked. This gives us a larger window.”

He prepares cold appetizers because crew members don’t have time to heat both the main dish and the appetizers in the way needed for kosher products.

There are a number of other differences between cooking for the ground and cooking for the air. While there are

vegetables that he can’t use because of kashrus questions concerning insect infestation, there are others that simply don’t work on an airplane. Despite the fact that food moves quickly from the kitchen to the airplanes, salads with fresh greens or even cucumbers simply won’t last. Bean and Executive chef corn salads are more Steven Weintraub likely to be used.

He says the idea that airline food is bland is a misconception. “It’s actually turns out that 30 percent of your sense of taste is gone in flight because your taste buds don’t function the same in a pressurized cabin.

We try to be a little aggressive with the herbs and flavors to counteract that.”

There are some aesthetic differences as well. “The current [culinary] trend is larger plates. But on a plane, everything is small.”

In the Borenstein kitchens, on the other hand, nothing is small.

“Where a person in their home might cook a small piece of flanken, we cook 85 pounds at a time. You use a sauce pan to cook a sauce; we use a 60-gallon kettle. And to provide pineapples, we peel 10 cases’ worth.”

Fresh fruit, actually, is one area where his kitchen crew is able to work with some prepared products. “Every airline requires fresh fruit for breakfast. When I first started, I tried to get fresh peeled and sectioned fruit provided by a supplier. All there was then was peeled fruit in a sugary syrup.”

But today there are several companies providing oranges and pineapples freshly peeled and sectioned, every day. “That saves me a large amount of labor. And they are kosher-certified. I guess a Yiddishe kup figured this need out.”

Among the complexities of preparing fine foods for flights is working out the individual menus for airlines. While there is one shared menu for smaller airlines, each large airline wants its own special menu. “The large airlines arrange a workshop with me and their culinary staff.”

And that’s not a one-time decision. “The large airlines change their menus twice a year. El Al’s menu changes four times a year.”

Weintraub concludes, “The biggest myth about airline food is that it’s not ‘real.’ This is real food.” 

68 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

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71

in the beginning

By Sarah Shapiro

Back in the early 1970s, there was no such thing as a school for newly religious Jewish girls, at least not that I was aware of. So I was making my way through a book I’d found—a big old black volume on sale in a West Side bookstore—with the word “JUDAISM” on the spine in dull gold letters, by someone named Meir Meiseles.

Sitting at my desk with my OU yogurt and Star-Kist tuna during the daily lunch-hour exodus, alone in the emptied-out Classifieds Ads Department of my father’s magazine office on 53rd Street after the other employees had gone off in merry camaraderie to the nearby non-kosher steakhouse, I used to prop up that big black book against the Selectric typewriter.

And I’d read: Honor your father and mother, that your days may be prolonged upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. —Exodus, 20:12 You shall fear, every man, his mother and his father, and my Sabbaths you shall keep; I am the Lord thy God.—Leviticus, 19:3 Now, in those days, making your parents happy wasn’t on anyone’s Age of Aquarius agenda. To be a self-respecting adult meant becoming your own man…I mean, woman. You had to be proud to be a woman, and not act subservient. Women didn’t want to be men, exactly, just get the same pay as men, and be respected like men. And of course not be in charge 72 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

anymore of things such as washing dishes, or children, or cleaning up after dinner.

I’d recently given away my brand new black velvet pantsuit from Lord&Taylor, after wearing it only twice. It was my very first act of mesiras nefesh. Yet although I’d taken on the mitzvah of honoring my mother and father as part and parcel—or to be more exact, as the central pillar—of my Torah observance, almost everything I did religiously seemed perfectly calibrated to worry them and give them pain. How could it be? My heart’s desire, above all, was to do two things G-d wanted: to honor my parents and to honor Him. But the two commandments often seemed mutually exclusive.

First of all, the silverware. I recall standing in front of the stove in my parents’ Manhattan rental apartment, waiting for some of my mother’s knives, spoons and forks to come to a boil in her stainless steel frying pan. I’d waited for an afternoon that neither of them was expected home, but I suddenly became aware of someone’s presence behind me and spun around.

“Oh!” I exclaimed cheerily. “I didn’t know you were here!”

My mother was looking at me with searching, narrowed eyes; lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came out.

A couple moments passed.

“Sarah...” she said quietly. “What are you doing?”

“Oh! I’m just koshering some silverware! You have to boil it!”

“I see.” She was still looking into my eyes. More silence, longer this time. Then: “Do you really think God cares?”

The question pierced me.

My mother’s opinion seemed obvious -- she whose opinions and tastes and beliefs had always laid the foundation for my own.

But all I knew at that point was that I cared, for reasons I couldn’t yet articulate. But did G-d care? Really?

So what was the answer? I wanted truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Five years later, I would have explained that separating milk and meat is the Torah’s way of encouraging ethics and compassion in human beings, based on the prohibition against cooking a kid in its mother’s milk. Ten years, and I would have said, “This is how a human being can connect to that which is eternal and infinite, precisely because it’s beyond rational explanation.” Twenty years, and it would be: “G-d gives us physical mitzvos as a way of making His Presence a reality in our lives.”

Thirty years, and it would be: “Yes, Mommy, G-d cares.”

But by then, she was no longer around.

Then there was her cooking. It’s only now, as a mother of adult children, that I can imagine how disheartening, how aggravating, how hurtful it must have been for her each time I politely declined to partake of something she’d made. “No, thank you,”

to her vegetable chicken soup, and to her homemade herb bread that I’d always loved, and her cabbage salad, from the organic garden that she had always worked so hard to maintain, all by herself, starting decades before “organic” was in style.

“Would you like some of these string beans? I didn’t put anything in them, just a little butter.”

“I’m so sorry, Mommy...I...”

Above all...Shabbat.

Whenever Friday afternoon rolled around and the three of us would pile into the car for the drive home to Connecticut, they in the front seat and I in the back, talking and talking, singing our old family favorites all the way to New Canaan...it was a joy, it was wonderful.

But my two little fake-silver candlesticks that I’d bought from a kiosk on 72nd—where could I light them to ensure that they wouldn’t get blown out or inadvertently moved? And why did I have to make such a big deal about lighting exactly on time?

I imagined they were thinking, You really think G-d cares? And unscrewing the light bulb in the refrigerator, how could I do that without inconveniencing her? And the lights I’d leave on in the kitchen and living room, which someone inevitably would switch off without thinking. The chicken giblets I’d bought from Meal Mart on 72nd, and the yummy chopped liver, and the broccoli quiche...I wanted to share it all, of course! Nothing would have

THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD

made me prouder! But nine times out of ten, someone would end up using a treif knife or fork, and I wouldn’t be able to eat it, and they would be distressed.

The trouble increased as winter came on. When Fridays grew short and they’d set out for Connecticut too close to sundown, I’d stand at the door and we’d bid each other our sad farewells. “But Sarah, you’ll be all alone!” I remember my father’s worried eyes. “Can’t you come? You’re not doing the driving!”

So sorry, Daddy. So sorry, Mommy.

I felt like a wandering Jew, a wondering Jew, a Jew in my own personal desert—those silent Shabbats all by myself, staying behind in their rented apartment in New York City.

Friday night and all day Saturday, with a container of cole slaw and cold Meal Mart chicken to keep me company, along with The New York Times...unable to take the elevator up or down nine floors... Regarded as a weirdo by the hotel employees as I’d get trapped yet again behind a locked security door...

Take the key with you, miss, the clerk would advise.

But you see, I can’t carry it outside...

Oh, all the strange looks, and lonely times!

But one cold and rainy Friday afternoon, as my two little candles already flickered on the window sill and my parents in their overcoats were taking their leave, my father suddenly stopped at the door. “Ellen, I almost forgot! Where’s the neckla—? “ “Oh! Right here!” She reached into her purse.

It was from a jewelry store.

And when I took off the lid of the tiny box, and lifted the soft little white square of cotton…there looking up at me was...a Jewish star.

The years went by. My parents got older. And so, of course, did I. I moved to Israel, got married, had children, and the con-

versation with my parents about Judaism went on and on. We had tense arguments about evolution, and the Chosen People; disagreements over the roots of anti-Semitism, clashes on the subject of ritual and superstition. But our dialogue continued, our love grew, and our mutual respect deepened.

In late August of 1990, three months before my father’s completely unanticipated death from a heart attack, my parents and I were searching one Saturday night in Jerusalem for a nice place to eat out. But Shabbat ends late in the summertime, and all the kosher establishments were still closed. In the company of several tired, cranky little grandchildren, we were driving from one place to another, my mother and father getting visibly weary from these nocturnal wanderings around the Holy City, when at last, from the back seat window of their rented car, I spotted what looked like a kosher bagel spot. All of us brightened up, my father found a parking place, and off we set, the children skipping happily along before us.

Upon reaching the restaurant, however, a closer inspection indicated that it wasn’t what we were looking for.

“But, Sarah,” my father implored, baffled. “It says kosher.”

“I’m so sorry, Daddy. It’s not kosher. It’s kosher-style.” Back we all piled into the car.

Setting off again, it suddenly dawned on me that the Hilton Hotel had a dairy restaurant, one floor under its lobby, which would certainly be open by now.

A half-hour later in the hotel elevator, having knocked in vain on the closed doors of the darkened Kumsit Coffee Shop, we were rising up through the bowels of the Hilton when I noticed my father’s ashen face and felt terrible. His eyes met mine.

“I’m glad you’re leading a religious life,” he said.

I felt my mouth fall open. “You are?”

“Yes,” he said with that small nod of his, of certainty. “It’s consistent with my values.”

My mother looked over at him, then at me, pensively. “Yes,” she said, “That’s true.”

That was the end of that, and since this was the last time I saw him, there was no opportunity to discuss the matter again. But years later when my mother and I talked about it, we both thought that not unlike what he himself tried to do in life, Daddy had seen how even his little grandchildren were willing to go through physical and emotional discomfort for the sake of an ideal.

cracking me

By Yehuda Henig

You don’t crack them. You insert a dull knife between the two halves until you feel the seal break. Then you twist the knife against the tension of the muscle that joins the two halves together. Once the oyster is open you simply tip in some hot sauce and shoot it into the back of your mouth as you would a shot of whisky. It’s still alive at that point but that doesn’t matter.

“It doesn’t matter? You waited until this morning to decide not to go?!”

“Mom, what difference does it make? Michael and Lauren are going. It’ll be fine.”

“You love the Oyster Festival! What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into me?”

“So don’t eat. Did I say you have to eat oysters? Just come, you can get a fried dough. I’ll get you a beer.”

As we all climbed into my mom’s Land Rover I actually believed it. Why did it matter after all? I could go and have a good time. Even if I didn’t eat the oysters. Even if I couldn’t eat the fried dough either, that didn’t mean I had to be distanced from my family.

Except in New England. In New England that’s exactly what it meant. If you don’t eat the oysters at the Oyster Festival, or the lobster tails at The Dock, or the fried squid at The Shack, then you are distanced. If you didn’t eat the seared scallops you 76 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

were a rebel. And if you didn’t at least try the fresh boiled mussels, then you were disowned.

Food’s a crazy thing. We think of it as what we eat to survive but if that were even close to explaining it there wouldn’t be expensive restaurants or fancy supermarkets or little souvenir crab leg crackers with Nantucket MA written on them. Food is a place and a time.

If you’re Jewish it’s a place and a time and a family.

And we were Jewish. Oh how we were Jewish! We were salami and p’tcha and chub whitefish and pickles Jewish. We were kishka with gravy and pastrami with rye Jewish. We were “if you marry a goy then you’re dead to me” Jewish. We just liked our shellfish too.

Sometimes my wife asks me if it was hard to start eating kosher, because I love me some bagels now and I definitely loved me some butterflied shrimp back then. But I barely remember feeling deprived. What does stand out is how hard it was for my mom when I would inevitably complicate every family affair. Of all the ways in which I diverged from the mainstream American values of my family, it was the kashrus that hit them the hardest.

The average sixteen-year-old is about as capable of navigating delicate sensitivities as a grizzly bear. While as far as baalei teshuvah go, I probably handled things fairly with regards to my

family (which is to say, badly), even disregarding my teenage fundamentalist hysteria, there’s still no way around the fact that I was choosing a different path than what was intended, a different culture, and a different set of values—and food represented all of it.

Eventually my mother accepted that my newfound observances weren’t a passing phase, and did quite a lot to accommodate me.

Over time my family forgot about the sense of rejection and even came to respect much of what the Torah-observing world has going for it.

The day after the Oyster Festival my mother approached me and we both apologized for the previous day’s hostilities.

“This is important to me. I know you can’t understand why, but I know what I’m doing,” I said.

“I know it’s important to you, and even though I don’t understand why it has to be so extreme, I’ll let you make your own choices, as I always have.”

“In that case there’s something else I’ve been wanting to talk to you about…”

“That you’re not going to Thanksgiving dinner by Uncle Alex?” she interjected.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I probably won’t be able to go to that… or college.”

becoming kosher Anonymous

I don’t usually write anonymously. But my daughter in the shidduch parshah would have a meltdown if I put my name to this story. You see, we are a card-carrying yeshivish family. My husband sports a grey beard, a black velvet kippah, and the tired eyes of a man who davens in morning minyan, works all day and then learns at night. My sheitel, long skirts and Shabbos china don’t give away the life I once lived, before our children were born. These same children would be mortified if they knew of one of the very first conversations I ever had with my bashert, when we were discussing

just how religious we wanted to become once we were married.

Me: “What’s wrong with saying a blessing over a pork chop? If you think about it, what’s the point of a blessing? To say thank you to G-d for this delicious food. So then what’s wrong with saying a blessing over a pork chop if you think it’s delicious?”

Husband to be: “That just seems wrong! I don’t think the Torah intended us to say a blessing over non-kosher food.”

Me: “Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t express my gratitude for food I find delicious?”

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KOSHER WORLD And so it went between us as we negotiated this very delicate balance in the beginning of our relationship—he wanted more observance, and I was perfectly happy with blessing my pork chops. He wanted to move from Conservative to Orthodox, and I was clinging to my Reform background. I wanted to keep my pork chops. He wanted them to never enter our home. We were never fighting over the pork chops, really. I just wasn’t yet ready.

Fast forward many years, and the pork chops are long gone.

As the children came into the world, I joined my husband in wishing for them what I never had—growing up in a strong, religious household where G-d was at the center, and shomer Shabbos was a given.

It wasn’t easy for me in the beginning years. A lot of my favorite foods had to go. The rules of the kosher kitchen had to be learned, and practiced. The most difficult transition was giving up eating out in restaurants, since where we lived, and still do, kosher restaurants do not exist. My children have no memories of anything but a fully kosher household, and no real understanding that their mother had a life before them that wasn’t really kosher. Since they can’t fathom that Mommy ever ate treif, we don’t really talk about it. Somehow we as a family edit the script, so that we can all pretend that Mommy and Tatty have been kosher and frum forever.

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In my last visit to Kosherfest, I was overwhelmed with the vast array of gourmet, tasty kosher food—every taste and treat imaginable, and plenty more I’d never even imagined. I recall my mother questioning me at the beginning of my journey: “With all of the foods available to you in America, why would you eliminate so many of them and deprive yourself?”

Deprive myself? Have you been to any major supermarket where it seems half of the items are kosher anyway? Deprive myself of what? Oh, that’s right. I can’t go to the mall anymore on Saturdays. And the pork chops are gone. Big deal.

I know all about deprivation. What it feels like to negotiate the shidduch parshah, deprived of parents, sisters and in-laws who understand its complexities. What it feels like to live as a frum adult without the benefit of any Bais Yaakov or seminary training. What it feels like to still be afraid that I’ll embarrass myself or my children by using the wrong expression and stumbling over my awkward attempts to speak some halting Hebrew phrases.

I know all about deprivation. But it has nothing to do with food. It has everything to do with wishing that I could turn back the hands of time and grow up in a frum household, where no one would ever dream of asking the question: “Do you think it’s okay to say a brachah over a pork chop?”

•

How can we be sure the food we're eating is kosher? For that, we rely on kosher certification agencies, which travel around the world ensuring that every bite is pure. Here we explain how to know which to trust and how the agencies work in a country like China, as well as taking you behind the scenes with six of the largest kashrus organizations in the world.

THE KOSHER ISSUE

Understanding the Reliability of Kosher Agencies—How Do You Say Kosher in Chinese?—OU Kashrus—Star-K—Rabbi Usher Anshel of Belz—The CRC—OK Kosher Certification—London Beth Din

KASHRUS AGENCIES

"Even though the technology is helpful, we still try to keep the focus on the personal aspect and the actual rabbi doing the certification."

"Tens of thousands of consumers are relying on the mashgiach's integrity."

—Rabbi Usher Anshel Eckstein of Vaad Hakashrus of Belz

—Rabbi Don Yoel Levy of OK Kosher Certification

"That's the advantage of communal kashrus.

Beyond our salaries, we're not beneficiaries of even a penny that the OU makes. It all goes back into the community."

—Rabbi Menachem Genack of the OU 81 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 2 8 T I S H R E I 5 7 7 5

THE KOSHER ISSUE HECHSHERIM

U N D E R S TA N D I N G the

Y T I L I B A I L RE of

KOSHER S E I C N E G A

By Rabbi Sholem Fishbane CHICAGO RABBINICAL COUNCIL KASHRUTH ADMINISTRATOR

I

t has become a daunting task for a kashrus professional to help guide a consumer through the complex world of close to 1,400 kashrus agencies.

Recommending certain agencies is an intensely contemplated and difficult decision, and many companies and individuals genuinely do not understand why certain agencies do not make it onto the recommended list. Before attempting to help the reader navigate the ins and outs of kosher certification, be assured that these decisions are not haphazard and certainly not politically motivated, as that would be contradictory to the very essence of what a kashrus professional represents.

In order to clarify this sensitive subject, kosher agencies have been categorized into three groups. The first two groups are easily explained: recommended and not recommended. The third group is comprised of “detail” agencies, whose products are acceptable based on certain conditions, and should be investigated on a case-by-case basis to determine if each final product is acceptable.

To understand why it is important to differentiate among agencies, one must look at the world of kashrus in the 21st century and understand what goes into monitoring it. After examining the methods and systems of the recommended agencies, it becomes easy to understand why an agency that does not follow these guidelines automatically falls into one of the two other categories.

RECOMMENDED KOSHER AGENCIES

The fundamental first question is whether the agency follows the accepted guidelines in the Shulchan Aruch and whether it has qualified, trained mashgichim who visit its plants on a regular basis.

A recommended kosher agency must keep up to date on manufacturing techniques, which are constantly changing.

Its workers must be in constant contact with industry professionals, from food scientists to engineers, and must be ready to travel to the most remote places in the world. Once they arrive at a facility, they must become acquainted

with the intricacies of the production, including how the machinery works.

The mashgichim also attend seminars on food technology—for example, spray drying, cheese making or engineering— to enhance their knowledge of the everchanging food industry.

Nothing can be taken for granted in the food industry, and these reputable agencies understand that. Since manufacturers are not always obligated to list every additive on their labels, it is crucial for a rabbi to be not only knowledgeable but diligent. For example, a food as seemingly simple as dried fruit or a natural spice might contain an animalderived additive to prevent clumping.

Canned vegetables may also present a problem. They may not contain any questionable ingredients, but they might be processed on a machine called a retort, which is quite expensive. Companies look to rent out their retorts in order to cover their investments, and it is possible that a non-kosher product was run on a retort prior to the kosher run.

The halachah states that flavor can be absorbed, even in a cold or ambient

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state, simply by holding the liquid for 24 hours. For example, if your dairy cappuccino was sitting in a mug for over a day, the soy cappuccino you make in the mug the following day, which also sits for 24 hours, becomes dairy. This means that even if a product has been determined kosher, the supervision does not end there. If a tanker delivering kosher foods was previously used for non-kosher foods, the product might have become non-kosher since the truck almost always carries its load for more than 24 hours. Thus, the mashgiach must keep track of truck routes and truck wash stations, and he must develop a strong rapport with the trucking company to ensure its total cooperation.

Furthermore, ever since the federal government reduced the amount of pesticides allowed on fresh produce, there has been a rise in insect infestation. The mashgiach must now contend with this problem by studying the habits of various insects and knowing how to check produce for these often-camouflaged pests. The rabbi needs to be a jack-ofall-trades in order to do his job well.

It is important to point out that agencies in the recommended group have vast support staffs that handle the countless formulas and ingredients involved in kosher certification. Currently, it is mandatory for kosher agencies to have customized software, which includes a database of hundreds of thousands of ingredients and formulas. There is often a full-time worker who maintains this

software because it is not only a major expense, but could take years to develop. Even the most knowledgeable rabbi in the world would find it impossible to run a kashrus agency without an adequate support staff and the right software.

Many of the recommended agencies are members of the AKO (Association of Kashrus Agencies), whose goal is to strengthen kashrus around the world.

Among the AKO’s many committees, chaired by kashrus experts, there is one whose task is to review the latest ingredients and to share the results with the other AKO members.

Equally important is the need for a strong review department. A recommended agency will train select rabbis in certain fields and send them around the world to review those accounts in which they specialize. At times, one agency will “borrow” another agency’s expert to receive updates in a critical area. This is similar to a university’s visiting professor program, or a community’s invitation to a scholar-in-residence.

NON-RECOMMENDED KOSHER AGENCIES

Of the remaining agencies, nearly half are not recommended, partly because they do not follow the accepted guidelines in the Shulchan Aruch. Two of the most common leniencies that are relied on are carmine and gelatin, which come from non-kosher animals but are processed in a way that some feel would be

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permissible for kosher use. In addition, a non-recommended agency often offers no more than “telephone supervision.”

This is never sufficient, even if the company claims that there is only one innocuous ingredient in the plant.

But perhaps the primary reason for the blanket dismissal of these agencies is that they simply do not visit their plants on a regular basis. Today food production facilities can work so quickly that an ingredient can be in and out of the plant in days. Because of this, it really does not matter how kind or well-respected a particular rabbi or agency is. If there is insufficient coverage, the certification is in serious doubt.

“DETAIL” KOSHER AGENCIES

Agencies in this third category may follow many of the standards of the acceptable agencies but might be lax in several areas. Even one missing detail can mean that the agency’s symbol will not be universally accepted. It is even possible for an ultra-Orthodox agency to fall into this category if its rabbinic kashrus supervisor does not have the required technological expertise. While the agency may be more stringent than many others in areas such as yashan and pas Yisrael, the supervisor may not be familiar enough with the machinery.

An example of this occurred recently at the cRc. The mashgiach visited a plant where a health drink is produced for and sold to kosher grocery stores throughout

The Zimmerman Trial:

?

Does halacha require one to escape the scene, rather than to kill a pursuer in self-defense?

?

Can scientists ever create a

the United States. The supervising agent, who was not from the cRc, assumed that the health drink was produced on a machine that had been cleaned and kashered properly from non-kosher beef broth. Records showed that the temperature of the water had reached an acceptable level for kashering. However, the cRc mashgiach pointed out that only certain parts of the machine were reaching the temperature necessary for kashering while the rest of the equipment was still not kashered properly. It was still non-kosher and had been that way for years!

Once the matter was brought to its attention, the supervising agency quickly remedied the situation, but the damage had been done. Because he was unfamiliar with the internal workings of the machinery, the supervisor had inadvertently been putting his agency’s kosher symbol on a drink that was not kosher.

Many times, an agency may also fit into the “detail” category if it is solely owned and operated. As previously explained, if the agency has many accounts, it is not possible for one person to cover them all adequately, no matter how well-meaning he is.

There are also times that a well-intentioned agency might allow its companies to use ingredients from non-recommended agencies. There are many different types of ingredients, and therefore many different types of hashgachos. If products contain ingredients certified by non-recommended agencies, they too become non-recommended.

Another scenario in which a recommended agency can become a “detail” agency is if it certifies many companies in countries that should never be granted certification without hashgachah temidis. A good example would be China, where each qualified mashgiach who spends time there has more horror stories than the next. Only a solid agency that has a vast network of mashgichim who know the local language, as well as the financial backbone to walk away from potential business, should be granting occasional hashgachos in China.

In summary, a recommended kashrus agency today must have representatives who are familiar with many fields of knowledge in addition to halachah. Among them are engineering, entomology, metallurgy, boiler treatment, food chemistry and world market trends. Above all, of course, they must have yiras Shamayim.

Rav Matisyahu Salomon, shlita, stated during an address at the AKO annual convention, “The first step in deciding if someone is qualified to work in hashgachah is to have him hold up his hand.

If it is not shaking from yiras Shamayim, unless he is a shochet, he is not fit for the job.”

It is important for the average consumer to have some understanding of the amount of time and effort that rabbinic kashrus supervisors, plant managers and manufacturers dedicate to their jobs in order to maintain strict adherence to the laws of kashrus.

An informed consumer is one who comes to trust and rely on all of the professionals involved.

•

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KASHRUS AGENCIES

BY SHIRA SCHMIDT

Ho do you say kosher in

Chinese?

Inspecting products in the world’s fastest-growing kosher producer “Do you have any more kinds of chocolate to show me, for which you want kosher certification?” asked the mashgiach on his first trip to China as a kashrus inspector.

The Chinese factory manager shook his head from side to side. The mashgiach understood that there were no more samples, that he had been shown everything, and the visit was over. So he packed up his laptop to leave. Suddenly the manager ran to another room and brought back five more types of chocolate bars. It turns out that he misunderstood the body language as it is different in the Chinese culture.

The Sleeping Giant Awakens The culture gap is only one of the many occupational hazards that Orthodox kashrus inspectors must negotiate when serving as mashgichim in China. We are not talking about a few mashgichim, but dozens who inspect more than a thousand factories in China today. While most of us were not looking, China’s voracious appetite for business has turned that country into one of the world’s largest producers of kosher ingredients and foods. China may well be the third biggest exporter of kosher products, after Israel and the US. How did this explosion come about?

China is number one in population. With over a billion people, the 1,360,000,000 Chinese account for a fifth of the world’s population. Compare this to “only” 320,000,000 in the US which is in third place with 4% of the world’s people, and to tiny Israel with somewhat over 8 million residents (96th place). With hundreds of millions of workers willing to put in an average of 12 hours a day at $1.50 an hour (compared to the US average of $23 an hour), the Chinese can turn out products at a fraction of the cost elsewhere.

And turn them out they do. Probably most of the things in the room in which you are sitting were made in China—turn over your phone or look at your clothing labels.

The list of items Made in China is almost endless.

Ami spoke with several kashrus inspectors while they were making their rounds on the Asian continent.

What’s a Rabbi?

How do you explain what concepts like “Jew,” “rabbi” and “kosher” mean to companies in officially atheistic and Communist China? Rabbi Martin Grunberg of the OU is responsible for certifying more than 300 plants in China. With three decades of

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experience in Asia, he says that he used to get this puzzled look when he started there decades ago as people asked: What does kosher mean? “Now a lot of people know it as a marketing tool to increase their market share,” he explains. The honorific “rabbi” is also misunderstood.

“Sometimes they call me ‘rabbit,’” Rabbi Grunberg notes mischievously. “I start hopping. They don’t get it. I let it pass. It doesn’t pay to explain.”

Behind the Bamboo Curtain Readers who are younger than 50 may not remember that from WWII until 1972 China was wallowing in poverty, and closed to the West. Americans could not visit, the country was taboo, and the US government officially snubbed the snoring giant called the People’s Republic of China while recognizing only little Nationalist China in Taiwan. In one of the ironies of history, the staunchly antiCommunist President Richard Nixon broke the taboo and planned a visit to China with his wife and aides. It was secretly arranged by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s Jewish National Security Advisor. Nixon was photographed schmoozing with the dictators Chou En-lai and Chairman Mao. Chinese officials decided to remake the country, to privatize industry, and to enter the 20th century. In the 1980s there was a trickle of kashrus inspectors sent to Asia to certify food producers. One of the pioneers was Rav Berel Levy, z”l, founder of the OK kashrus agency. Ami managed to contact Rav Don Yoel Levy, who took over the reins of OK after his father’s untimely petirah. “After developing kashrus inspection and certification in other Far East countries such as Japan, Malaysia and Korea, my father, a”h, was called upon by Hunt Wesson (today ConAgra) to come to China. The purpose of his visit was to inspect two facilities, one producing water chestnuts and one producing bamboo shoots. These products are indigenous to China and were among the very few food products exported from China way back then. He went to the

Lubavitcher Rebbe for advice and was told to spread Yiddishkeit while he was on his kashrus mission. The Rebbe instructed my father to find out where the Jewish people used to live, and suggested that he seek out a professor in the local university to help him investigate this since a professor would always want to be able to answer a given question, and so would devote himself to finding the answer. What was the purpose of this request? The Rebbe said there were Jewish cemeteries in China that the authorities were going to dig up so they could make use of the land. In order to stop such a terrible desecration, these cemeteries needed to be identified. How prescient the Rebbe was: On a recent visit to China, I was sadly informed that sometime after my father’s visit the Jewish cemeteries were dug up and the land used for development.”

Rav Levy described the China of his first visit as primitive and scary. The Communist regime instilled fear: As he walked from the plane to the ramshackle terminal on his first landing a stern, female police officer beckoned him over.

“What have I done wrong?” he thought to himself. It was a false alarm. “Your coat is dragging on the runway,” she warned

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him helpfully. Rav Levy had to travel on treacherous one-lane roads dodging oncoming traffic. In the 1980s it took six to eight hours to cover 120 miles. As an example of change, the infrastructure today is characterized by hi-speed trains, super highways, and futuristic airports.

Yiddishkeit is also flourishing, mainly thanks to the pioneering shluchim of Chabad who went there as emissaries.

For example, with mesiras nefesh Rabbi Shalom Greenberg in Shanghai has restored the city to being the spiritual haven it was during the Shoah.

Like Aliens from a UFO Black-garbed, bearded mashgichim are no longer as rare in China as they were on one of Rav Levy’s first trips. “After inspecting a plant on the coastal city called Qingdao, I was on my way inland by car to another one that produced kosher surimi, a fish-based product. After several hours of driving, we stopped to rest and as I got out of the car I was surrounded by an amused crowd of people.” Blackclad Rav Levy must have looked like an alien from another planet, since he is tall and had a black beard, whereas the average Chinese man has little facial hair and is relatively short. One mashgiach of aver-

Chinese officials decided to remake the country, to privatize industry, and to enter the twentieth century.

A Day in the Life of a Mashgiach

age height relates that recently he needed to buy a pair of workday slacks and shopped in vain in Beijing for a pair long enough to fit him. He is still searching…

While Rav Levy runs the main OK office, Rav Yeshaya Prizant is the point man in China, spending several weeks at a time away from his home in Elad, Israel. When he was young, he learned in the Kolel Sanz in Boro Park, then he studied industrial heating/cooling systems and engineering, and worked in that field. When asked what prepared him most for his position as rabbinic coordinator for China, Rav Prizant responds, “MeHashem mitzadei gever konenu. The steps of man are ordered

by Hashem. (Psalms 37, 23) is the verse that comes to mind. The combination of my halachah studies and my engineering work was exactly what led me to work in the kashrus field, and later, to my current position. As someone who knows something about how kosher works, inspecting facilities requires a great deal of halachic knowledge as well as a great deal of technical knowledge to understand the heating systems, steam systems, etc. I am fortunate to have such helpful background skills.”

An added value is Rav Prizant’s working knowledge of Chinese, which he acquired on the job.

On a typical day the inspectors will visit several factories and encounter various challenges. In one trip Rabbis Levi and Prizant visited a yeast plant, an oil plant and a pectin plant. Rav Levy explained, “The yeast plant needs careful monitoring to ensure that all productions are done on the proper equipment. The yeast company was considering some new productions there which could compromise the kashrus of the equipment and we discussed at length the various methods we could employ to ensure the kashrus of our products. As usual, Rabbi Prizant was quite familiar with the entire facility.” The next facility they visited was an oleo-chemical plan that was previously certified by the OK when only kosher products were made there. “At some point, the facility notified us that they decided to produce non-kosher products as well, so the OK stopped giving certification. This company now decided to reconsider kosher production, so we discussed the various procedures and possibilities for implementing kosher production. Again, Reb Shaya showed great familiarity with the facility, which was a huge facility according to any standards and quite complicated as well.

Subsequently, Rabbi Prizant made another visit to the facility and we are working intensively to sort out the potential kashrus issues there before granting certification.”

Next came the pectin plant for fermented corn starch. It turned out that the person in charge had previously met Rav Levy when the latter inspected a pectin facility in Switzerland that the OK was asked to supervise. Rav Levy exclaimed, “that our work to enforce our kashrus standards in Switzerland helped us years later to uphold those standards in China!” These

examples reflect the majority of products requesting hechsherim in China: They are raw materials, additives, ingredients or components of a food process, and not the end product. Eventually, more end products will also be granted certification (like candies, snack foods, soft drinks) but that is more complicated.

There are two ends of the inspection spectrum. At one end are products that do not need special attention, e.g. a single ingredient where it is enough to inspect several times a year to be sure the supplier and machinery haven’t changed. At the other end of the spectrum are special runs of complex foods and equipment where a mashgiach t’midi must be supervising the process all the time the run takes place.

The Chinese food producers are keen to get a hechsher because this increases their sales all over the world. It is no secret that non-Jews often prefer a kosher product.

When placed side by side in a supermarket, usually the item with a kosher symbol will sell better. Lucy Qian, the general manager of Ningbo Good Days Food, a company that makes novelty candies in a Chinese industrial center, said that since her factory went kosher, sales zoomed up 40%. Various scandals in China related to tainted foods did not affect her products, and she attributes this partly to the kosher certification which instills trust in consumers that the product is more hygienic and carefully monitored than similar items.

Mashgiach as Detective How can the mashgiach be sure he is not being fooled? The inspectors have an array of methods. They have to be on their toes.

One OK inspector working full time at a fish factory for a few weeks was sealing and signing boxes using Hebrew script.

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He had to find another method when he saw that one of the factory workers was able to perfectly duplicate his Hebrew signature.

The rabbis do not only deal with the food per se. They examine the documentation, the order forms, the supplier lists and the sales slips. They have to be part detective and must sleuth around to be sure they are not being fooled. If the mashgiach knows that a given amount of ingredient x goes to produce 100 pounds of an additive, and he sees that 200 pounds were produced, then he knows something else must have been added. The inspectors make surprise checks, and walk around the factory floor, even looking at discarded boxes and papers that might indicate there were ingredients in the process that he had not approved. If he finds a receipt from supplier B when he had been told that an ingredient came from supplier A, he will be suspicious.

Rabbi David Moskowitz, head of the SKS Shatz kashrus agency, spoke with Ami while traveling on a high-speed train in China. An einikel of the Shatz Rebbe of London and of Reb Yehiel Michel of Zlotchow, he lives in Ashdod and started traveling to China 20 years ago. “My first request was from an Israeli importer who wanted to bring into Israel 180 huge 40-foot containers of mushrooms from China. Food production is changing in many ways.

Since then China has gone on to other items, and most mushrooms come from Holland and India. Note that the cans have gotten smaller but the price has remained the same,” he warns.

Today, the Chinese are not exporting cans of mushrooms, but have graduated to partnering with huge multinational conglomerates which often demand kosher certification. The Chinese econ-

omy has matured and the hi-tech infrastructure is in place. The Chinese are seeking a large piece of the international kosher pie.

In China, as elsewhere in the world, if you trust too much, “you should not be in the business.” Rav Moskowitz and his mashgichim have a variety of ways to check and double check. When he goes to a factory, he politely explains that, “You can’t tell me stories. I have seen a hundred factories that produce the food that you produce. I can tell you exactly how it is made, the ingredients, the processes.” He says that at the end of the day, they see that you understand and they must make full disclosure if they have a chance to obtain certification.

“People all over the world will switch to cheaper ingredients to make a few dollars, if you don’t supervise carefully.”

Chinese View of the Jew

None of the mashgichim Ami talked to experienced anti-Semitism. At the most, they encountered ignorance. One said that when he explained he and his

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team were Jews, they brought a bottle of orange drink, saying, “Yes, you must be somehow related to this orange juice.”

Rav Moskowitz has experienced nothing but respect for Jews. “Often I am told that Jews are the smartest, most talented people in the world, after the Chinese of course!” Often his interlocutors will say that “Jews control the world,” but they say this with admiration. “In contrast, the same statement ‘Jews control the world’ in the mouths of Europeans is uttered as a pejorative canard.”

About Israel, the Chinese do not say much and are not really interested in the relationship between Jews and Israelis. The urbanized Chinese have a little more awareness of current events, but the mashgichim are busy doing their job and not inclined to talk about issues unrelated to the task at hand. The job requires tremendous stamina, traveling long distances and working long hours in a factory setting. The inspectors survive mostly on suitcases full of canned and preserved kosher victuals they

where. “Once a company that lost its hechsher changed its name. But we saw it had the same address and thus we caught the deception. If a company wants to get recertified, it has to go to the original kashrus agency and rectify the situation. They understand this is no game and we can’t be fooled.”

Bizarre Requests

bring along, and supplement that with fresh fruits and vegetables. Sometimes the mashgiach brings to China a suitcase filled with kosher-certified foods that had been made in China and exported, in a case of bringing coals to Newcastle.

The inspectors from the different kashrus agencies are in competition to a certain extent, although there is so much business in China that there seems to be room for all. All the kashrus inspectors commented on the way their differences melt away when they are in China. Be they chasidishe, Litvishe, modern Orthodox, Chabad, Sephardic—hey, are all in the same boat, away from home, having to subsist mostly on the food they bring, putting in long hours, and spending Shabbos together. They have no choice but to get along, share meals, heal rifts.

Rav Levy helped to establish a committee whereby the mashgichim cooperate to their mutual advantage and meet once or more annually. By sharing some information they can ensure that a factory that was declined a certificate does not get it else-

Among the unusual requests that come to mashgichim from some Chinese who do not understand the underpinnings of kashrus, were companies asking for a hechsher on plastic toy foods, for certification of tables, for foods that had as an ingredient human hair. One company asked a mashgiach to bless their pork products, thinking that it is a blessing that confers kosher status. On the other hand, a very large plant that produces special gigantic plastic bags did need, and received, kosher certification because the bags were used as liners for large vats of liquids for which certification was requested.

East Meets West In a philosophical-anthropological study on Jews and Judaism in Modern China, Avrum Ehrlich points out that one would think there would be a cross-cultural exchange of ideas, customs, insights and information between what he calls these two “archtypical icons”: Orthodox Jews and traditional Chinese. Images of “a chareidi mashgiach traveling to places that have rarely seen a white man should be strange and memorable for all parties.”

There is potential for cultural exchange but it does not take place. The kashrus supervisors keep to themselves outside work hours, they eat their own food, and are reclusive. One mashgiach explained that he asks for a small room to rest in during the

afternoon; what he really wants is a place to daven Minchah in private. As far as the Chinese authorities are concerned, they do not like missionaries so it is just fine with them that the Jews keep their religion to themselves and don’t discuss Judaism.

The kosher laws are presented as technical details of a standard that helps sell products. The inspectors do not associate with workers, and if a manager invites them to dinner the mashgichim refuse despite the fact that, especially in China, eating and drinking is a sign of friendship.

Rav Moskowitz pointed out to Ami that even though the Chinese government is officially atheistic, superstition seems to fill the vacuum thereby created. “There are myriad superstitions. For example, it is bad luck to give someone an umbrella or buy someone shoes; it is good luck to go to a funeral.”

Rav Don Yoel Levy told Ami that even something as innocent as whole, uncut fruit can be problematic in China. Once a Chinese factory manager brought him a bowl of fruit to eat, and explained that this was surely “kosher” for the rabbi. The man was so overly insistent and solicitous that Rav Levy was puzzled. The Chinese manager then said the reason he was sure that these fruits would be fine is that he had first placed the bowl of fruit in front of the Buddha statue before bringing it to the rabbi. Even though the manager might not be a Buddhist, he probably thought it may do some good to put the fruit there. This immediately set off red lights for Rav Levy due to the possibility that this would be forbidden fruit under the rubric of avodah zarah, or idol worship, and the rabbi politely declined.

One thing is certain—being a mashgiach in China keeps you on the go and on your toes. It is never boring!

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KASHRUS AGENCIES

STAR-K

STAR-K PRESIDENT AVROM POLLAK:

Founded: 1978, as the Vaad Hakashrus of Baltimore, a not-for-profit organization Certification stats: 86,118 products, 3,085 companies, 2,570 plants, 56 countries, 642 mashgichim

BY CHANY ASHER

R

ABBI AVROM POLLAK was a critical contributor to the revitalization of the 1947 chartered Orthodox Jewish Council in Baltimore, responding to the many baal habatim in town who had learned at Yeshivas Ner Yisroel and wanted a higher standard of kashrus than was available in their rapidly growing frum community. “In 1976, I moved to Baltimore from New York for a fellowship in cell and molecular biology at the National Cancer Institute, and I was a research professor at the University of Maryland Medical School,” he recalls. “A year later, I was asked to be a board member for the then local Star-K Certification, also known as the Vaad Hakashrus of Baltimore. We persuaded HaRav Moshe Heinemann, a rebbi in Yeshivas Ner Yisroel, to accept the position as Rabbinic Administrator. The Rav had already earned a considerable reputation for expertise in practical halachah, making him a natural choice for this position. Later, in 1979, I was asked to assume presidency. These were both voluntary positions for the unique lay organization; until this day, all kashrus related matters are the sole responsibility of Rav Heinemann 92 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

and the rabbinic staff answers directly and only to Rav Heinemann.”

The small fledgling local vaad, housed in an empty shul classroom, became a model of how a local organization can interact with the community and become a reliable source for educating the demanding kosher consumer. Rabbi Pollak has watched the Star-K’s explosive growth from its inception.

“For many years, Star-K really ran out of my lap. We paid my secretary at the university to type up our contracts, at night, with her brand new word processing machine. At the time, we certified about 25 establishments, consisting mostly of local caterers, bakeries, butcher shops, and restaurants. Support of the Star-K came primarily from individuals in the Baltimore community who paid membership dues, attended an annual dinner and inserted ads in a journal. A number of synagogues actively participated by imposing a one dollar seat tax for kashrus on every seat purchased for the Yomim Nora’im.”

The Star-K metamorphosed from a grass roots effort--with only two paid employees, Rabbi Eliyahu Shuman and Mrs.

Pesi Herskovitz--to the certifying agency it is today through innovative fundraising and technology. They pioneered the use of a website to disseminate their research findings to kosher consumers globally; their expertise has impacted thousands of companies who have come to view them as the experts in the kosher certifying industry. “Of course, at the top of the list, we attribute our phenomenal growth to a lot of siyata d’shmaya!” asserts Rabbi Pollak. “We became the first kashrus organization to open offices in China and India, and now we are in 56 countries. There was also a big demand for certification from companies that sold ingredients and processing aids to food companies.

Today, Star-K certifies 86118 products for 3085 companies in 2570 plants located in 56 countries, and it employs 642 mashgichim throughout the world. A large percentage of the companies they certify manufacture food chemicals and other basic ingredients used by other food companies.

There is, therefore, a good chance that some of the food you ate today certified by other kashrus organizations will contain flavors, acidulants, artificial sweeteners, seasonings, and other unpronounceable names you see on the ingredient panel, that are certified by Star-K. Star-K rabbanim are encouraged to spend a significant amount of their time researching and disseminating information helpful to kosher consumers. It is this type of research that forms the nucleus of the agency’s several projects, in addition to their website: Consumers rely upon the Star-K’s Kosher Hotline; the Star-K Passover Directory; Star-K’s Appliance Certification Directory; the popular quarterly Kashrus Kurrents journal; Star-K’s Institute of Halacha; the monthly Telekosher Conference Series Webinars; and, Star-K Shul Kitchen Guidelines. They host two Kashrus Training Programs and a Kashrus Foodservice Training Seminar, annually, and take kashrus on the road with their renowned Star-K Speaker Bureau, providing communities with shiurim, chaburos for kollelim, mashgiach training for local vaadim, and bug checking training. They also offer an Organic Certification in conjunction with QAI (Quality Assurance International) and maintain a team of mashgichim who are qualified organic inspectors with HACCP food safety credentials. The Star-S, a division of Star-K, brings Mehadrin Kashrut Certification to the Sephardic community.

Star-K’s budget is now met almost exclusively from fees charged to certified establishments, enabling them to make grants to worthy local mosdos, organizations, and programs, such as: Hatzalah of Baltimore, the Kashrus Library at the Etz Chaim Center in Baltimore, and the Chananya Backer Memorial Fund of the Baltimore Community Kollel, among others. They are also the proud sponsor of the Star-K Kollel, together with Beth Medrash Gevoha, in Lakewood, New Jersey, which trains exceptional young men to become the future poskim in their communities.

“Our rabbinic staff is sufficiently large so as not to be overburdened with caring only for fee paying companies,” Rabbi Pollak reflects. “We spend a great deal of time working with rabbonim in small communities that do not have the resources of a large kashrus organization. This allows the local rav to do a much better job in administering kashrus in his own community. In addition, we often consult and even subsidize nursing homes, university kosher dining programs, and other public institutions that cannot afford a full-time mashgiach, so even if they do not have an official hashgachah, they can still offer their clientele kosher meals.”

A DAY IN THE LIFE

OF A MASHGI A CH

RABBI JOEL WEINBERGER “We did an initial visit in June, 2010, to certify Spythe Global, a coco sap sugar, honey and vinegar producer, on behalf of our client eAsia who had a booth at Kosherfest, in 2011.

The factory is at the end of a long path which is in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao Island, in the Philippines. To illustrate what a ‘poor’ neighborhood it is, at the entrance to the path is the local well, where the neighborhood meets to get portable water, wash their clothes, wash their children, and water their domestic animals. Spythe Global, over the past few years, has expanded their operation greatly and added local employees rapidly. The owner was very proud to let me know that she has successfully been able to hire the husbands of her female factory workers as ‘sap tappers’ and shipping personnel and, in this manner, her neighborhood now consists of primarily two-parent households; the husbands no longer need to go overseas to the Gulf countries or elsewhere for long employment contracts and can work and live in their neighborhoods and build strong families. The owner credits this growth and development to the access to markets that the kosher certification granted her. Spythe Global came to Kosherfest and displayed their growing line at Kosherfest 2012 in the Philippine National Pavilion.”

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THE KOSHER ISSUE HECHSHERIM

VAAD HAKASHRUS OF BELZ RAV USHER ANSHEL ECKSTEIN Founded: 1982 Certification stats: 8 full time mashgichim, 10 part time Certifies 100s of products Countries include: Israel, USA, Thailand, China,Vietnam, Argentina, Ireland

BY DOVID LAPINSKY

R

AV USHER ANSHEL ECKSTEIN is the yoshev rosh of the Vaad Hakashrus of Belz in the United Sates, a kehillah-based hechsher that has a team of four dayanim.

“It’s not a private business,” he says. “It’s a 100% kehillah-run operation. I work for the kehillah.”

Rav Eckstein shares that the Belzer Rebbe instructed the kehillah to establish its own hashgachah in the early ’80s.

“The Belzer Rebbe, shlita, instructed us to start a kashrus organization. He believed we had an achrayus to do this for the Belz community. We now have eight full-time and ten parttime mashgichim, and we certify hundreds of items from about 40 different brands produced around the globe—including Israel, USA, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Argentina and Ireland.

“The mashgiach’s challenge is twofold,” explains Rav Eckstein, who has been involved with kosher certification for more than 25 years. “First of all, it requires a lot of mesiras nefesh to be in distant places away from your family for a long time. Secondly, tens of thousands of consumers are relying on 94 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

the mashgiach’s integrity. They are trusting that he got there and did what he was supposed to do. Oftentimes, no one can call to check up on him at a facility since the company’s landline is not accessible after hours. The mashgiach must be a very ehrliche baal achrayus and know he is being relied on by many people. He has to be alert and aware because, many times, the companies try to fool the mashgichim.

“There’s a wide spectrum of challenges today in kashrus,” continues Rav Eckstein, who finds his profession rewarding, because it affords him the opportunity to put the sugyos he has learned into practice. “As with every aspect of our lives, food technology development is advancing at a fast pace. For example, a copy machine becomes obsolete when a faster one is invented. So, too, with kashrus. It requires constantly learning new concepts in food chemistry and being in contact with the right people to get the right information. These days, it’s often difficult to know the source of the original product. For example, imitation crab, used in the sushi industry, is just an

A DAY IN THE LIFE exotic processed piece of tuna fish.”

Rav Eckstein says that over the years he has definitely seen more and more companies seeking hechsherim, and that there has been an increase in companies requesting specifically a heimishe hechsher, due to the growth of the heimishe community. And, he adds, “I have seen kosher supervision change mostly for the better in the last few years. Since the demand for kosher has increased—and it is recognized by food manufacturers as a marketing tool—we are able to enforce much higher standards in kashrus.”

Rav Eckstein notes, “To run a reliable kosher organization, it is a must that one respects and is able to work with other kosher organizations.

Baruch Hashem, I see achdus today in many aspects between the kosher certifiers. Although it is hard to pinpoint exactly how often the kashrus agencies are in touch with one another, it is a common occurrence.

“I just came back from the AKO (Association of Kashrus Organizations) convention. We sat together and discussed kashrus for two days. No one can take care of everything by himself; whoever thinks he can is mistaken.

So we all work together. It’s a kiddush Hashem, as well as an asset to kashrus.”

OF A MASHGI A CH

Some large agencies might say that every hashgachah needs to come to them for basic ingredients. So what do the other hechsherim accomplish?

RAV USHER ANSHEL ECKSTEIN

“In kashrus, everyone has their distinct policy. The OU has their rabbanim, the Chof-K has theirs, and the OK has theirs. Each kashrus agency’s rabbanim set the standards for their policy. The result is that there are differences in rulings regarding fundamental sh’eilos pertaining to kashrus between the different hechsherim.

“So, yes, we have to depend on the national kosher certifiers, because thousands of ingredients are in their hands. Every day I need to use their products. But I have a list of questions I ask them. I need to know about certain hiddurim, and they tell me which ones they are makpid on and which ones they are not. Every agency has a different approach and interpretation as to what hiddurim are necessary, according to its poskim. The agencies don’t keep secrets, and they are open about what they do.

“For example, if Rabbi X calls a national agency and inquires: ‘Is this product mehudar?’ the agency may respond: ‘Yes. It’s under our hashgachah.’ But a rav who knows a little more will ask specific questions pertaining to the policies that are pertinent to the product he is inquiring about. We can ask the agencies all these questions, and they’ll answer us.

Then we can determine whether that’s good enough for us and whether it fits with our standards.

“Let’s take a strawberry flavor in a product as an example. It may be made from 40 or 50 ingredients. It can take days to go through them. First of all, what are the ingredients? Once you know that, for example, the product contains oil or glycerin, we need to know where it’s from. So we have to ask them. They can’t give us some information because it’s confidential. If we can’t get the information, I have to go back to the manufacturer who wants our hechsher and say, ‘Sorry, I couldn’t get to the bottom of it, you’ll need to find something else to use instead.’”

“I had a kashrus assignment in Papeete, Tahiti. It was in the early nineties and the Internet was in its infancy and not so readily available. I asked someone to try and find out if there was anyone Jewish living in this remote area. He found the number of one Mr. Patrick Sabbah. I arrived in Tahiti on a Sunday morning and was taken to a hotel. I had a couple of hours before I was to be picked up by a company representative to be taken to the factory. I decided to call Mr. Sabbah. I introduced myself as a rabbi from the States and Mr. Sabbah exclaimed, ‘Yes, we knew you were coming and are waiting for you’. Papeete is a small island and a close-knit community. The goy designated by the company to pick me up had gone to shul on Shabbos and announced that a rabbi from the USA would be arriving the next day. Mr. Sabbah then picked me up from the hotel and gave me a full tour of the Jewish community. They have a shul, a kosher mikva, and a Jewish day school!”

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S neak Peek C O M E I N T O SE E T H E F ULL VIE W !

e a Receiv E pa i r R A SP SES FREE E G L AS of EY ery with ev chase. r u p e fram

Do all heimishe hashgachos have the same standards?

Shouldn’t the consumer be informed by the agencies what their standards are?

“It’s unfair to ask me to speak about someone else,” he replies emphatically.

“I can only speak for Belz. I want to emphasize that since there are differences in policies, there’s a real need for the various hashgachos. For example, there are jelly beans with national hashgachos that are covered in shellac, that comes from the Asian lac beetle. The real heimishe hechsherim hold that it’s assur. Rav Moshe Feinstein. z”l, permitted it, so some national agencies hold that it’s muttar. So the same candy may cost more with a heimishe hechsher, because they need to hire a mashgiach to make sure there’s no shellac under their certification.”

Rav Eckstein reiterates that he cannot speak for any hashgachah other than his own. “You must ask the agencies themselves if they would like to use your publication to inform the public of their policies.

I cannot speak for other agencies.”

Sometimes there are several hechsherim on a single product, like green salads.

Is this necessary? Does it drive up the price?

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“You see that mostly when it comes to tola’im. There are five lavim transgressed for every worm we eat, so we need five rabbanim to say it’s good,” he says with a chuckle. “You don’t really see multiple hechsherim with other products.

“Even when there are multiple hashgachos, they usually agree on using the same mashgiach, so the cost is not really affected.

The yearly fee that the agency charges for the symbol is lost in the quantities.”

So why not give shiurim to educate people about the different standards in hechsherim?

“I actually do so for my kehillah. Each rav should educate his community. I’m constantly busy with people calling to ask if they can eat this or that hechsher, if it’s kosher enough for heimishe people. I answer that I provide a hechsher on food and not on other baalei machshirim.

“One more thing that is also important to state: Today, almost no heimishe kosher food company has its own factory. A factory might produce for Brand A one day, for Brand B the next day, and Brand C the day after that. Although all mashgichim carefully maintain rules of confidentiality, if something really bad is happening it will eventually get picked up, which keeps everyone on guard.”

And, at the end of the day, which hashgachah should one rely on?

“Each person should pose that question to his rav,” Rav Eckstein responds, “the same rav he turns to with all of his sh’eilos.”

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KASHRUS AGENCIES

CRC

ADMINISTRATOR RABBI SHOLEM FISHBANE Founded: 1935

KOSHER

CERTIFICATION

Certification stats: Companies/Plants 1,600 in 15 countries Mashgichim: 175

R

ABBI SHOLEM FISHBANE had just returned from a two-day conference in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania of AKO (Association of Kosher Agencies) when Ami sat down with him to become educated about the cRc and AKO. One of the many hats he wears is Executive Director of the Association of Kosher Organizations, umbrella group for all major kashrus agencies in America and throughout the world. “Every year we hold a regular conference addressing larger agency’s concerns, and every other year, a two-day convention focusing on kashrus issues pertaining to small city vaadim. This year, 75 people attended from agencies as far away as Australia and as close as Baltimore.”

Rabbi Fishbane’s leadership of the AKO since 2003 is no sideline responsibility in his packed daily schedule. He is often called upon to mediate between agencies that need a trained, respected mediator to help them hammer out contracts and understandings related to territory and community. “I do a lot of mediation between agencies in my AKO hat. When I’m able to bring peace, it’s extremely rewarding. We help agencies 98 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

BY TZIPORAH FEINSTEIN better their kashrus, mediate between agencies, and lift to a higher standard the kashrus supervision in small communities all over the globe. The AKO established minimum standards on what ingredients need to be kosher, subcommittees of who qualifies to be a mashgiach, and I am often contacted by the member of a vaad from a small community asking for clarity on an AKO standard in order to address certain concessions to bend to the requests of their constituents. When I respond: ‘As a member of AKO, we maintain certain universal kashrus standards throughout the world, so we can’t bend on that,” a good amount of the time, that vaad will choose to elevate their community standards in order to remain a part of AKO. Everyone wins.”

In fact, it is through Rabbi Fishbane and others’ dedication to AKO that the Orthodox Jewish public is protected at KosherFest from treif food samples that years ago could be snuck in and disguised as kosher food. He recalls: “We actually had an incident where a vendor selling kosher certified tortilla wraps (as indicated by the large kosher logo of his hechsher

A DAY IN THE LIFE

OF A MASHGI A CH at his booth) figured that the attendees sampling his wraps would want something to go along with his wraps so he went to the local store and bought non-kosher turkey roll! The assumption then was, if it was at the KosherFest, it must be kosher, but there was no one taking responsibility for certifying the vendors. The AKO stepped in, and now we certify the KosherFest, which is no simple matter. Hundreds of different issues, especially with making sure everything cooked on site is bishul Yisrael, come into play with a massive convention like this. We work closely with the convention administration to only allow those that follow our standards.

Rabbi Fishbane’s role in the AKO fits perfectly with his role as the Kashrus Administrator for the cRc of Chicago since 2001. As the 5th largest kashrus agency in the world, the cRc is fully dedicated around the clock to ensuring the kashrus standards of our global community.

Rabbi Fishbane explains the unique role of the cRc amongst many agency giants.“The cRc is substantial in size, and around the world. We just rejected a new plant in China but approved one in Korea, but at the same time, we are very much a local vaad. My bosses are 15 local pulpit rabbis of the Chicago community. We don’t make more, or less, money depending on whether we hold on to a contract, or lose it. All the money we make goes back to cRc sponsored programs in Chicago. We don’t make decisions based on money, or politics. We are from the few kosher certification agencies that is willing to share information about other agencies and the products they certify. Every other agency—if you call them and ask them to tell you about a product they don’t certify—they will tell you that they can’t discuss it with you, because it’s not their product. But that’s not how the cRc operates.”

In fact, most Orthodox Jewish women know about, or carry with them, the wallet size card that lists the hechsherim that the cRc approves. (Rabbi Fishbane is contacted often by rebbeim from kosher certifying agencies who are desperate to get on to that all-important list. When Rabbi Fishbane tells them what it will take, he does more than give them ten minutes of his time on the phone and wish them well. He will fly or drive to their location and spend a day or two with their community, without even charging them for his time, to help them assess what they need to do to raise their standards of kashrus in order to be approved of by the cRc.) The cRc has other popular methods for informing Jewish customers—on the spot—whether an item has an acceptable hechsher, or if it needs one at all.

“If we get a call from a woman standing in the supermarket with an item in her hand, wondering if she can buy it, we are not going to tell her that we don’t answer such questions. We will help her as much as we can. Two rebbeim: Rabbi Abe Sharp and Rabbi Dovid Aronin, and any of our longtime very highly-educated secretaries, are often available to help this woman (or man) in the moment. We get a lot of the same questions over and over again and the staff is very skilled. Then, Rabbi Aronin answers email questions through info@crcweb.org, and we have an incredible app that you can download for free to your phone. You want to know if a certain ingredient, product or medicine is kosher? You can get an instant answer. Rabbi Dovid Cohen created www.askcrc.org, a special website through which thousands of consumers every year receive on-the-spot guidance for their

RABBI BENJAMIN SHANDALOV A company under the supervision of the cRc forwarded a letter they received from a customer explaining why she was no longer purchasing their product. The complaint was that the labels now carried a kosher emblem and that she refuses, “to pay the hidden rabbi tax” that the emblem represents. This is an antiSemitic charge that has been around for many years.

In an amazingly diplomatic manner, the company responded that not only was she not paying anything additional for the kosher supervision, but, rather, that due to the substantial increase in sales, they were able to maintain a lower price for the consumer.

What brought a smile to my face was the additional comment that the company, “did not understand how the Rabbinical Council could provide the service they are giving for such a low fee.”

In another instance I visited a company which used only three ingredients, flour, corn meal and water. What possible kashrus issue could there be?

My question was answered on my next visit when I found a large quantity of “vegetable shortening” without rabbinic supervision. When I challenged the plant manager, he responded that the shortening was not an ingredient, but only used to soften the dough if it dried out somewhat.

It is obvious that even the seemingly simplest list of ingredients cannot guarantee kashrus for the consumer without reliable kosher certification.

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Rabbi Katz and Rabbi Cohen checking for bugs

home since second grade. “I was working in Buffalo, and my wife and I decided to return to Chicago for the chinuch of our children. Administrator positions in the major kashrus agencies almost never open up—I can count on one hand how many positions like mine there are. Yet, with G-d’s help, just when I needed it, the cRc administrator job opened in Chicago, and Rivkie and I have been very blessed to be able to raise our family here.”

Rabbi Fishbane may consider himself a Chicagoan, but he spends many days of the year on a plane going somewhere else. Whether it’s visiting a cRc-certified plant to meet with the CEO, or spending a few days with a mashgiach to be sure they are up to par, or consulting with the vaad in a smaller community that is struggling with kashrus concerns, Rabbi Fishbane goes through his days with this attitude guiding him: “For me, being involved with the cRc and AKO is not about making another cookie kosher.

It’s about helping people.”

kashrus questions. We also share more in-depth information for mashgichim who really need to understand what is going on with a particular product or ingredient. Also, we keep a list in the office of certain products that are not recommended by the cRc for purchase, even if the supervising agency could be a perfectly good hechsher for other products they supervise. For reasons we know, this particular product is problematic, and we keep the information available for those people who need to know the ins and outs of why the cRc is not able to approve of this product or ingredient.”

The cRc is also recognized and respected for its very popular beis din including matters related to Choshen Mishpat (matters of money). Four different dayanim sit on the beis din, and rebbeim all over the US and North America who are members of the cRc have direct access to the cRc’s beis din and kashrus department. The cRc’s profits are funneled back into the Chicago community institutions.

Rabbi Fishbane (who lives in the area with his wife, Rivkie, raising their seven children in the community), is a Chicagoan through and through. Other than some years in Eretz Yisrael and Buffalo, NY, where he was a shul rabbi and a mashgiach Rabbi Cohen showing Rabbi Schwartz fish for the OU, Chicago has been his 100 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KASHRUS AGENCIES

OK KOSHER RABBI DON YOEL LEVY

Founded: 1935 as Organized Kashrut Laboratories Certification stats: 3,500 facilities.Well over 400,000 products. 90+ countries. Over 500 employees. 8 central offices on 4 continents.

BY YOSSI KRAUSZ

D

espite being one of the world’s largest and technologically advanced kashrus agencies, OK Kosher Certification still uses some of the most traditional and hands-on methods of ensuring that every product they certify is strictly kosher. But it’s hardly a surprise that they would take that care; the OK is also one of the oldest and most experienced certification agencies.

The OK was founded in 1935 by Abraham Goldstein, a food chemist who felt the standard of kashrus in the US at the time was lacking. In 1968, Rabbi Berel Levy purchased the hechsher from Mr. Goldstein. At the time, the OK was certifying 15 companies. Rabbi Levy began expanding and deepening the work of the OK. In 1987, Rabbi Levy passed away and his son, Rabbi Don Yoel Levy, took over the reins of the organization.

The organization has continued to expand, with over 400,000 products now bearing its certification. Rabbi Chaim Fogelman, the OK’s director of public relations and education and a rabbinic coordinator, says that that growth is matched by unique abilities that the organization brings to its work.

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“What is different about the OK is our experience, our knowledge and our ability to follow through on our protocols.

“Some hashgachos may say they only certify products if there’s a mashgiach temidi there. They may say they’ve researched all the ingredients and have all updated kosher letters and all the formulas for all the products they certify. Talk is cheap. A lot of people can say those things.

“But we actually have the manpower and technology and ability to follow through on all the things we say. We have updated certificates on all the products we certify, even the ingredients. We have updated formulas for all products we certify, and that is something that is enormously difficult to achieve.”

The OK is not merely relying on technological tricks.

“We do have custom computer programs that help us keep track of everything we do. We try to be as high-tech as we can.

A mashgiach recently sent in a report. I looked at it and the date hadn’t even happened yet; it was tomorrow. He was on the other side of the world, where it was already the next day. So I said that we’re getting so good we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

A DAY IN THE LIFE “But as much as the modern technology is helping us, we still try extremely hard to keep the focus on the personal aspect and the actual rabbi doing the certification.

“For example, if we certify a facility with regular visits from a mashgiach or rabbi who certifies that facility, anywhere in the world, there is also always a visit every year from a headquarters rabbi to make sure we don’t lose the human aspect and to see that everything is still the way it should be. That’s something unique to the OK that’s not done anywhere else. We are the only agency that not only sends mashgichim, but also schedules visits from head rabbinic coordinators. They visit every facility even though it’s already established and running smoothly.”

The OK is a true international organization, Rabbi Fogelman explains.

“When Rabbi Levi first took over the OK, it was basically a one-room basement in Boro Park. Today we have a huge office in Brooklyn, a secondlargest office in Israel, one in Mexico, one in Europe, one in South America, one in China, one in India and one in Korea.

“Every country is unique. Part of what we do to pay attention to that is that we have rabbanim who are local, for example living in China. We have people from Israel going to China regularly. Besides the mashgichim who make continuous regular visits, the rabbinic coordinators spend two or three weeks at a time in China, and they have some local people helping them understand the culture and how they do things. That enables us to be able to give a better certification.

“The OK probably has the biggest collection of experts in the field. And 98 percent of all kosher products produced have at least one ingredient that’s certified by the OK.” He says that hashgachah requires more care than people realize.

“The keys to good certification are consistency, clarity and achievability.

The company has to be able to work. We want to give a hechsher the company can live with. And in order for a company to be able to live with the restrictions and protocols we’re instructing upon them, we have to understand how their company works. We have to understand what we can and cannot demand from them. And if we feel this is a certification that only looks good on paper, then this is a certification we won’t issue.

“Before every single company becomes OK certified, Rabbi Levi personally reads through all the inspection papers and reports himself. And only then does he give his personal stamp of approval on it.

“Someone asked us to certify a cruise ship. It sounded great on paper.

They’d have one designated kitchen for fleishig and one for milchig. It was going to be closed with a gate, with no way to get in there when closed.

“But we don’t give a hechsher until we come and see it with our own eyes.

We came on the ship and saw that there was just one huge kitchen. One corner was going to be a kosher milchig corner and one a kosher fleishig corner.

“It couldn’t work. You can’t have a kosher and treif kitchen in such close proximity. People will get mixed up. The waiters will get mixed up. The dining rooms were too far from the kitchens. We turned them down.

“A different agency ended up taking them on. The mashgiach of the other agency happened to speak to me later and he said it was a nightmare. ‘You have no idea how many mishaps we had. Waiters came in carrying trays and put them down. We weren’t sure if it was from here or there. I was kashering the whole entire time.’

“Another example: a stadium wanted certification. We told them we

OF A MASHGI A CH

RABBI CHAIM FOGELMAN Rabbi Fogelman says that OK mashgichim are experts both in halachah and in the food technologies they deal with.

“That has to go hand-in-hand. In the olden days, when you hired a contractor, he was the plumber, he was the electrician and painter; he did everything that needs to be done.

“The same thing was with the rabbi in the shtetl.

He was the mohel, he did the bar mitzvahs, he married you, he answered all your sh’eilos and in the end he was the one who buried you.

“Today it’s all specialized. A shochet is not a mohel. A pulpit rabbi is not a sho’el u’meishiv in a yeshivah. Everything’s specialized.

“Kashrus became a specialty as well, especially because of the technology and the way everything’s done today. Companies don’t really cook and produce products the way you and I do in a kitchen. There are different processes they use and you have to have a clear understanding and appreciation for how they make things. Only in this way can you give a real hechsher.

“Some of the mashgichim have degrees in food technology and some have been in this work for many years and have tremendous experience.

For example, we have a rabbi, Rabbi Lasker, in Belgium who takes care of one of the largest chocolate companies in the world. He was asked by another agency if he could come take a look at another chocolate company that they wanted to certify, to double-check that they’re doing everything right.

“They told him it was producing a bittersweet chocolate, with no milk. He came into the factory, looked around, and said, ‘This chocolate has dairy in it.’

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needed a certain number of mashgichim. Why? Because if they’re selling hot dogs, you need a mashgiach at every stand, and the main kitchen needs a mashgiach as well. But we felt that we needed one more mashgiach, to be a rotating mashgiach in case one of the mashgichim needed a five-minute break.

“So we gave certification that way.

For every affair they had, they had to order eight mashgichim, because there were six stands, the main kitchen and a rotating mashgiach.

“A different hashgachah called this venue and said, ‘I can save you a lot of money by having seven mashgichim instead of eight.’ But guess what? A few weeks into their new certification someone left a stand and there was unattended meat and it became a sh’eilah.

And then came another problem. And in no time that agency had to forgo the certification.

“It’s not that we’re smarter than the whole world. We have siyata dishmaya and experience.”

He says that the standards that the kosher consumer should be measuring kashrus agencies by are different than what they might expect.

“We try to be as transparent as we can be. The OK is really kosher without compromise. We’re in the kosher business, as opposed to the business of kosher. Our first and utmost responsibility is to the kosher consumer.

“The strength of a certification is not measured by how many products they certify or by how few mishaps they have. Of course, you want to have the fewest mishaps possible and you need siyata dishmaya, but the strength of a hechsher is how they react when there is a problem. Do they try to brush it under the rug and fix it quickly without anyone knowing? Or do they have responsibility and tell the public immediately?

“I think that’s a very important aspect to think about. The kitchen without a kashrus question ever is the biggest question of all.”

He says that there is another misconception the public has: that a certifi-

cation of the size of the OK can’t do a great job like a small, local certification.

“That really isn’t the truth, because a local certification doesn’t always have the manpower and ability to follow through on all the great ideas they have.

“You can have great ideas. You can be a rav with great intentions, an ehrliche rav. But you don’t necessarily have the ability to follow up on a product that’s produced in China, for example. The little hechsherim absolutely rely on the big hechsherim and call them all the time for help and information. That’s just something that happens every day.”

Rabbi Fogelman says that there is an important attitude that the OK has, that allows them to ensure the kashrus of the products they certify.

“One of the underlying trains of thought here is that when the rabbis come in to do an inspection on a facility, the owners and customers shouldn’t look at us as a threat, that we’re merely there to try and catch them. We’re there because they asked us to come.

We don’t solicit accounts. We go there because they asked us to come to help them become certified as kosher.

“They feel that we are their partners in kosher and in kosher only. We don’t charge by percentages of sales. We have no vested interest in how much they sell. They know they can rely on us. They look at us more as their partners or a way to help them extend their market. It’s not that they merely have the idea: ‘The rabbi’s coming! We’d better hide something!’

“For a gonnif, there are no locks. We do everything we possibly can to have a secure system in place. But in addition to that, we have open communication.

“The companies call me, ‘Rabbi can I use this?’ They don’t want to get into a confrontation they could avoid with a phone call. They know I’ll be there for them to answer and will try to get them the right product. I’m not here to just say no. I’m here to try to find a product that works for them and a product the customer who’s buying the OK can feel confident and assured is of the highest standard.”

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A DAY IN THE LIFE

OF A MASHGIACH

“‘How can you tell?’ they asked him. ‘The manager says there’s never any dairy in this plant.’

“So he climbed up a ladder and banged on something and all of a sudden a whole chunk of milk powder fell out of a pipe. “‘How did you know that?’

“He told them, ‘Because in order to make chocolate, only this number of ingredients are used and there have to be only this certain number of pipes. I know that if there’s another pipe, one of those pipes has to contain milk powder.’

“Another company that has many different flavor facilities called one of our mashgichim. They want to know they’re looking for a certain flavor ingredient and aren’t sure where it is.

The mashgiach knew exactly where it was. A flavor facility can have over 4,000 ingredients, and some are quite small and compact. He knew where it was because we have everything logged very carefully.”

Rabbi Fogelman says that there are some things that the public doesn’t realize that a mashgiach is called on to do.

“The one that gets the most laughs when I say it is when a kashrus agency like ours goes to give a certification on a resort. You’d never believe that it’s the job of a mashgiach to look in the rooms and see if they have electronic keys, to see if the bathrooms have automatic flushers, to see if you could actually survive in a place like that for Shabbos.

A mashgiach has to put up an eiruv if they have to carry inside the campus.

These are things many people don’t think about at all.”

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KASHRUS AGENCIES

OU KASHRUS

DIRECTOR RABBI MENACHEM GENACK Founded: 1898 Certification stats: Certifies more than 800,000 products produced in over 6,000 plants located in 92 countries around the world.

600 Rabbinic Field Representatives

BY RABBI YITZCHOK FRANKFURTER

R

abbi Hershel Schachter once told me that if there’s a disagreement in matters of halachah at the OU between him and Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, you are the deciding

vote.

The halachic decisors at the OU are the three of us. So if there’s a dispute the majority rules.

You’re also involved in running the office?

Yes. That is part of my responsibilities.

Have standards been lowered over the years to expand and broaden the kosher market?

I think that generally during my 35-year tenure as the CEO of the Orthodox Union’s Kosher Division the standards have actually been enhanced. There’s a good side to the kosher market’s expansion, and a less good side. Rabbi Berel Wein would often bemoan the fact that we’re seeing a lot more 106 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

“glatt” kosher and a lot less “standard” kosher, a lot more “shmurah” matzah and less “regular” matzah. My own experience growing up in America was that even the Conservative Jews had two sets of dishes. While they weren’t necessarily careful about kashrus outside the home, they were nonetheless careful inside the home. Unfortunately, because of the erosion of the Jewish people to assimilation, that broader commitment has weakened dramatically.

Coextensive with that, we’ve seen the growth of the Orthodox community, especially the chasidic and yeshivish community, which is much more careful and demanding about kashrus. This is expressed most dramatically by the fact that in the 1940s there was no such thing as glatt kosher in America.

Glatt kosher began to emerge primarily when Satmar came to America after the war. Before that it didn’t exist. Rav Moshe Feinstein never ate glatt kosher because according to the Rema one doesn’t have to. Today in the OU market everything is glatt. The driving force is the consumer market, which today

A DAY IN THE LIFE is much more stringent in this matter.

We’ve actually seen conflicting attitudes. On the one hand, the frum community became much more demanding in terms of kashrus, but we’ve also seen the degrading of kashrus by the general population, which is very unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because we want them to be careful regarding kashrus, and also because kashrus is something that binds them together as Jewish and is a bulwark against assimilation.

When I studied in Lakewood, I remember the yeshivah used food products that I don’t think they would use today.

I have the same recollection. I remember when I was in Lakewood in the ’60s they used regular Rice Krispies, and so on. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. When Rav Aharon Kotler started Lakewood, he wasn’t makpid on chalav Yisrael. The famous story that’s told is that when he was finally convinced to switch to chalav Yisrael it came in a big canister, which overturned, and he was very upset about the entire switch.

The OU still certifies kosher chalav akum.

We’re sensitive to those who are diligent about chalav Yisrael. If something is used with what Rav Moshe called “chalav hacompanies,” we list it as OU-D on the ingredients. And when we certify products that are chalav Yisrael we indicate that.

The Chazon Ish has a discussion about chalav Yisrael and he quotes the Pri Chadash, that when there’s pikuach hamemshalah [government supervision] it’s muttar. It’s interesting to cite what Rav Wosner writes in Shevet Halevi that when the Chazon Ish wrote this, Rav Wosner recommended he not print it, since the Chasam Sofer does not permit it. However the Chazon Ish didn’t agree with him. Rav Moshe in his teshuvah claims that government supervision is good even according to the stringent position of the Chasam Sofer. So that’s the OU’s position in terms of dairy products. We have many products we give supervision to that are chalav Yisrael.

The consumer should know what the differences are between local chasidishe hashgachos and the major hashgachos. Would you agree with that?

100%.

Do you find those hashgachos to have more chumros?

I think the OU generally has more chumros. All the hashgachos we give we believe are l’chatchilah. We’re dan on everything. We record everything in terms of the halachos, the psakim. We have a secretary, a safra d’dayna, Rabbi Eli Gersten, who’s a very big talmid chacham.

We don’t do things on a b’dieved level in shechitah or any production we certify. I think people have come to recognize that. One of the reasons is the level of the rabbanim we employ. There are over 50 rabbanim working in my office, not to mention the people in the field.

These are musmachim of our finest yeshivos. They’ve come to recog-

OF A MASHGI A CH SIMCHA SEMOLENSKY Simcha Semolensky performs the initial inspection before a product is certified by the OU. He comes up with a technical concept to make kosher production feasible, although he tells his clients “I cant guarantee that you can live with the solution but there are always options if you want to make it work.” He remembers his grandmother describing how they stretched noodles over the kitchen table.

There were no certified food staples in the United States in the 1920s. He’s appreciative of the willingness of producers to invest the effort into kosher certification and form a partnership with client companies. They are helping the kosher consumer, and the OU is here to help them make it work.

“I remember a particular assignment where I was to certify noni fruit juice in Bagua Grande, Peru. When production is in distant areas, the OU first ascertains that kosher certification is within the realm of possibility.

After initial research, I made the trip to Bagua Grande in the Amazon River basin. The trip involved 3 flights and 6 hours of driving just to get there, a total of two days traveling. When I got there, I came to a plant that was no bigger than the average person’s living room.

There was a press, storage and a pasteurization vessel.

The town consisted of a thousand people, and in honor of my arrival, I was set up in the only hotel in town, in the only room with an air conditioner. People there had never seen a Jew before. They only recognized my identity through the TV shows they’ve watched, which saddened me.

In the end, although the juicing was a simple process and could have been certified, the company never came through. They had a marketing guy in Los Angeles who was going to help them bring the juice to shelves in the United States, but apparently they were unsuccessful. The fruit had a unique look and was really pretty. But when it was pressed it really smelled bad. I couldn’t imagine lots of people popping a bottle and saying ‘this is wonderful.’” After all that hard work, noni fruit juice remains unavailable to the kosher consumer.

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1

nize that the OU is a purely communal, non-profit organization. Beyond our salaries, we’re not the beneficiaries of even a penny that the OU earns. It goes right back into the Jewish community in terms of kiruv and to the Yachad Program, for children with disabilities. I think that makes the OU unique.

While there are three fine rabbanim in charge of the OU, we also have to rely on the individual mashgichim and on the credibility of the owners of companies. So while we may be able to rely on the OU, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the product is kosher.

Every hashgachah is based ultimately on the credibility of the entrepreneur who’s running it. If we find someone who’s dishonest, it doesn’t matter if he’s a Jew or a non-Jew; we remove our certification.

Rabbi Schachter told me that China is very problematic, since Chinese entrepreneurs have been caught cheating many times. With that in mind, how comfortable can we feel that we’ll actually be eating kosher at the end of the day?

In terms of China, as the global economy expanded, American companies started sourcing ingredients from every corner of the world. That requires us to go to China and other far-flung places. We inspect all these plants. We have people in China.

And, generally speaking, the ingredients we use coming from China are in most cases ingredients that are relatively innocuous. We look at the kashrus sensitivity of the product. We inspect all the plants. The need is there because of globalization.

You have competition and I’m sure the OU is competitive to get as many companies certified by the OU as possible. How do we know you won’t compromise to get a customer?

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Obviously it’s an issue and we confront it all the time. But in terms of the OU, that’s one of the things that’s a major underpinning behind our founding. The advantage of the OU as an organization is that there’s an infrastructure and any monetary temptation is mitigated because it’s a communal organization. Our people won’t be rewarded financially; their parnasah doesn’t depend on this or that company. That’s the advantage of communal kashrus.

There’s a conception that kosher food is more healthful and cleaner. Is this only among non-Jews, or also among those Conservative and Reform Jews who, you said before, stopped eating kosher?

You’re right. Companies who look for kosher supervision are not only looking to sell to Orthodox Jews who keep kosher. The kosher market is much larger than that. It includes people who for their own religious requirements look for kosher, such as Seventh-day Adventists or Muslims or people who have lactose intolerance and want to see if it’s pareve, or gluten intolerance and want to see if it’s kosher for Pesach. But a big part of the market includes those who have a perception that if it’s kosher, either quality- or health-wise it’s a better product. Part of that, candidly, is not always the case.

For example, a kosher salami sandwich has just as much cholesterol as a non-kosher one. But other times it’s accurate: For example, when there was the problem with mad cow disease; because kosher slaughter eliminates a lot of the blood through salting, it seems it was less susceptible to mad cow.

I think another thing is that we provide another set of eyes watching the plant. The USDA or FDA sees a plant maybe once a year. So the kosher designation gives consumers some comfort that there’s an extra set of eyes in the plant.

Does that hold true for non-Orthodox Jews?

2

3

1. Picture of Rabbi Avrohom Schwarz, OU Rabbinic Field Representative, doing an inspection of the machinery of a plant in Europe.

2. Picture of Rabbi Chaim Loike, OU Rabbinic Coordinator and bird expert, giving a Harry H. Beren Skype Shiur on the Mesorah of Kosher Birds to the Kollel Beth HaTalmud in Melbourne, Australia.

3. Picture of (l-r) Rabbi Ari Zivotofsky, OU Posek Rav Hershel Schachter, and Rabbi Menachem Genack holding a swordfish at a Harry H. Beren ASK OU Mesorah Conference

I assume it’s universal. Also, in terms of the general Jewish population, we see that around Pesach time American Jews come home to roost and for the Seder and Pesach they’re more likely to buy kosher products.

difficult to get kosher oils. Then Crisco Oil came under the OU. What people take for granted now was very much not the case then. Trying to convince companies to make basic ingredients kosher was heroic work in the 1950s.

How closely do you work with other kosher agencies?

The OU’s position is we will use other ingredients from other agencies that we feel meet a certain standard. So there is a certain amount of communication.

The OU is much larger than all the other agencies combined.

We could’ve used our leverage to say that if you want to be an OU company you can only use OU products. But we didn’t. When I came to the OU 35 years ago, one of the people who told me to maintain that was Rav Soloveitchik. There was a company that applied to the OU that was under another certification. That certifier complained that we took the company away. I said, “We didn’t take them; they applied on their own.” He said,”Let’s ask Rav Soloveitchik.” Rav Soloveitchik told us, “It’s a free country, and they’re doing this for marketing reasons; they can choose whom they want to use for kashrus.” Then the Rav said to me: “I wouldn’t want to see everything come under the OU, because I don’t think that’s healthy for the American Jewish community that this should be a monopoly.” And I was always guided by that direction from the Rav.

Kosher food is often expensive. Maybe we should educate people that in some things the extra hechsher is just a waste of money.

We try to do that in our Pesach directory. We have a special box where we list things we think are innocuous that are kosher all year. We know that to be an Orthodox Jew is a very expensive endeavor. With so many products under different national supervisions it’s possible not only to have kosher food available throughout the US, and if you’re buying a national product that has an OU, it’s the same cost as similar unsupervised items. That’s a tremendous savings. It makes it possible for people to keep kosher at no additional cost.

It’s impossible today for any hashgachah not to rely on the OU, since no small kashrus supervision organization can possibly certify all the ingredients that are used in most products.

True. It’s impossible. Every supervision is relying for the basic ingredients on the OU. That doesn’t mean to say that some of them will not check with us as they may want to go see the plants on their own. But ultimately, basic ingredients, for example oils, are under the OU. I remember when I was growing up it was very

Any plans for future improvements?

There’s always room for improvement. A lot of it just has to do with a sense of seriousness and purpose. I’m proud of the people who work at the OU. They’re all talmidei chachamim and are endowed with that sense. So they’re the ones who inspire me.

The people in your office are really from diverse yeshivah backgrounds. I’ve been there more than once.

You have Modern Orthodox rabbis and chasidim.

That was by design. When I first came to the OU, I thought the OU was a communal organization and should represent all different communities and yeshivos, and we tried to build it on that basis. On a related issue, another thing the OU does is we go to all yeshivos and we make presentations explaining what’s involved in kosher supervision. And also, every other year we do a program for three weeks to teach kashrus to yeshivah guys. 

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KASHRUS AGENCIES

LONDON BETH DIN DIRECTOR RABBI JEREMY CONWAY

Founded: Records tracing as far back as the 1700s Certification stats: 1,200 factories in 68 countries worldwide, and around 125 establishments in the UK

BY C.S. TEITLEBAUM

W

E SPENT THIS SUMMER in a rural English village.

I wasn’t aware that the temporary kosher tuck shop would have little more than fresh milk, bread, grape juice and boxes of crisps…until it ran out. When it did, we were stuck on what to give the kids for snacks on our long day trips. I called a friend back in London to ask her what kosher certified products are sold in supermarket chain Tesco and she rattled off around ten perfectly-kosher, clearly-certified products from the reputable London Beth Din kashrus agency (KLBD). It was gratifying to see their good ol’ logo smiling back at me in the ‘FreeFrom’ section, in this sleepy town.

Watching my kids chew on those fruit snacks, nuts and raisins as if they were gum-filled candies, I realised what a magnanimous service KLBD was doing for the community.

Rabbi Jeremy Conway, long-time director of the kashrus division of the KLBD, verbalises my thoughts at the onset of our conversation. “KLBD is primarily about providing a service. Yes, the businesses might be paying for their supervision, but rather than seeking to increase our list of licensees for the sake of more custom, we seek to bring kashrus to the community.” Those last words are the agency’s slogan.

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AGE-OLD TRADITION London Beth Din is a centuries old establishment, with records tracing back as far as the 1700s when Jews first started settling in England. The Beis Din has historically been under the auspices of the Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, but as Anglo-Jewry grew, so did the organisation, and the London Beth Din—in particular its Kashrus Division—expanded to become significant organisations in their own right, with the Chief Rabbinate concentrating on broad-ranging communal issues.

When, in 1930, the renowned posek Dayan Yechezkel Abramsky, zt”l, was appointed Rosh Beis Din, with a team of professional dayanim working under him, the LBD became a leading player on the world stage. Today, the recentlyappointed Rosh Beis Din is Dayan Menachem Gelley, son of Rabbi Zecharia Gelley of Washington Heights, on board with Dayan Yonason Abraham, Dayan Shmuel Simons and Dayan Aharon Yitzchok Binstock, all of esteemed halachic renown.

When Rabbi Conway, formerly rav in Leeds, was first invited to assume the new position of director 25 years ago by emeritus Rosh Beis Din, Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu, KLBD was

A DAY IN THE LIFE a fraction of its current size. They were certifying only 60 factories. Today, they certify almost 1,200 factories in 68 countries worldwide including Mauritius, Malaysia, Venezuela, Ghana, Thailand, Australia, India, Dubai, Jordan and quite a bit in Egypt.

Zooming in on the local UK community, out of around 125 establishments—caterers, bakeries, cafes, restaurants—100 are under KLBD’s supervision, plus 25 jointly licensed with other hashgachos.

THREE IS BETTER THAN ONE What’s unique about KLBD’s infrastructure is that the offices of both the dayanim and the kashrus staff share the same roof, the even the same walls.

Answers to any kashrus dilemmas are a step away. “Not a day goes by that I don’t liaise with the Rosh Beis Din three or four times,” shares Rabbi Conway. “In fact, the initial stage for any license applicant starts with an interview with one of the dayanim.”

“A hechsher from an agency is more reliable than an individual’s, but a hechsher from a communal beis din is more reliable than an agency’s,” he continues matter-of-factly, offering a simple equation. “KLBD is part of a huge, well-funded community organisation, the United Synagogue, which presides over 60 shuls and tens of thousands of paying members, so we are hardly dependent on the income generated from hechsherim. However, when it is a business venture, as many private ones are, every applicant is profitable, thus possibly leading to conflicts of interest and decisions.”

“That said,” he is quick to add, “I must stress that there are some very reliable hechsherim out there owned by individual rabbanim.”

KIRUV-CUM-KASHRUS “We see our key role as a responsibility to the Jewish community, to encourage and help them keep kosher, and we spend a lot of resources to make that happen,” Rabbi Conway reiterates.

First, there’s the annual Really Jewish Food Guide. Kosher consumers rely heavily on the indispensable pocket-sized Kashrus Guide, listing the status of some 7,000 products, ranging from KLBD-supervised, other-supervised, kosher-but-not-supervised, chalav akum to downright not kosher (NK).

What happened before the kashrus guide? “Oh, people just assumed ‘What could be wrong with this, it’s probably alright,’ when it wasn’t,” confesses Rabbi Conway. “This list has made keeping kosher, despite living remotely, easier. And many of those living far out in less-affiliated communities really want to keep kosher. Interestingly, I’ve lectured in many shuls but I found that in those outlying communities I would sell far more Kashrus Guides after my lecture than I did locally. It was eye-opening.”

As the world has advanced dramatically, so has KLBD. The exhaustive Kashrus Guide project was only available in hard copy until a few years ago when KLBD reached a decision to put the database online, thereby making kashrus information accessible free of charge to every Jew, although in turn losing thousands of pounds in sales. “Because the object of the exercise is to offer a community service, we were prepared to lose that income. Consequently, people who otherwise might not eat kosher can now opt for the kosher alternative, because they can find it at the touch of a button.”

And since a few weeks ago, touch of a button means just that. Hot off the press is KLBD’s new superfast website, isitkosher.org, that could totally

OF A MASHGI A CH

RABBI AKIVA OSHER PADWA While waiting for a train in the Punjab region of India, one of the locals came over to Rabbi Akiva Osher Padwa, LBD’s director of certification, “Sir, are you by any chance an Englishman?” he asked.

“Yes, but how could you possibly know?” R’ Akiva answered, bemused.

The man replied that he had seen a film of “Around the World in Eighty Days” (a 19th century account of an impeccably-dressed Englishman who voyaged around the world) and thought the chasidic Yid, replete with waistcoat and gold pocket-watch looked just like the tailed and coated protagonist.

Rabbi Padwa has not circled the world in 80 days, but in the 25 years of his LBD career, the Belzer chasid has practically seen the world… travelling as far as American Samoa, an island in the Pacific with a tuna-only fish-oil plant. Unbeknownst to the mashgiach, American Samoa crosses the international dateline, leaving him jumping back a day and twiddling his fingers on strange turf until his appointment two days later.

About 20 years ago he was in China’s Fujian Province and finished production earlier than expected, so the factory workers suggested he spend the day touring. They arranged a driver, as well as someone who spoke Mandarin and a translator from Mandarin to English. The ‘Englishman,’ the Chinaman, the Mandarin and Mr. Cabbie all set off in a comfortable jeep. Soon, they arrived to a most picturesque mountain, climbing up the narrow winding path beneath gigantic protruding boulders while looking down at the steep hill below at the panoramic view of tea plantations.

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THE KOSHER ISSUE KASHRUS AGENCIES

rival Google, and not just with its 100,000 hits a month. All that comes up is a clean white page (“We’ve learnt the less graphics the faster the response time!”) with KLBD’s logo and a rectangular search box in which you enter the product name and, presto!, the product’s kashrus info appears.

Coming soon on that site are product images, more nutrition information (dietary and allergy) and tentatively barcode scanning. Standby.

KLBD’s Facebook page is also making waves. The group grows every week, now at 4,300 mainly young people tapping into kashrus instead of surfing more-entertaining sites.

“There may be a debate about the hollowness of social media, but here are people who would anyway be online and are choosing to converse in something as special and important as kashrus, which is heartwarming.” Simultaneously, KLBD offers a live-chat facility for sh’eilos, with staff manning the computers several hours every day. More complex sh’eilos are forwarded to the dayanim…in the room next door.

A BRAND NAME Because of their stringencies and professionalism, KLBD is one of the largest, most respected kashrus agencies in the world today, supervising many of the world’s leading flavour and fragrance houses, pharmaceutical producers and biotechnology companies. Whilst other kashrus authorities have concentrated on granting certification to finished products, KLBD’s area of expertise has become raw materials and specialty ingredients. The kashrus database, produced by their researchers, has resulted in the kosher status of 100,000 raw materials categorised according to kosher complexity, making KLBD the world’s go-to address for raw material enquiries.

The KLBD head office team consists of some 20 rabbanim and their assistants, chemists, food technologists, and other highly trained and experienced staff. Amongst the respected members at the KLBD are Rabbi Akiva Osher Padwa, internationally acclaimed kashrus professional who heads the Factory Certification Unit, and Dr. Moshe Rosenfeld, renowned expert in flavours and food chemicals.

Through this, LBD has taken a chunk of the leg work off kashrus organisations worldwide. Big-name kashrus authorities require every single ingredient in their product to be kosher certified, whether there are 15 or 40 ingredients, as is commonly the case. “It is virtually impossible for one agency to supervise 40 ingredients on their own. With hundreds of products, that would translate into hundreds of thousands of ingredients.”

That’s why Badatz Eidah Hachareidis, Rav Landau, Badatz Mehadrin, OU, Star-K, Kof-K and many others respect the KLBD seal and maintain a close working relationship. “A leading kashrus rav in Eretz Yisrael once told me there’s probably not a product manufactured in Israel or Europe today which doesn’t have an LBD sub-ingredient in it.”

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MASHGICHIM -WHO IS ELIGIBLE? What does KLBD look for in a mashgiach? “Someone who has eyes at the back of his head!” Rabbi Conway answers with a chuckle. But when he shares a wine-production fluke to prove the importance of a mashgiach being on the ball and highly perceptive, it’s no longer very merry.

Wine production is undoubtedly the hardest thing to supervise, he says. A non-Jew may not move nor touch any keilim involved in the production. He may not even switch on the machinery. During a run in Spain this August, the mashgiach, Rabbi Shimon Black, noticed a worker climbing up a ladder to the top of the press. “What’re you doing?” he yelled.

The sieve had fallen into the wine-filled vat and he was innocently going to dive in to dish it out. “Oh, no, you can’t do that!” Shimon cried, frantically switching places and slipping into a harness himself for a dry red…dip.

On another note, at a joint-KLBD catered royal banquet at Buckingham Palace, his mashgichim dressed in coats and tails to replace the butlers for the night so that the choice of exclusive non-mevushal wines, selected by Her Majesty’s vintners, wouldn’t become yayin nesech.

“A mashgiach must also be a people person or he won’t last 24 hours.” Having to deal with chefs, often non-Jewish ones, and service staff who naturally prefer it their way and may get annoyed if change is demanded, a mashgiach has to tactfully balance being diplomatic, firm and courteous.

“Also, the mashgiach has to be a yirei shamayim to appreciate his awesome responsibility to the Jewish community. At the end of the day, hundreds of people will be relying on the shomer in the restaurant kitchen daily.”

With the hard-to-find combination of qualities, and responsibility and integrity an obvious must, it’s very hard to find the right candidate. KLBD ends up rejecting nine out of every ten applicants. “If someone does already tick all the boxes, he’s probably an executive director somewhere up there!”

The exacting search process means that the winning candidates are always high-calibre individuals. But high-calibre mashgichim alone is not sufficient for KLBD. “If he wasn’t on site for the right amount of time, he has failed,” notes Rabbi Conway. “KLBD insists that every catered function has fulltime hashgachah from start to finish, no difference if it’s a heimishe caterer or if it’s in a shul hall.” This is because, unlike restaurants, which have a fixed venue and menu and are either milky or meaty, functions involve different logistics, staff and menus every night and one can’t know, for example, which chef will decide to bring his own knife or garnishing tools.

“Similarly, at the very least, restaurants must have a shomer Shabbos person on site responsible for kashrus whenever the kitchen operates. And I’d encourage customers to enquire about a shomer’s presence. You’d be surprised how many kashrus agencies don’t enforce this basic requirement.”

A DAY IN THE LIFE KLBD’s senior rabbinic inspectors can be seen going up and down London’s bustling kosher high-streets all day.

Rabbi Conway actually authored a comprehensive manual for roving mashgichim and it has since been used, and adapted, by other UK hashgachos.

CERTIFICATION? NO THANKS Americans and Israelis who visit London are often surprised at the dearth of kosher-certified goods. “Coke without a hechsher?” they gawk. The reason for this is because the UK kosher market is very small and doesn’t sound lucrative to big brands.

And if they do agree to accept supervision, they’re almost embarrassed of it, snubbing the symbol to downplay their kosher status.

Weetabix, for example, the international cereal brand, pays for KLBD supervision but for some odd reason refuses to bear its logo. Bizarrely, in Eretz Yisrael, and even in Spain, the Weetabix carton does bear the KLBD logo. Yet, on the other side of the Atlantic, a leading American brand will proudly advertise nationally, “Eat ___, it’s good, it’s healthy, it’s kosher!’

“I think it’s something to do with the nature of the Englishman,” Rabbi Conway surmises. “It’s a very secular society and they’re plain wary of strange symbols, especially one to do with religion.

“Nevertheless, baruch Hashem, we’ve had tremendous breakthroughs with many multi-national brands. A classic example is Mars confectionery, whose iconic Mars Bar and many other products now bear our chalav akum logo.”

If a company is adamantly against kosher supervision, KLBD might offer a discounted introductory price for the first year.

And while it’s almost always about principle rather than money, they would never let the fees hinder an opportunity for their kosher consumers. If that still doesn’t work, their expert researchers will research the ingredients and production to the best of their ability and KLBD will issue its status with a kosherbut-not-supervised symbol in the kashrus guide, as is the case with Walker’s crisps.

Only the plain, unflavoured packs are approved, albeit without supervision, whilst the flavoured varieties are listed as NK due to shared use of equipment. Walker fans then pestered KLBD to get the flavoured crisps, challenging them that they were probably avoiding it to support the kosher manufacturers.

“If it were about money, we wouldn’t list the plain one either!”

Here’s the punch line. “Just recently,” Rabbi Conway reveals, “Walkers called my office—which is weird, because we have no business relationship at all—to inform us of a recall for their tomato-flavoured crisps. The reason? The batch accidentally contained ham! And that, with their prominent vegetarian logo!

We quickly updated our followers through our kashrut email updates, Facebook site and Twitter accounts.”

Clearly, KLBD knows their job and lives up to their slogan – “Bringing kashrus to the Community”.

•

OF A MASHGI ACH Suddenly, Rabbi Padwa noticed smoke coming from the bonnet [hood]. He tried to alert his fellow passengers but the smoke grew thick and he pulled open the car door and jumped out. Finally, the others caught on and joined him.

To the their horror, as they were observing the car from a distance, it exploded. The driver ran away and was never seen again! The translators went to seek help. Rabbi Padwa sat himself down on a nearby rock when he heard heavy footsteps behind him. Before he could turn around, he saw Chinese soldiers surrounding him at gun point. Terrified, he signalled for them to follow him. When they saw the burning vehicle the fierce soldiers actually collapsed onto the floor in fits of giggles. The army had assumed the explosion was something political. The soldiers summoned a taxi to rush Rabbi Padwa to his now-imminent flight.

Another time, he found himself in a taxi in Thailand soon after 9/11. He noticed the driver repeatedly peering into the mirror at his backseat passenger, examining his face and stroking a make-believe beard. Unexpectedly, the driver pulled over in this remote, isolated stretch, and went round to his boot [trunk], clearly looking for something. The bile rose in the mashgiach’s throat as he was devising a way to escape. No sooner, the driver came to his backseat passenger holding a tatty newspaper with a front page picture of Osama bin Laden. “You Taliban?” he asked gruffly, pointing to the picture and stroking an imaginary beard again.

“No, no, Is-ra-el!” Rabbi Padwa enunciated trembling.

“Ah, good, Israel good. Okay!” he exhaled, visibly relieved.

Pacified, they continued on their way.

Actually, it’s always a miracle when Rabbi Padwa gets home safely, especially after a trip to remote undeveloped places. He had to take a five-hour taxi ride from Delhi to Punjab. The roads are unlit, full of huge potholes and drivers hardly obey the traffic direction. When he reached his final destination, after a gruelling journey, the driver asked, “You’re a rabbi, right? That means you believe in miracles, right?” he inquired. “You know we had a big miracle here today.” That’s when Rabbi Padwa opened his eyes wide, “No, what happened?”

The driver related that on the way to collect the mashgiach, his car encountered a huge pothole and the impact dislodged the steering wheel and it came off into his two hands.

A passing truck driver stopped to help him and discovered that all the pins which hold the shaft into place came loose.

With the help of a few pathetic wires he reattached the steering wheel and sent the driver on his way. The miracle is that Rabbi Padwa is here to tell the tale.

Clearly, when a roving mashgiach recites birchas hagomel it’s for more than just the plane ride.

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THE KOSHER ISSUE

Keeping kosher in the modern age doesn’t just require a separate set of dishes for both meat and dairy. The kosher consumer relies on a myriad of food companies that are committed to bringing high quality kosher products to local grocery stores and restaurants. To get an inside look at what that takes, we sat down with 25 companies that have been associated with Ami in the past to talk about their drive, passion and process.

Come with us to get a sneak peek at the inner workings of these fascinating must-know companies.

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS B'Gan Dee Best

Ostreicher's Cookies

First Choice

Paskesz

Gedilla

PCI Frozen Foods

Gefen

Shibolim

Glick's

Shufra

Golden Flow

Solomon's Meats

Healthy Joy

Taanug

J&J

Health Garden

Klein's Landau's Lieber's MaxiHealth Mehadrin Dairy Mehadrin Ice Cream Norman's NY Pasta 115 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / O C T O B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 2 8 T I S H R E I 5 7 7 5

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

B’GAN Location Linden and Lakewood, NJ Employs 100+ people Year established 1956 Two words that describe B'gan Bug free!

Kashrus supervision Rabbi Teitlebaum, Nirbator Rav, and KAJ

Betzalel Bertram

Background S. Bertram Inc. is a family-owned and operated business established in 1956 when Mr. Bertram’s father, R’ Shia, started the business together with his brother Moshe. Betzalel and his brother Moshe have been running the company, and now their children are involved in the business as well. Best known for their extensive line of greenhouse grown frozen vegetables, they are fully dedicated to ensuring the highest level of kosher supervision on frozen vegetables, with particular expertise in making sure that they are 100% bug free.

material!” Betzalel declares. “We have a full staff of mashgichim working in Ecuador, and a couple who live on the premises 24/7. Additional staff fly in from Israel and America as needed.

We even employ an agronomist from Israel who helps us navigate all agricultural challenges we encounter.

We are wholly dedicated to eliminating every growing condition that causes insects. In the vegetable business, it’s all about the bugs, and making sure they are entirely eradicated. Even better,

WHAT'S

HOT

Not for the fainthearted Ensuring that vegetables are bug free for the kosher consumer is not for the entrepreneur who can’t handle sudden weather disasters that can make a mockery of the expected bottom line. B'gan’s greenhouses have been located in Ecuador for the past 12 years because of its ideal climate and altitude that protect against bugs. Still, B'gan is not a simple, cookie cutter operation. A sudden hailstorm this past year destroyed seven of their greenhouses, and in the business of farming, B'gan owners are constantly reminded that it is indeed the Ribbono Shel Olam who determines parnasah.

“Our kashrus supervision cost is higher than the raw

What’s new for 2015?

Greenhouse grown frozen vegetables will expand to include spinach and strawberries, as well as a new line of steamable vegetables.

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Did you know?

breaded cauliflower, breaded eggplant sticks, coated French fries, and spicy and regular sweet potato fries

The public recognizes the brand Eden, which was in operation for over 50 years. Recently the company name changed to B'gan. Although best known for their frozen vegetables, B'gan produces and packages close to 1,000 kosher food items in factories all over America, Europe, Israel, and in other countries around the world. Many of these items sell directly to institutions like yeshivos, nursing homes, airlines, caterers and hospitals. B'gan sends a small army of mashgichim all over the world to ensure the highest level of kashrus.

ensuring that they never show up in the first place.”

Since B'gan produces so many products sold directly to large institutions, they also need to be flexible, responding to changing market trends. “For example, now yeshivos are requesting more whole-grain and whole-wheat products, so we produce a line of cookies for school snacks that are whole wheat.”

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Innovation is not just our motto; it defines us. That is why B’Gan has brought so many firsts to the discerning kosher consumer.

At B’Gan, we believe in continually expanding your selection of wholesome foods, Look out for even more choices in the near future!

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

THE KOSHER ISSUE

CLASSIC CONFECTIONS Location Brooklyn, NY Established 2004 Describe your company in one word INNOVATIVE

David Nadler David Nadler grew up as a foodie. David's father is one of the owners of Kitov, Zetov and Mitamim, and he encouraged David and his brother to join the market, finding a niche of their own. Ten years ago, they succeeded in doing just that, finding their niche with Classic Confections, a company that creates and distributes lines of sweet snacks and gourmet candies, which can be found in kosher grocery stores everywhere. Their lines include Dee Best, Tenli, and exclusive distributor of Vidal Kosher.

Although David’s father already had an established business, David was motivated to try something new.

“My father was never in the confection line,” says David, “and there was room to grow and be unique.” With Classic Confections, the brothers brought new trends in candy into the kosher sphere. David says, “All the mazal tov trends originated with us—you know, the mazal tov wafers, cookies, taffies and lollipops that are brought in by our company for the heimishe market.”

Considering the wide array of options in the food world, why did the brothers choose to focus on candy?

For one, it’s been a favorite since they were kids. “We got a lot of samples at home [when we were younger],” David laughs. Per their father’s suggestion, they decided to go with their “guts." “We started off right away with unique products,” says David. “Slowly but surely we grew into it.” Uniqueness is the company’s calling card; the Nadler brothers pride themselves on constantly bringing something new and different to the table, from five-color sour sticks to gourmet chocolates to top-of-the-line sweets for

What’s new for 2015?

Coming Up: DeeBest will be launching a new line of Kosher Pareve Premium Baking Chocolate in a variety of flavors: Cappuccino, Caramel and Nougat.

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Pesach. With such a selection, they have a number of bestsellers in every category, from snack food to bulk candy.

And they’ve carved a deep groove in kosher groceries everywhere. “Wherever kosher can be found,” David says, “we’re there.”

Despite the success of the company, getting it off the ground wasn’t always “sweet.” David explains, “We’re still a growing company. I can’t say we’re fully developed yet. It takes longer to bring very unique items to the market, as opposed to regular products. You have to introduce them to the market. You have to really go out there and the sales-

Did you know?

Tenli just launched an exciting new line of individual wrapped gummies in the following three fabulous flavors: Burger, Pizza and Hot Dogs.

men have to work. It’s not easy, but it is certainly worthwhile.”

As a major company in the kosher candy world, David has experience to share on how to break into the food industry. “The key to our success is being very innovative and constantly being on the lookout for new products or ideas. We’re constantly working on it. Even if it’s an item that’s already out there, we try to market it differently.”

Looking back on his experience, David acknowledges that his family connections gave him and his brother a leg up in the food business. But the success they’ve achieved is the result of working as hard as anyone starting from scratch. “My father had competition throughout his career and was always trying to be different. But even as a kid I was giving my father ideas. He definitely helped me in terms of thinking out loud, thinking out of the box. But we still have to work hard to be different from the competition.”

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FIRST CHOICE BABY FOOD Location Monsey, New York Year established 2012 One words that describe First Choice Fresh

Yoel Gross “I was a kollel yungerman when my wife and I went shopping for baby food for our new baby,” recalls 24-yearold Yoel Gross, co-owner of the first kosher line of baby food, First Choice Baby Food.

My wife bought Beech-Nut, the only kosher brand available other than Gerber, and I said to her, “This is it?

Where is the heimishe baby food?” We asked the owner of the supermarket and he said, “This is all we carry.”

Yoel had no business education and was only in his early 20s, though that did not stop him and his wife from learning as much as they could about producing and selling baby food for the next year and a half. He was sure that there was a ripe market waiting for someone like him to fill the need.

“At first, I couldn’t believe how complicated it was to produce fresh, healthy, sweet baby food. With any adult food, if it’s not sweet enough you can add sugar, or if it has a taste that needs covering up a bit, you can add spice or salt, but with baby food, say carrots, all that you can feed the baby is cooked carrots and water, and it has to be sweet with no added sugar!”

Yoel also learned all he could about the machinery necessary to produce the baby food, and how to bottle it in special baby food jars that can handle the heat of being put in a pressure cooker and heated to a high temperature in order to seal the lids and protect against bacteria.

Yoel lived by the creed: “Keep your eyes open and jump

What’s new for 2015?

Launching at KosherFest is a new product, “Rice Bites,” a cracker made for babies entirely out of rice, which melts in the baby’s mouth while he sucks on it.

“You can put the baby in his highchair and he will eat it happily all by himself!”

Multiple new products, never seen in the kosher baby food market before, are in developmental stages.”

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Kashrus supervision CRC and OU Background A company dedicated to expanding the baby food category of healthy, certified foods in the kosher community. First Choice produces 19 different flavors of fresh, healthy baby food, including five meat, and three Pesachdik choices.

on an opportunity; if you never take a risk, you’ll never be rewarded.”

How did the company get off the ground? “My cousin Yanky moved back from Eretz Yisrael and he had the same dilemma. 'In Eretz Yisrael, we had baby food with the hechsher of the Badatz and Rav Landau, and I can’t buy any of that here,' he told me. I shared my idea and he loved it,

Did you know?

First Choice Baby Food is fully approved by WIC New Jersey for 100 jars/month, and so far in New York for the meat baby food.

and now two cousins have set up the company.”

First Choice's manufacturing facility, with its latest most sophisticated machinery is located on the West Coast where diverse quality produce is grown exclusively for them. Their manufacturing facility surpasses all quality control guidelines.

“The tricky part of the baby food business is that you only get one chance,” explains Yoel, “because if the baby doesn’t like it (or the parents don’t), they aren’t going to buy it again.” The most popular flavors are applesauce, pear, apple blueberry, sweet potato and squash.

First Choice Baby Food is much fresher than their big brand competitors, as Yoel explains: “When your apples are ripe, we process it right away into applesauce.

These big brand companies will just buy pureed fruits and vegetables and reprocess them. One year, we were at Kosherfest, and a guy from Flatbush came up to me.

He said, 'I gave my baby Beech Nut and he won’t eat it, but yours, he’ll eat. What do you put into it?' So I told him: 'Nothing but the vegetable. What your baby likes is freshness!'”

THE KOSHER ISSUE

GEDILLA Location: Brooklyn, NY Plants Where Food Is Produced: We search the globe to bring the best to the consumer. We have products from Europe, Canada, USA, Israel and more.

Year Established: 1997 One Word To Describe Your Company: Gedilla of course!

Gedilla means BIG, for our BIG ideas and BIG taste! Gedilla is a wellestablished and recognized brand in the kosher world.

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

Kosher Supervision: CRC AND OU

Yiddy Paplanos Gedilla's journey began, when they took over an existing chocolate distribution company. They then expanded to include unique products that were new to the kosher consumer, such as potato crisps and fruit bars to name a few.

In time, Gedilla's customers began requesting specific items, and the company evolved into the large kosher distribution company it is today.

Gedilla also prides itself for its stringent and reliable kashrus. "We do our kosher runs in large manufacturing plants around the world," Mr. Paplanos says. "We have a mashgiach go down and go through all the steps of kashering to make sure the process goes smoothly, and that the outcome is always 100% quality and kosher" Do you find your consumer of today is the same as your consumer of a decade ago?

In a word, no. Our clientele today is well-educated about the products available to the non-kosher world.

Additionally, many of today's consumers are willing to pay more for upscale premium products.

How important is packaging to your company?

We take pride in our impeccable packaging, as we believe this is important to our consumers. We use a very professional designing firm, which does not cut corners in any step of our packaging process.

What’s new for 2015?

We are working on several new products for the coming year that we know our customers are going to love. There are some BIG Gedilla surprises coming soon...!

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Did you know?

Major trade shows is our #1 ingredient to taking the pulse of up and coming products on the market. This helps us ensure that we are always one step ahead in bringing unique and quality products to our consumers.

What is your biggest challenge?

Getting kosher products is extremely challenging. There is so much involved from the inception of a product until it reaches the consumer.

It takes months of planning and coordinating until we finally bring the best to our consumer.

If you can tell a story of your business what would it be?

WHAT'S

HOT • Snack Crackers • Potato Crisps • Snack&Fries

We were working with a very large manufacturing plant on one of our items, and at the last minute they decided that they don’t want to kosherize the plant according to the guidelines provided by our mashgiach. They almost cancelled our kosher production. After all our hard work and investment of this product, we just couldn’t believe that it would all end with nothing. But with lots of siyata dishmaya, there was an unexpected turn of events that B”H worked out for us. And to make a long story short, now this product is extremely popular and one of our best-sellers!

THE KOSHER ISSUE 20 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

GEFEN Location: Brooklyn, NY Founded: 1996 Kosher Certification: OU Volova Describe Your Company in one Word: Quality Background: Before becoming the national sales director for Gefen Foods, Landsberg worked for two years in sales.

When Gefen was founded in 1996, Landsberg was recruited as a brand manager. He's been with the company ever since.

Effy Landsberg It’s hard to believe that Gefen, the number-one selling brand in the kosher food industry is only 20 years old.

Founded in 1996 by a conglomeration of partners, it was only a matter of time before Gefen became a household name; their products a staple on your local grocery's shelves, as well as in kosher markets worldwide.

"What has made Gefen so successful," says Landsberg "is our quality. While our competitors focus on price first and everything else second, our focus is threefold: quality, quality, quality. Once we've achieved that, we find a way to also make our products affordable for the consumer. This formula works!”

This attention to quality extends to every product Gefen sells, from hearts of palm to tomato sauce to their olive oil. “Obviously, all our success is min hashamayim.

But, al pi teva, our success is because of the way we go about things,” Landsberg says. “We get into the food.

We get into the product. We understand it and we learn what makes it different, what makes it great.” Part of what makes our products great is by adhering to the highest standards in the industry. Five or six years ago, there was an article in the Sunday New York Times about how olive oil has become “watered down”; companies were blending olive oils with other oils. We sent our olive oil to independent labs to have it tested. All of our olive oil came back as 100% pure.”

One of the driving forces behind Gefen’s product development is respect for the consumer. “That's basically our

What’s new for 2015?

We’ve got some new and unique items that we’ll be launching for Pesach. And consumers can look forward to more of the same – a lot of new and exciting, cutting-edge items and the highest standards of kashrus along with the highest available quality.

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“Gezunt, parnassah, nachas.”

How did Gefen come up with their name? “We were kicking around names,” says Effy Landsberg, then Gefen’s brand manager. “The folklore is that someone said, ‘GEFEN: gezunt, parnassah, nachas.’ That’s a cute story, but it’s not a true story. Actually the name Gefen was suggested and we all really liked it!

mission statement. Today’s kosher consumers are much more savvy and they demand a quality product in kosher that rivals the national brand,” Landsberg explains. For this reason, the company is highly sensitive to the many different kashrut requirements of the community. “We’ve never compromised[on kashrus],” says Landsberg. “We’ve always had the hechsher of the Volova Rav, Rabbi Teitelbaum, in collaboration with the OU, on all Gefen products.”

But even one of the biggest names in kosher, also has its

Did you know?

The same consumers we strive to please are also the ones who often inspire our new products. A couple of years ago, for example, homemakers requested more creative baking products. The results wereWondermelt, a melting chocolate tablet in different colors used as fondant for baking, and Wonder Confetti, an edible confetti for baked goods. By listening to the needs of the consumer, we at Gefen are able to carve a niche in the kosher baking aisle.

challenges. In Gefen’s case, it’s one of PR. “Many people think that all kosher products are made in the same factory and just have different labels. This is not the case at all. In the last 20 years we’ve done a lot to get that message across vis a vis quality. People taste the difference.”

So out of all of the products he could possibly choose from, what’s Landsberg’s favorite? “That’s like asking a father who’s your favorite child,” he jokes. “I can’t answer that!”

THE KOSHER ISSUE

GLICKS Location Brooklyn (moving to Bayonne at the end of this year) Year Established 1993 Four Words That Describe Your Company Quality you can taste

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

Kosher Supervision OU, CRC New york (Hisachdus Horabonim)

Mordy Dicker Glicks Finest is appreciated and trusted by the home cook for taste, quality and attractive packaging. Many a Jewish mother will only use their renowned pre-sifted and unbleached all-purpose or high-gluten flour for challah, declaring that Glicks fresh flour really is better than all the rest. (Even for those who are machmir on yashan, fresh flour is kept in cold storage.) Their canola, olive oil, and baking sprays help provide fat-free cooking, and their full grocery line of hundreds of products fill the shelves in Jewish supermarkets around the globe.

Mordy Dicker, VP of Sales, speaks about some of their most popular products, and why thousands of customers clamor for them: “Our real fruit preserves are one of the best preserves available on the kosher market today. They taste great, with real fruit flavor and optimum texture. We are especially known for our marinara sauce, which is made with olive oil and is all natural, as well as our teriyaki sauces (honey, sesame and low sodium) which are manufactured by a highly regarded expert in the sauce market. Our gourmet sauces are meticulously manufactured to ensure maximum quality and are recognized for their natural

Did you know?

Glicks employs a product tasting committee to make sure that every product they put on the shelves is up to their highest standards.

ingredients. Many other sauces contain questionable and unhealthy ingredients, but our sauces are gourmet, healthy and delicious—and of course, they adhere to the strictest level of kashrus. It’s not an overstatement to say that we are known for world-class sauces. In addition 126 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 5 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 2 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

we recently introduced applesauce in convenient plastic cups in three flavors, natural, regular and strawberry. Our applesauce is a healthy, easy treat to send with your kids to school.

“Something else Glicks Finest is known for is our attractive packaging. We pay just as much attention to making sure that the packaging is attractive, easy to use and convenient, as we do to the quality of the food.

Customers tell us often that our packaging is the most appealing kosher packaging in the stores today.”

Shefa/Glicks healthy nosh, free of artificial coloring, is becoming a greater part of the Shefa candy division of Glicks. Shefa naturallyflavored fruit sticks took the candy Glicks Finest market by storm and are one of the graham cracker go-to products mothers request. Look pie crust, out for more new and exciting prodPie fillings, ucts from Shefa that will be debuting cooking spray, in the near future.

Glicks Finest Today's consumers are more eduHigh-gluten flour, cated and more quality driven. They Upside down hunger for variety and are excited ketchup bottles. when companies come up with new products and ideas. They look for funky flavors and packaging and are no longer willing to settle for mediocre food items packaged in blase wrappings.

Glicks Finest employs a team of conscientious and energetic salespeople who scour the kosher communities around the country. They visit stores to ensure that their products are adequately stocked and conduct inpromptu surveys among customers to get a feel for what today's consumer seeks in product. Most importantly, they listen to what the consumers say as, as they know that in the end it's the customer who drives production!

WHAT'S

HOT

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

GOLDEN FLOW Location: Brooklyn, NY Year established: 1945 Two words that describe Golden Flow: Fresh daily Kashrus supervision: CRC

Moshe Duvid Weinberger Every day, every neighborhood “Milk is the most perishable food item in a grocery,” Moshe Duvid Weinberger, who has been with Golden Flow for 20 years, says. "Freshness is the first thing that consumers are looking for when they come into a store looking for a jug of milk. And Golden Flow is the king of freshness," he says.

“We are in every major neighborhood every day,” he says. Golden Flow bottles milk more times a week than any other Kosher milk company, and their trucks can be found heading out to stores everywhere six days a week.

That’s true even during the worst snowfalls and heaviest rain squalls. And Golden Flow’s crisply fresh and rBSTfree milk is sold in Jewish communities across the US. One of the important commitments to freshness that Golden Flow has involves truth in labeling. Until recently, milks in New York had two freshness dates on them. One date was due to a New York City law that required that the stamped date be no more than nine days after bot-

What’s new for 2015?

Golden Flow recently introduced an exciting line of blended 100% fruit juices.

Using a special packaging process and only the finest ingredients, they have brought juices bursting with fresh flavor and with an extended shelf life to your local grocery stores and supermarkets. They’ve increased that line to four flavors- Orange Passion Raspberry, Orange Mango, Apple Cranberry Raspberry, and Orange Strawberry Banana. They are also introducing new flavors very soon, with different sizes of packaging following soon.

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Background: Established by chasidishe community members in New York after World War II, Golden Flow quickly became the preeminent chalav Yisrael dairy. Seventy years later, Golden Flow is still the leader in the kosher dairy market. But while they continue to be “the taste that you grew up on,” they also continue to revolutionize the industry.

Did you know?

Golden Flow packages milk and milk products in a staggering number of sizes, for every type of consumer. They produce 4 oz., 8 oz., 16 oz., 32 oz., 64 oz., 1 gallon and 5 gallon products, including skim milk, 1% milk, whole milk, chocolate milk, heavy cream and much more. While a halfgallon of milk might work for a family’s breakfast, large shuls like to use a 5 gallon container of milk for their mispallelim.

tling. That, Mr. Weinberger points out, was much too short a time for modern milk packaging methods; milk now lasts much longer than that.

But since then, the New York law has been repealed, allowing milk producers to put whatever freshness date they would like on their bottles. There has been a temptation for some producers to make the milk’s sell-by-date as late as possible, with some putting a 25-day interval from bottling on their packages. Being that milk is an extremely perishable item, the shelf life will likely not be 25 days, hence, Golden Flow, like the large reputable national brands of milk, has stuck to a 15-16 day interval for their packaging.

Golden Flow also has invested in technological advances to make their product come to your table farm fresh. One of the most exciting has been the Filtered Fresh process, which is new to the US. The centrifuge and filtering process removes 90 to 95 percent of the naturally occurring bacteria from the milk before it reaches the regular pasteurization process, which removes even more of the bacteria.

“The fact that we get milk from only one farm also helps keep our product as pure as possible,” Mr. Weinberger says.

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

HEALTHY JOY BAKES Established: 2010 Location: Manhattan, upstate NY and Lakewood NJ Kosher Certification: CRC, Hisachdus

Isaac Sander From the beginning, Healthy Joy Bakes has been a family affair. While caring for his elderly grandmother who suffered from diabetes, Isaac Sander found it nearly impossible to convince her to keep away from bread a no-no for diabetics because of its high carbohydrate content, which breaks down into sugar. Luckily, Isaac is the third generation in a family of bakers - his father owns Sander’s Bakery, where Isaac worked for years, and is still heavily involved. At the time, he says “I wanted to do something on my own,” so he started to experiment. Using his knowledge of bread, and some outside help, Sander worked extensively to create a healthy, lowcarb bread so that his grandmother wouldn’t have to go without. The result: Healthy Joy Bakes, an “Omega Power Bread” made from flaxseed with only one net carb per slice (a slice of regular bread has between 15 and 30).

Healthy Joy Bakes has kicked off a revolution not only in the kosher food industry, but in the wider food world. As one of the only low-carbohydrate breads on the market, it appeals to millions of consumers with health concerns or just those who want to lose a few pounds.

Sander’s bread recently got a push from an endorsement in the new Atkins book, and doctors and nutritionists are recommending Healthy Joy Bakes to their patients.

“I even have a well known Endocrinologist who is selling it in his office!” says Sander. Using flaxseed is what sets Healthy Joy Bakes apart from other health breads.

Doctor's Advice Omega Power Bread keeps sugar levels stable, provides tremendous health advantages and with only one net carbohydrate per slice I'm prescribing it to my patients!" — Dr. Keith Berkowitz, M.D. , Medical Director of the Center for Balanced Health

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Filled with fiber, protein, almost 20 times more Omega-3 fatty acids than salmon, flax seeds, Sander’s bread packed with nutrients and illness-fighting acids without sacrificing taste.

Getting the business off the ground was slow and steady, Sander recalls. The recipe was developed through years of work, after which Sander advertised with Rabbi Hersh Meisels of Monsey, who heads the organization Friends with Diabetes. "In the beginning he helped me a lot to spread the word about the bread,” Sander recalls. Now, he’s receiving almost daily requests from around the country. “Last week someone emailed me from California. I got

Did you know?

Healthy and wholesome Omega Power Bread was touted as the #1 choice of top physicians, dietitians, and nutritionists around the world.

orders from Colorado, from Miami.” Currently, Healthy Joy Bakes is available online and in select stores in Brooklyn, Queens and the Five Towns, though Sander is working to make it available in retail stores everywhere.

In the meantime, he ships nationwide.

One can’t help but wonder if it’s tricky shipping perishables across the United States. Sander admits that once in a while, they hit a snag: “I ship to a lot of nutritionists, and sometimes they give me a hospital’s address. It might take a few days from when it gets to the hospital until it gets to the patient. But I usually don’t have any problems.”

Now that he’s taking the kosher and non-kosher markets by storm, one might say that Sander’s revolutionary product is the best thing since, well, sliced bread.

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

J&J DAIRY Location Offices and warehouse in Elizabeth; plants in PA, upstate NY, Columbus and Canada Numbers 100 employees supply close to 100,000 Orthodox customers in every state in the US, England, Mexico and Canada Year Established 1950 One Word To Describe Your Company Uncompromising

Mordechai Feder

J&J Dairy is dedicated to serving the needs of thousands of Orthodox Jewish customers who are makpid on chalav Yisrael. Their long-time slogan is: “Kosher chalav Yisrael, first and the best.”

The staples of their dairy line—milk, buttermilk, butter, cottage cheese and sour cream—expanded over the years to include farmers cheese and cream cheese, then expanded further to offer a full line of yogurts, baby food, formula and many other dairy products.

“Things do not change throughout the centuries. We follow the belief of the Tzelemer Rav, that there is no such thing as chalav stam; there is either chalav Yisrael or chalav akum, which is prohibited according to halachah. Therefore the Tzelemer Rav wanted to make sure that every Orthodox Jew has chalav Yisrael available to him.

“Our commitment to the highest level of kashrus supervision is without question. The public often does not realize how many details have to be addressed in order to make sure that the product is chalav Yisrael. About 15 years ago, a problem was discovered in the dairy industry.

A common practice, performing surgical procedures on

Did you know?

3,000-4,000 cows in upstate New York supply all of the chalav Yisrael milk used in J&J Dairy products. The milk is then transported by truck all over the United States to other plants, that transform that milk into whipped cream cheese, traditional farmer cheese, yogurts, and other dairy products consumers love.

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Kashrus Supervision: Rabbi Joseph Grunwald, Tzelemer Rav. (Previously supervised by his father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Grunwald, who came to the US in 1938 and established chalav Yisrael in America.)

cows to correct DA(displaced abomasums) caused by bloat was determined to be problematic. Most poskim ruled that this procedure renders a cow as treif, therefore rendering its milk treif as well. We employ veterinarians who inspect every single cow to ensure that it’s a kosher cow. Our mashgichim are on the farm 24 hours a day— they practically live there. We don’t employ any mashgiach for J&J Dairy who doesn’t himself strictly adhere to chalav Yisrael.”

Mr. Feder talks about another instance where only the strictest standard of kashrus would do at J&J. For many years scallions was used as an ingredient in the vegetable cream cheese. But when scallions were found to be infested with bugs, J&J switched the ingredient to celery. After some time, celery also came under scrutiny for bugs, and once again the ingredient was changed to onions. J&J's mashgichim now core each onion by hand to ensure it is free of bugs.

That's the kind of kashrus quality you can expect from J&J.

WHAT'S

HOT • J&J Iced Capp

• J&J Full line of cream cheese

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

KLEIN'S ICE CREAM Location Brooklyn

Year established 1955 Two words that describe Klein's Ice Cream First family (of kosher ice cream) Kashrus supervision CRC and Rabbi Eckstein of Belz

Ari Klein "This past summer, my father and I traveled to Budapest on business. One night, we had dinner at a local kosher restaurant. At the end of the meal, the waiter asked us if we wanted dessert. Of course we asked for some ice cream! As the waiter went to check what they had in stock, my father turned to me and said, “Do you really think he’ll find some kosher ice cream in Budapest?”

Imagine our complete surprise when the waiter returned a short while later with three gallons of Klein’s Smooth ‘n Creamy Ice Cream! The restaurant must have obtained it third-hand through one of our international distributors.

Incidentally, my father pointed out that his father, my grandfather, Reb Efraim Klein, a”h, founder of Klein’s Ice Cream, learned in cheder in the very building that now housed the restaurant. Reb Efraim grew up in Hungary and was persecuted there during the Holocaust. He survived b"H and came to the American shores where he merited to remarry and build a new family, as well as a successful business.

To think that we returned as successful business people to the same Hungary that tried to break him, was a true nekamah. And we even found some Klein’s Ice Cream!!"

What’s new for 2015?

Look out for our Ice Cream and Sorbet Checkerboard Cakes and tantalizing IceCream Donuts in a variety of sizes, colors, and flavors.

Our soft-serve on-the-go line is also expanding to include a gamut of flavors like our mouth-watering razzle sandwich!

Find these delicious new products in freezers at your local supermarket.

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Background Zaidy, Ephraim Klein, wanted strictly kosher chalav Yisrael ice cream for his daughter and in the1950s he couldn’t find any, so he and his wife created a small business that had its roots in New York.

Long-time residents of New York still remember the old Klein’s delivery truck, and how Bobby Klein would take orders for the ice cream on her house phone, and their young daughter, would help make deliveries in the truck. Now, second and third generations are helping to run Klein's, a well-branded name in ice cream all over the globe.

Did you know?

Klein's has a line of vegan products that is now selling strongly in and outside of the Orthodox Jewish market.

Klein’s Passover line is so big, most of Klein’s standard products are now available for Passover.

Is Klein’s Ice Cream really of better quality or is it just a myth?

It’s no myth. Our products are the only ones made with real, fresh cream. We vet our own cows and our farmers know to save the best milk and fresh cream for us. Within twentyfour to forty-eight hours, we turn that milk to cream, a turnover that is unusually quick in our industry, to create the best quality. We then pass that quality onto the consumer.

In the words of John LeSevauge, renowned national ice cream scientist for over 40 years, “Unlike others, they (Klein's) put a premium on premium ingredients, premium quality, and premium freshness.

You don’t get this kind of caliber by cutting corners.”

2014 new products •N o Sugar Added Ice Cream Vanilla • Sugar Free Parve Vanilla • P int Sorbet in Chocolate, Strawberry, Raspberry, Lemon, Mango, and Passion Fruit •G reek Yogurt Bars in Strawberry, Blueberry, and Mango • Cookies 'n Cream Cones • Parve Cone Van-Chocos • Parve Mini Yummy Bites • No Sugar Added Vanilla Chocolate Dessert Cups •S ugar-free Vanilla Chocolate Dessert Cups Parve • F ruit Bars in Strawberry, Lime, Orange, and Pineapple • Zoom Sticks •S oft Serve on the go in Vanilla Chocolate, Razzle, Caramel • Soft-Serve-on-the-go Sorbet in StrawberryMango and Blueberry-Lime, Parve Vanilla Chocolate

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

LANDAU NATURAL FOODS Established: 1975 Products: 200+ Line: Natural Healthier Food + Full Line of Vitamins Kashrus supervision Volover Ruv

Father & Son, Chaim & David Landau "When my father R’ Chaim Landau and his father R’ Yehuda Hersh started the company in 1975, kosher healthy food products were a rarity" says Chaim Landau.

"The first product we ever made was rice cakes. Today we produce 30 different varieties. Our goal was to create a product that was healthful, kosher, and tasted good as well. B"H we succeeded in doing that. And since then we have expanded with many more products. We recently released buckwheat and quinoa rice cakes, followed by our potato poppers line.

Background The Landaus, of Lantev Distributing Corporation, which distributes Landau Natural Foods and Vitamins, opened up a health food store in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn in 1981. Customers were requesting certain items that were not available in kosher form. So they decided to develop items on their own private label.

good. People should know that foods that taste good can also be good for you! Personally, my favorite product is Landau's Apple Crisps. They are truly a cut above and nothing out there tastes as good."

Did any product have a surprise customer reaction?

Did you know?

DL: Yes. Landau's wrap and boil bags.

We thought they would have a limited market, but it took off. People use it for hundreds of different uses, from vegetables to chicken bones to portion control.

Today readily available in every grocery, supermarket and health food store, Landau’s was the first company to produce kosher vitamins.

You are a family business, does that affect the way you do business?

"It’s very important for us to provide a healthier alternative to unhealthy foods that people, especially kids, eat daily. Regular potato chips have around 11 grams of fat per bag, while our poppers have only one gram. So you would have to eat ten bags of poppers to get the same grams of fat as one regular bag of potato chips.

"Equally important to us is that healthy foods taste

DL: Yes, it does. As we have several generations working in the company, starting with my grandfather, we understand what a Jewish family is looking for in their products. Everybody chips in and everyone will voice their opinion, all of which leads to a fine tuned, healthy, delicious product.

What’s new for 2015?

We have a full line of mainstream vitamins made from the finest ingredients with a great hechsher; the Volover Ruv certifies all of our products. Our children’s chewable multi-vitamins are a great addition to our line. Children’s vitamins often had one major problem, they didn’t taste good – we fixed that. Our chewables taste like candy and the kids love them.

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Why should someone choose Landau’s natural health products?

WHAT'S

HOT “We recently launched Falafel Chips. Falafel is not associated with anything healthy, so we decided to once again offer a healthier alternative. These air popped chips are not fried and utilize the healthy ingredients in falafel, mainly chickpeas.

They are delicious and kids love them; I do too.

CL: We create our products with a laser focus on what the customer wants.

We are up to date with the latest health trends and what the customer is looking for. And once again, I come back to taste. Our motto is “Where Good Health Meets Great Taste”. Looking forward to eating healthy foods is imperative in living healthy. And that's what makes us proud of our health products.

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

LIEBER'S Location, Queens Year established, 1939 Two words to describe your company, Trusted Brand Kashrus supervision - Weissmandel Background A family owned company for over seventy years, Lieber’s is now employing fourth generation family. Founded by Reb Moishe Lieber, who opened up a small shop to sell coffee and chocolate, Lieber’s has grown into a kosher brand recognized in thousands of locations all over the globe.

Naftuli Chaim Moskowitz Can you tell us the "story" of how the business began?

My great-grandfather Reb Moishe Lieber arrived on American shores in 1935. Being the askan that he was, he immediately involved himself in the Jewish causes of mikvaos and kashrus. Each week, Reb Moishe would walk from his home in Williamsburg to the bigger shuls on the East Side in order to make appeals for those causes.

Yet he didn’t have a dollar to his name.

In the late 1940s, the Satmar Rebbe settled in America after the Holocaust. Reb Moishe was working with the Rebbe on several different askanus, when the Rebbe realized Reb Moishe’s dire financial straits. The Rebbe ztz”l said to “make it our business to give him business” in appreciation of all his efforts on behalf of furthering the kashrus standards in America of those days. He urged his close confidants to set Reb Moishe up in his own shop.

Until that time, Reb Moishe was producing kosher products but didn’t yet have an actual store. In 1946, Lieber’s opened their first store at 71 Lee Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

Reb Moishe was always very stringent with kashrus and his store carried the hechsher of the Debriciner Rav ztz”l until the latter’s passing. Reb Moishe always placed special emphasis on Pesach- he even ground his own coffee, nuts, and chocolates so they would be as kosher for Pesach as possible. That is when Lieber’s became synonymous with the best Kosher for Pesach Products.

Today, we, his grandchildren proudly continue to carry on his vision. Though Reb Moishe passed away in 1967 at a very young age, his wife, my great-grandmother, and her children, took over the business and expanded it, while always keeping the strictest kashrus levels. Our products are 100% kosher and 100% delicious.

What do you specialize in?

“Not only are our year-round products trusted and purchased by Orthodox Jews in the thousands, but we offer the biggest selection of Pesachdik products of any kosher food company in the world.” Wherever we go, all ven138 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

dors and consumers agree that Lieber’s is the King of Pesach Products.

For most of the world, Pesach is only eight days. For us at Lieber’s though, we think Pesach all year long. As a matter of fact, while Ami Magazine contacted me to arrange this interview, I was actually out West with my team, taking Pesach orders from our clients across the states! I know you all just finished cooking dozens of Sukkos meals, but for us at Lieber’s the focus is now all on Pesach!

As I've said before, Pesach is only eight days. Our goal at Lieber’s is to make those eight days as tasty as possible, by offering you the biggest selection of mouthwatering Kosher for Pesach products, while still maintaining the highest level of kashrus without compromise, just like Reb Moishe’s tradition. As with all the rest of our products, our Pesach line is also under the strict rabbinical supervision of Rabbi Weissmandel.

Did you know?

We employ a team of 2-3 people whose job it is to be dedicated 24/6 to product development. They speak directly to store owners and customers to learn about what they want, to follow closely the trends, and to make sure we keep ahead of our customers so that they are always satisfied. We are always updating and expanding our product line to meet demand. Ten years ago, no one dreamed of cooking with hearts of palm, or the range of soy sauces, and pasta sauces we now sell!”

Recently, we attempted to make a new product. We encountered an issue with the facility we wanted to use. As always, we turned to Rav Weissmandel, who ruled that, al pi halacha, we were okay to proceed as planned. However, according to our company's high standards, he didn’t feel comfortable having us produce the product under those conditions. We then decided to drop the project. Interestingly enough, several months later we found a different facility to produce this product at the highest kashrus standards. By using this facility, we were actually able to cut the production costs in half, allowing us to pass on the savings to you, the consumer.

This Divine intervention reminded us that, as always, by doing what you feel is right, you never lose out.

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

MAXI HEALTH Location Brooklyn Year established 1974 One words that describe Maxi Health Leaders Kashrus supervision Badatz Eidah Chareidis & OU

Moishe Weinberger

The secret to their success, says Moishe Weinberger, Maxi Health nutritional consultant and assistant to Dr. Friedman, is their commitment to quality. First and foremost, they stay on top of the latest nutritional research.

“Not everything that’s natural and sold in a health food store is safe to take,” Weinberger explains. “We only work with supplements that have solid research behind them. We don’t take any risks. A lot of effort and money is invested to get a product right and to have the highest quality product on the market.” For this reason, Maxi Health spares no expense to create the perfect formula.

“We choose the best products, even if they’re more expensive,” says Weinberger. “We bring in the best from all over the world even if they can get it from China for a fraction of the price. ” Their manufacturing standards, too, are set high, with formulas undergoing rigorous testing in laboratories with the latest technological equipment. Over the years, they’ve developed relationships with nutritional experts, including doctors and nutritionists, to create products of the highest caliber. “Maxi has 40 years of experience in this industry,” says Weinberger. “We know what we’re doing.”

High-quality products are a draw even in the nonkosher food market, but Maxi Health made it possible

What’s new for 2015?

We’re going to have a few different types of protein powders. Now we have our best-selling Naturemax, a soy-protein base. We’re also going to have other protein powders for people who are allergic to soy.

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Background Maxi Health is the hip grandfather of the kosher health market. Around since 1974, the company was ahead of the curve for its time, riding the crest of a new wave in health and wellness which, 40 years later, is now a major market in the food industry. The company was founded by Jack Friedman, PhD, a doctor of nutrition, along with his father, who expanded their health food store in Brooklyn into a successful business that specializes in kosher vitamins and nutritional supplements. Now, Maxi Health (named for “Maximum Health”) sells over 250 different varieties and can be found in stores everywhere.

for kosher consumers to reap the benefits of their supplements with the development of Maxi-caps, kosher capsules that are free of any non-kosher bindings, fillers or nutrients. They sought out kosher certification from the OU, who, Weinberger notes, knew quite a bit about nutrition.

With such a wide array of supplements to choose from, it’s tough for Weinberger to pick a favorite, though he is partial to the fish oil capsules. “They’re enteric coated capsules, which means they survive stomach acids, and

Did you know?

Maxi Health is the only vitamin brand using enzymax to help you absorb the nutrients in your body.

are therefore very beneficial for people with digestive issues.” Their fish oil line also happens to be their best seller, with specialty formulas to benefit the eyes, brain, memory, mood and joints. Their Badatz certified fish oil line, which was formerly out of stock, will be returning by popular demand this year.

When they first started out, Maxi Health forged the path for health and nutrition in the kosher world, and they’re showing no signs of slowing down. “We are definitely the leaders in nutritional science in the Jewish market,” Weinberger says, “and we are very satisfied with the results.”

You don’t settle for anything less than the top doctor when it comes to health. Likewise, we at Maxi-Health® don’t settle for anything less than the top when it comes to researching true quality kosher vitamins that work. Using only authentic raw materials, unique formulations and prominent researchers, Maxi-Health® vitamins fits neatly into everyones ’top’ health needs.

800.544.MAXI

WWW.MAXIHEALTH.COM

INFO@MAXIHEALTH.COM

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any disease.

Our research, YOUR HEALTH.

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

AT'S

OT

MEHADRIN DAIRY Location Elizabeth, NJ; PA, upstate NY; Columbus, Ohio; Canada Employs 100+ people Year established 1952 Two words that describe Mehadrin Uncompromising kashrus

Larry Farkas Mehadrin got its start when European Jews immigrated to America after the war and couldn’t find chalav Yisrael.

The initial founders of Mehadrin—four partners—did not even start the company to make a profitable business. They were focused on filling this dire need, in very difficult circumstances. The company grew from its humble roots to become the most trusted brand in the chalav Yisrael dairy market, with second-generation family now running the business.

Larry Farkas testifies to the long-standing policy of never wavering on kashrus standards: “Sometimes certain products won’t be available (temporarily) from us because of kashrus. We are not ever going to compromise on the quality or kashrus of our products, even if that means a monetary loss to us. And many times we are put to the test.

“We once had to halt production in our processing plant because a tanker of milk arrived, and was lacking the seal required by halachah. Apparently the seal came loose after enduring a rough ride. Even though we knew the mashgiach had sealed it properly at the farm and there are ways to halachically circumvent this problem, we chose the more

What’s new for 2015?

We just introduced Fit and Free Greek yogurt, in vanilla, strawberry, black cherry, cappuccino, mixed berry and pomegranate/strawberry flavors. We have worked on this product for 15 months, to offer our customers a no sugar added, fat-free, chalav Yisrael Greek yogurt in six flavors, for only 80 calories. It’s an incredible product for our health-conscious customers. We are known innovators in emulating the quality and taste that world-famous leading national brands offer, and producing them as chalav Yisrael products.

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Kashrus supervision Magrover Rav, Rabbi Katz (previously Volover Rav, Rabbi Teitelbaum for 25 years)

stringent approach and we sold 70,000 pounds of milk at a loss to us. On kashrus, we will never compromise and our customers know this.”

In addition to impeccable kashrus, we focus on quality taste. I've heard a statement by the Voideslover Rav, zt"l, repeated, that when it comes to kosher, there are three

Did you know?

The consumer really has no idea how much effort goes into making a single serving of fruit-flavored yogurt or cottage cheese available. We have to be sure the fruits are free of insects, and we bring together multitudes of raw materials from different locations around the globe to create the right flavor blend, while at the same time making sure that all components meet the highest level of kashrus standards. When you buy a bottle of Coke, and it costs a buck, what’s in it? Some flavoring, water and sugar. A cup of kosher chalav Yisrael yogurt or cottage cheese is an incredibly complex and expensive process.

WHAT'S

HOT

• Mehadrin Chocolate

issues. It costs more, it's not always Leben available, and it doesn't always taste • Mehadrin Cheese so good. B"H Mehadrin has overcome Snack these issues, and has proven that such is not the case today. In fact, I was re• Mehadrin Greek cently present at a food-tasting event Yogurt in Penn State University, and heard a food scientist proclaim: "I never knew that kosher can be so tasty!"

Mehadrin for over 60 years ‘Cuz it's a family tradition!

THE KOSHER ISSUE

MEHADRIN ICE CREAM Location Elizabeth offices and warehouse, plants in PA, upstate NY, Columbus, and Canada Employs: 100 employees Year established: 1950 Two words to describe your company – Innovation

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

Kashrus supervision: Magrover Rav, Rabbi Katz (previously Volover Rav, Rabbi Teitelbaum for 25 years)

Alex Sicherman When we asked Mehadrin’s Alex Sicherman, what inspired the company to introduce premium ice cream into the cholov Yisroel market, he reminded us that Mehadrin has always been a known innovator in the ice cream and cholov Yisroel market. They were the first company to dream up the idea of co-branding with major brands like Minute Maid orange juice and Luigi’s ices. These companies, did not make it easy for them. It took three years to get all of the licensing and approval required to bring the products to the kosher market.

World renowned brand names, like Dannon, who had previously never allowed any company to sell their foodstuff under a private label, made exceptions for Mehadrin.

Similarly, Elan Frozen Yogurt and Ross Labs (nutritional formulas) felt it would be advantageous to them, to allow Mehadrin to sell their products under a combined label in order to access Mehadrin’s significant market.

Alex explained that Mehadrin does not operate its own ice cream factory, instead it uses several existing ice cream manufacturing plants and makes special runs of cholov Yisroel products every month or two. "The cholov Yisroel market is not big enough to allow for a dedicated factory to produce the variety, that we want to bring to the kosher market."

We asked what challenges they face when making cholov Yisroel runs in non-kosher ice cream plants.

"Imagine you must convince the company to completely shut off their equipment for 24 hours before your run, so it will be ready for kashering. This takes place in middle of the high season, and they don’t want to

What’s new for 2015?

Stay tuned for new and exciting products coming this year!

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Did you know?

Regular ice cream contains 10% butterfat, but Mehadrin’s premium ice cream is 12% butterfat. If you want to see for yourself how this extra 2 percent makes a difference, pick up a half gallon of regular ice cream in one hand, and then hold a half-gallon of Mehadrin Premium Ice Cream in the other.

be bothered! (We run a production during the summer season to ensure freshness, and we reserve our slot six or seven months in advance.) Then they have to handle “special” ingredients. On our part, we have to source every single ingredient. For cookies and cream flavor, for example, we have to send the Rav hamachshir directly to the cookie bakery and make sure everything there is kosher to our standard. He reviews all the ingerdients. We contract with two large dairy farms to provide our milk; we require a mashgiach to be there 24/7.

Mr. Sicherman explained that Mehadrin is always looking to add flavors and expand its selection. When we asked if there are certain ice cream flavors that will never be made kosher, he said "There are certain ingredients, flavors and stabilizers that just can’t be made kosher."

Mehadrin’s product lines of ice cream do not get created in weeks, or months. Innovation for Mehadrin takes a long time because the company philosophy is that they will not come out with any new product unless they are satisfied that they have achieved the best quality possible.

If it doesn’t meet their standards 100%, it stays in research and development until it does.

Consumers don’t have to settle for just classic plain vanilla (although it remains a popular flavor). Their product line of premium ice creams include delicious combinations like creamy vanilla and rich chocolate, cookie dough in vanilla ice cream, rich and creamy coffee ice cream, chocolate cookies in vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge ripple in rich vanilla ice cream.

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

NORMAN'S Location Exclusive Chalav Yisroel Plant in Rutherford, NJ. Distribution in Fairfield, NJ. Year Established 1999 Two Words To Describe Your Company Innovative, kosher reinvented Kosher Supervision: Nirbatir

Shulem Ostriecher Shulem Ostriecher had a goal: to bring the finesse of European dairy products to the kosher refrigerator. The US dairy industry—including the kosher industry—has tended to lag behind Israel and Europe in its adoption of new processes and flavors. Shulem wanted to change that. In one impressive advance, Norman’s perfected the Greek yogurt and brought it to the American kosher consumer.

What the Norman’s company is most proud of is that its products have transformed the way people live. What they eat at work, for lunch or for a quick and filling snack has changed entirely from what it was before they experienced Norman’s. The breakfast that mothers give their children has evolved. The Greek yogurt has moved from being unknown in kosher homes to becoming a household item and comfort food.

In their quest to upgrade dairy, Normans has focused on creating a separate line directly for children. Poppers, an item that children particularly love, is another new way for families to eat good, wholesome food that is fun and satisfying. Another introduction into the world of dairy was the Taste line, featuring flavor combinations never yet experienced in the US market.

What’s new for 2015?

2% Greek Creamy Blends More exciting line to Norman's Greek Lots of new flavors on all of Norman's yogurt lines

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Did you know?

In the pipeline are several other products that will give Norman fans the tastes they didn’t know they were missing. Among those poised to be released in the first quarter of 2015 are Greek yogurts specific to kids as well as Greek yogurts with live pro-biotic cultures.

Rav Aaron Teitelbaum, the Nirbater Rav, under whose hashgachah Norman’s yogurt is produced, says that there are some special points about Norman’s. “The fact that the entire plant is chalav Yisrael and owned by shomrei Torah u’mitzvos is a big advantage from a kashrus point of view,” Rabbi Teitelbaum says. Added to that are some very strict standards he uses in certifying the chalov Yisrael plant.

The kashrus oversight of production of Norman’s Greek yogurt line begins with the milking of the cows and ends with the final packaging. Rabbi Teitelbaum points out that the entire process is supervised by a mashgiach temidi and that he does not rely on video supervision. When it comes to the fruits that are inserted into the yogurts, there is never a question about bugs. “The fruits are totally converted into liquids, heated, and filtered, which eliminates any possibility of bugs or the need for inspecting the fruits for bugs,” the rav says. He adds that when the kosher for Pesach production of the yogurts will begin, no kitniyos will be used in any of the ingredients.

THE KOSHER ISSUE

NEW YORK PASTA AUTHORITY Location Brooklyn and Central New Jersey Sales Over one million pieces of ravioli sold annually Year established 1998

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

Three words that describe New York Pasta Authority Delicious, high-quality, fast!

Moshe Katzman “When we make our ravioli, we don’t take any shortcuts,” Moshe insists. “Our cheese is whole milk ricotta and mozzarella. The Italian guy making ravioli can get away with giving less quality to his customers, but for our customers, they only get the very best.(In fact, an Italian ravioli maker actually takes home our product to his family because it’s higher quality than what he produces for his customers!) For our pareve products, we keep the ingredients simple: mushrooms, sauteed onions, garlic, salt, pepper and a bit of bread crumbs. When our customers bite into a mushroom ravioli, they get a burst of mushroom flavor, like they are supposed to.”

Moshe always knew he wanted to be in the food business. But when he got married 20 years ago to his wife Chavi, she wasn’t keen on him opening a restaurant that would leave them with no quality of family life. He soon got involved in the food business as a mashgiach, which gave him a segue into the food business without running a restaurant 24/6. After years in that business, and then a stint of five years helping to run a gefilte fish business, he had learned enough, with his wife’s blessing this time, to open his own food business.

Why ravioli? “Years ago when we got started, there were no good kosher ravioli products out there and a colleague of mine said, 'Moshe, why don’t you do it?'”

What’s new for 2015?

Look forward to New York Pasta Authority’s expanding sauce line. Want to make fresh alfredo but it’s too hard to hunt down the chalav Yisrael heavy cream? No worries; ready-made alfredo that you can boil in a bag is coming your way. Also coming soon is natural homemade marinara sauce, vodka sauce and pesto sauce.

(No more buying a bushel of basil just to make enough for four people!) Your kids and any pizza-loving adults will enjoy new pizza poppers—pizza raviolis breaded and deep fried for an easy snack. All you need to do is warm them up.

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Kashrus supervision CRC Background Moshe Katzman, owner with his wife, Chavi, of New York Pasta Authority, Inc. which manufactures a complete line of gourmet pareve and chalav Yisrael frozen pasta products in both retail and food service including ravioli, tortellini, manicotti, stuffed shells, gnocchi and more.

And so he did, in a big way. In 1998, after perfecting his recipes and learning how to kasher the equipment in an Italian manufacturing plant, he launched his ravioli business, initially selling directly to caterers, restaurants and airlines, before expanding eight years later into the consumer market as well.

The best evidence to the wild success of New York Pasta Authority is what happens when they demonstrate their products at Pomegranate, Shoprite, Gourmet Glatt and other kosher stores all over the country. “When we do a demo, 90 percent of those who taste our products buy a bag or two. It’s typical for us to move 350 bags of products

Did you know?

If you’ve ever enjoyed high-quality chalav Yisrael ravioli in any kosher restaurant or catered event, it’s most likely been supplied by New York Pasta Authority, who supplies ravioli to just about every kosher caterer and restaurant all over the United States. They also sell to England, Canada and Switzerland, and their product has even traveled as far as Hong Kong.

in a four-hour demo,” Moshe declares.

It’s not just the taste of the product that has their customers buying often. It’s also the convenience. “Start a pot of water boiling, in 5-7 minutes put in the ravioli, open up any jar of sauce, and supper is ready. With both parents working and arriving home at the same time as the kids, and everyone hungry, a delicious supper, whether it’s cheese, spinach cheese, mushroom, tortellini, tomato (parve) or even a cold salad with pesto sauce, can be ready in 15 minutes!”

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

OSTREICHER’S COOKIES Location: New Square, NY Year Established, 1964 One word to describe your company, Wholesome Homemade Kashrus Supervision: New Square Kosher Certification

Yisroel Dovid Ostreicher "It was my wife’s idea for me to become a baker," admits Reb Yisroel Dovid Ostreicher. "When my wife a"h saw that there were no kosher cookies on the market, she knew what she had to do. She was a fantastic pastry chef, all she needed to do was take her skills to a new level. She sat in the library for days and researched the chemistry and secrets of dough. When she finished perfecting her recipe, I went out and bought a large, clunky second hand machine, a tank with two rollers, plus a machine to stamp each cookie. For $500.00 we were in business!"

Initially the Ostreichers thought to partner with Reisman Brothers Bakery Company to open a retail bake shop, but they doubted that a bakery in Boro Park would succeed.

This was back in 1964 when Boro Park was not what it is today. They decided to stick with wholesale baking.

Originally, Ostreicher's produced chocolate chip cookies only. A competitor had opened and was producing honey cookies. Not wanting to step on anyone's toes, the Ostriechers chose not to expand to additional cookies.

When the competitors began producing chocolate chip cookies, the Ostriechers were ready to produce the honey cookies, Reb Yisroel Dovid's personal favorite, until today.

Mrs. Ostreicher a"h insisted on sifted flour and freshly cracked eggs that were individually checked for bloodspots.

What’s new for 2015?

The honey cookie is getting a facelift, with new ziplock bags that will keep it fresher and more attractive. An entire line of spelt, sugar free and whole wheat cookies are on the shelves or in the developing stages. More unique lines that look at today’s health conscious consumer are in the wings.

Last year, the driedel cookies debuted in time for Chanukah. The design had sprinkles and this is the only product in Ostriecher’s entire production that incorporates artificial color.

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She also insisted on pricing the cookies at a very affordable low price. When the grocer asked her why she was willing to lose money on each bag, Mrs. Ostriecher responded that she saw her cookies as the sweet treat every child should be able to afford. She rather took a smaller profit and sold to more people, more often.

“Every morning I’d get up at dawn", says Mr. Ostreicher, "daven vaskin and prepare the dough for the workers.

When the cookies were ready and bagged, I took them in my car to deliver to the stores. In the beginning I went from bungalow colony to bungalow colony to sell our cookies.”

The Ostreicher popular Pesach line came about as a

Did you know?

Mrs. Ostreicher was very specific about what she wanted in her cookies. No preservatives. Only wholesome pure ingredients that she would confidently serve her own children could make its way into the batch.

No chemicals. No coloring. She already knew back then how detrimental coloring is to a developing child. And that's the way the Ostreicher cookies are made to this very day.

result of a need to keep their staff busy after the company stopped mass producing chometz right before Purim. The Pesach line is produced in a separate facility.

Ostreicher's Lady Fingers required more egg whites than yolks. Every day Reb Yisroel Dovid schlepped up cartons of eggs to women who cracked and checked them.

Then he was forced to discard the yolks. When he found out that he could buy separated eggs, Mrs. Ostriecher wouldn’t hear of it, holding on to her belief that our cookies be made just the way our customers would bake them in their own homes. Reb Yisroel Dovid continued the old practice until he found another product in which to incorporate the yolks.

Ever mindful of keeping their products affordable, the Ostreichers decided to rename the Lady Fingers as Baby Fingers, and sell them in a three pound box, instead of the one pound box. "People have enough Yom Tov expenses," was Mrs. Ostreicher's thinking.

Staying true to their precept preserved the integrity of Ostreicher's line to this day.

Dart Design /Metzion

How was your day?

Ostreicher’s full line of healthy cookies is perfect for any time of day.

Treat your children with a clear conscience, and enjoy our large selection of delicious flavors without guilt!

Honey

Chocolate Chip

Whole Wheat Honey

Whole Wheat Marble

Whole Wheat Sugar Free Marble

The brand that has been savored for three generations!

Ostreicher’s - everyone’s favorite cookies, baked with love in our homey kitchen, and served with pride in all kosher households since ‘62.

Available in your local supermarkets

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

PASKESZ Location: Main headquarters in Brooklyn, NY with additional locations in Belgium, Israel, and Canada Year established, 1954 One word to describe your company Innovative Background: Paskesz has been a pioneer innovator in kosher products for over 60 years, and is a family-run business, with the third generation now involved.

The Paskesz Team Mr. Lazer Paskesz was the original candyman. In fact, it was the Paskesz family’s expertise in sweets that saved him from Nazi annihilation. In Hungary, where he was in the candy and sweets business, the family developed a business relationship with a Hungarian non-Jew, who ended up saving him and his extended family. Looking to start a new life, he immigrated to America and sought the counsel of Harav Yoel Teitlebaum, zt”l, the Satmar Rebbe. The Rebbe encouraged him to start up his candy business in America. At that time, kosher candy was hard to find, and the demand was there due to the influx of recent immigrants.

Stories are told about Mr. Paskesz: “He was the one who used to weigh the candy and then throw in a few extra pieces just to be sure he was fair. He loved kids, and wherever he went they followed him knowing that treats were in store. He thrived on making people happy, and the candy business was part of it.”

Throughout the years, many kosher consumers have come to rely on Paskesz to make available trusted kosher versions of their favorite classic candies. Paskesz is also partnered with well-known brands such as Pez, Haribo, Unilever and others to bring world class products to the kosher market.

Paskesz is a kosher innovator, listening to it’s educated consumers and responding with healthful food lines, such as gluten-free, all natural and non GMO, thus raising the bar of kosher quality, health and kashrus. The company expresses excitement about their newest products and product lines that are already being met with consumer accolades.

Ami sat down with the Paskesz people to discuss their new and upcoming products: Paskesz Golden Harvest line focuses on all natural healthy products such as rice cakes, crackers, and a line of new breakfast cereals, including Corn Bites (gluten free), Cinnamon Blitz, Peanut Butter & Cocoa, sugarfree Fiber Active, and the delicious Honey Oat Crunch which 152 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

won an award in the category of “Best New Product” award at this year’s Kosherfest 2014.

Paskesz Fruit Snacks, brings one of the most popular general market snacks to the kosher market. The innovative technique used in production translates into a delicious soft bite bursting with fruity flavor. Made with real fruit, Paskesz Fruit Snacks are gluten free, fat free, and contain no preservatives. They are perfect for afterschool treats, lunchbox staples, and on the go, available in three delicious varieties: Fruit Medley, Very Berry, and Wild Strawberry.

Paskesz Good Grains crackers, contain individually wrapped packs of all-natural crackers in six exciting varieties. These tasty pareve crackers are low fat and cholesterol free, with no artificial flavors, no colors or preservatives, and no trans fats. The flavors available are Wholegrain Spelt, Multigrain Original and Garlic, Flatbread Everything, and Whole Wheat, as well as Hearty Crisps, a delicious low-carb option made with extra virgin olive oil.

Did you know?

Paskesz marshmallows are among the company's most popular products and are a must have everywhere from campfires, to home and restaurant cooking.

Paskesz iQrackers, is a high fiber, low-calorie cracker, comprised of 100% whole grains and seeds, GMO-free and containing NO added sugars, fats, or oils, white flour, preservatives, flavor additives, food coloring, or starches. Available in two varieties: whole wheat original and whole wheat & herbs.

Paskesz Pop Corn Crisps­are the skinny snack that lacks fat! Pop Corn Crisps are a healthy new addition to the kosher snack market. Popped, not fried, these whole-grain gluten-free popped corn crisps are satisfying, crunchy 80-calorie snacks, containing only 1.5 grams of fat and no MSG or cholesterol, available in two tasty varieties, Sea Salt and Kettle – Salty & Sweet.

Real Fruit.

Real Good.

3 Delicious Flavors!

WILD STRAWBERRY • VERY BERRY • FRUIT MEDLEY

100% VITAMIN C • 25% VITAMIN A & E • FAT FREE • GLUTEN FREE • NO PRESERVATIVES

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

PCI FROZEN FOODS Location: Rahway, NJ Established: 2014 Background For the past 2 years, Yoni has been trying to aquire equipment from all different places around the world. At one point yoni decided to go it alone and manufacter his own equipment.

Yoni Glatzer Yoni Glatzer, a Monsey native, founded PCI Frozen Foods in September 2014, after years of owning online businesses. On the lookout for something new and different, he launched his new company, which makes and sells kosher pizza cones, and no one is more excited about the project than he is. “It’s fun to eat,” he says. “You can eat it on the go, and you’re clean when you get out of the car. And it’s delicious.”

His project is an ambitious one. The product has appeal, though most people don’t know what a pizza cone is - yet. “It’s one piece of dough that flows from the bottom up in the shape of a cone, crispy on the inside and outside,” Glatzer explains. “The bottom of the cone has a one inch crust, which gives you that crunch at the end, like a slice of pizza. That’s the highlight of the cone.”

Glatzer discovered the product in Italy, from where the market has expanded into 150 stores around Europe.

There, store owners buy the cones from the franchise and pay royalties, but Glatzer opted to do something different. He became the first company in the US to make pizza cones, and the first in the world to produce them to sell to other businesses. “I sell to a lot of stores,” says Glatzer. “I make the cones, which are also available in whole wheat, and sell them with a little oven stand. Pizza stores fill them with their own cheeses and sauces. We’re still new at it, but we're growing pretty rapidly.”

Learning how to make the perfect pizza cone, was no breeze. Glatzer explains, “It’s very tricky to get it to stand upwards and to hold up.” To perfect his cone, Glatzer brought in two chefs from Italy with whom he worked for

What’s new for 2015?

Pizza Cones made out of dough, will be available in all supermarkets for retail purchase.

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Two words to describe what you do No Preservatives Kashrus Rabbi Gruber & OU

a number of days until they nailed it. Now, Glatzer is very proud of his finished product. “It’s something that can’t be duplicated. Anyone who tries to make it, the most they can do is cut a piece of dough and fold it. But it will have a seam going down the middle, which doesn’t look nice and it will open.”

Did you know?

Although the pizza cones are sizzling hot on the inside, they are especially made to cool off enough on the outside so that you can hold it.

Armed with a product with such a wide appeal, Glatzer is setting his sights on the kosher market and beyond.

Glatzer says he is currently in negotiations with Sysco and Restaurant Depot, as well as some big players in the frozen pizza market, both kosher and non-kosher, who want to sell the cones in the freezer sections of supermarkets.

"But", says Glatzer, "my passion is in the product, not the sales. My expertise is to shape and mold the cones; we’ll let the pizza guys take care of the retail".

Glatzer’s ultimate goal for the business is to break into pizzerias and caterers. “The dough is pareve,” he says, “so we have a lot of caterers who already ordered them. We also have minis, which are very good for finger food and deli.” More inventive folks have filled the pizza cones with sweets and ice cream, for a unique spin on a sundae.

Once he’s established in retail, Glatzer plans to acquire more equipment to keep up with the kosher and nonkosher markets. In the meantime, though, he has his plate full with orders: “We just have to keep up with the demand!”

THE KOSHER ISSUE 20 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

SHIBOLIM Location Brooklyn. Soon to be in Bayonnne, New Jersey Year established 2005 One word that describes Shibolim Trustworthy Kashrus supervision Badatz Eidah Hachareidis, Jerusalem Background When Hershel Glueck retired from many years in the textile business, he didn’t rest for long. Searching for a healthy kosher cracker to eat, he was stunned that there was none to be found. He was looking only to feed himself a healthier alternative to the chazerai that he found on the shelves. In 2005, he determined that if it didn’t exist already, he would bring it to Jews who, like him, needed and wanted healthy, tasty alternatives to the crackers and cookies that were then available.

Hershel Glueck What started as a personal search transformed into a brand and an industry, and success beyond any dream he ever had.

“Shibolim, meaning stalks of grain, is what it is today only with immense siyata dishmaya,” he insists. “I wanted to keep myself busy when I retired from the textile business, and it succeeded so fast, that here I am busy with a whole new career! The Ribbono Shel Olam gave me the wisdom.”

When Hershel learned how to produce his healthy and tasty line of crackers in Israel, he imported at first small quantities of them to the East Coast glatt supermarkets, and they quickly sold out. The demand for his products was so high that within months he was expanding his product line in response to his customers’ feedback. He worked with a food technologist in Israel who helped him to create products that were not only healthy, but had a true wholesome and delicious taste.

“If it’s not delicious, I’m not interested. It’s not enough

What’s new for 2015?

The public is well-educated on the health benefits of whole grain, but there are many other products that are healthy as well, and the public needs to be educated. For example, nuts are full of protein and fiber and a very healthy food in moderation. Going forward, Shibolim will be bringing more healthy products to their loyal customers and fans, using ingredients that are delicious and healthy, and perhaps previously undiscovered.

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Did you know?

Don’t be fooled by clever marketers. Multigrain is not whole grain.

People see the word "multigrain” and they assume that the product is healthy. It’s a big mistake. Only whole-grain products provide fiber because they include the bran, which is where all the fiber is. The FDA recommends adults eat 25-30 grams of fiber a day. Eating wholegrain products helps you achieve that goal, and also slows down the increase in blood sugar that occurs after eating refined flour with no fiber.

to be healthy. First, it has to be tasty. I work with my team to transform delicious products that are not healthy into healthy alternatives. But I will never sacrifice on taste.

If 100 people tell me that it’s delicious, but it’s not perfect, it doesn’t go on the shelf. I will not sell a product unless I can stand by it 100 percent. If you see the word 'Shibolim' on the box, you can put it into your cart and rest assured that we did the work to ensure that the product is of the highest level of kashrus and is delicious and healthy.”

Three years after founding Shibolim, Kedem Food Products bought Shibolim, and opened up even bigger markets for their product line. Now you’ll find their products in the kosher aisles of most mainstream supermarkets, as well as in kosher grocery stores all over the world, especially in London, Belgium, France, Canada and the US.

THE KOSHER ISSUE

SHUFRA Location: Brooklyn, NY Location Of Plants Where You Produce Your Products: We make sure to get the best quality of all. Our Dutch cocoa for example is imported from Holland. Our Premier Chocolate Bar is from Europe. The 64% cocoa baking chocolate is imported from France. We have some products made in the USA, and more...

Two Word Description: Cravers Choice Year Established: About 40 years ago

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

Kashrus Supervision - CRC and OU

Chaim Eidlisz

From its start, Shufra quickly rose in popularity because of its exceptional premium baking products and chocolates. Marketed to the home chef, the chocolate connoisseur, and the high-end kosher restaurant looking for quality parve and dairy chocolate, Shufra has legions of fans who will eat and serve nothing but Shufra chocolate. It is widely distributed in Kosher stores, and in the Kosher aisles of most major supermarkets in the USA, Canada, Europe and Israel.

What is the meaning of the name of your brand?

Shufra is Hebrew for “nice look”. We bring the best quality baking products by sourcing premium ingrediants so that our customers' baked delicacies turn out nice and delicious! We also have beautiful looking truffles and chocolates including: Scrunchy Squares, Marshmallows, Chocolate Covered Nuts and many more.

Which of your items are most popular?

Our most popular items are cocoa and baking chocolates. They are known for their quality and taste. People only want to use Shufra baking products based on their great experience with it!

What’s new for 2015?

Although best known for our chocolate, Shufra is expanding into non-chocolate snack foods. We recently came out with Peanut Butter Filled Pretzel Nuggets, which quickly became very popular. We will be adding flavored pretzel nuggets soon, available in bbq and onion garlic, and they taste absolutely delicious!

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Did you know?

There was a time in this world when Viennese Crunch didn’t even exist. Shufra was the first to break through and invent Viennese Crunch.

With the right recipes and ingredients, it ended up being a favorite chocolate treat for thousands of consumers.

WHAT'S

HOT

• Peanut butter filled

Chaim proudly explains: “Our poppretzel ular baking chocolate made with 64% • Shufra 64% baking cocoa, is a phenomenal product. The chocolate Shufra’s 64% baking chocolate bar is just right, not to sweet and not too • Shufra Premium bitter. You don't have to use it just 100% Holland for baking. People love to snack on it, Cocoa as it is just the perfect taste. It melts beautifully too, so people love using it when baking, and creating fancy desserts just by melting it. In fact, many kosher bakeries and caterers constantly order Shufra chocolate, available in bulk in a variety of flavor dark, milk, and white chocolate. They tell me – we can’t serve a fancy dessert without drizzling Shufra 64% chocolate on it, which makes it a perfect and tasty dessert.

What would you label your biggest triumph?

That would be Viennese Crunch!

Every Baker’s

FAVORITE BRAND

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

SOLOMON’S MEATS Location: Hastings, Nebraska and Dawson, Minnesota Four words that describe Solomon’s Meats: Premium kashrus, premium meat Kosher supervision: Vaad Hakashrus of New Square, under HaRav Aron Goldmunzer , HaRav Yechiel Steinmetz, of Monsey; and the OU

Rabbi Shmuel Etziony Amid the swaying corn fields and rolling plains of Nebraska, famously dotted with grazing cattle, in the heartland of the US, there is a kosher phenomenon occurring.

Here, in the land of spurs and tornadoes, a small community of rabbonim, shochtim, and mashgichim has emerged.

With comfortable living accommodations, a beis midrash, a mikvah, and many other amenities, they have turned Hastings, the small town where Solomon’s plant is located, into a heimishe and familiar environment. Since most of the premium Angus cattle is raised nearby, these highly qualified rabbonim, work together as a tightly knit group, enabling the consistent production of the most superior quality meat products available on the market today. This is an exciting and singular development, especially for the most discerning kosher consumer.

This seemingly impossible feat is the vision of Mr. Fischel Ziegelheim and his partners, owners of Solomon’s Glatt Kosher Premium Meats. Their mission statement is simple, yet the driving force behind their success. “We aim to produce the finest beef products with the most uncompromising commitment to kashrus.”

This commitment and approach has propelled Solomon’s to capture their market share and has become a household name. Rabbi Shmuel Etziony, the kashrus supervision manager for Solomon’s, describes the effort that goes into every aspect of the production, since the company is fastidious in every detail of the process. Well before the cattle

What’s new for 2015?

Solomon’s owns their own deli facility in Dawson, Minnesota, where fresh meat is shipped directly from the plant in Nebraska. Solomon’s full line of deli products is famous for its exceptional quality and rich taste. The deli line is expanding to provide an even wider selection of delicious deli and freezer case products, including a new line of turkey deli, corn dogs, franks-in-blanks, egg rolls, hamburger patties and more.

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Background: Fischel Ziegelheim and his partners have brought together the most stringent kashrus with the highest quality beef, at their plants in Nebraska and Minnesota, and are bringing top-shelf kosher meats and meat products to stores across the country, including major chains like Costco.

arrives at the plant, painstaking research into cattle farming practices, feed, and history is performed and analyzed.

Stringent and rigorous halachos are observed throughout the shechitah, koshering and packaging, and finally the meat is sealed, boxed, and heading out for distribution by a fleet of trucks that are dispatched throughout the continental USA. Solomon’s is proudly under the kashrus supervision and hechsher of the Vaad Hakashrus of New Square, headed by HaRav Hagaon Aron Goldmunzer, shlit”a, as well as under the hechsherim of HaRav Hagaon Yechiel Steinmetz of Monsey, shlit”a, and the Orthodox Union.

Rabbi Etziony points out that the rabbis selected to be part of the Solomon’s team are the most professional individuals, hand-picked for their yiras shomayim and top skill

Did you know?

Unlike other brands, Solomon’s produces only quality glatt meat products, including regular glatt meat and Bais Yosef. Solomon’s strict standards permeate throughout the production process, from material handling and cleanliness to product packaging and presentation, the attention to detail is at the core of its practice.

level. The shechitah and bedikos, with the focus and attention to all aspects and details associated with them; and the high regard and rigor in adherence to every halachah and the various hidurim, which are well beyond the letter of the law, are at the very center of what Solomon’s Premium Meats is particularly proud of.

Solomon’s Meats has earned its prestige and reputation in the marketplace and has become known for its fresh, tender, juicy, and flavorful meat products, evident in its sought after status as the finest of Glatt meat purveyors.

This level of quality and care is the reason why Costco, known for its standards of excellent, top-shelf products, chose to carry Solomon’s Glatt Kosher Premium Meats in its stores, making this level of high-end kosher beef widely available all over the country, for kosher consumers.

THE KOSHER ISSUE 25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

TAANUG How many products: 100+ Established: 1985 Company Headquarters: Brooklyn, NY Kashrus supervision CRC- Hisachdus

Shaul Landau Why was Taanug started?

Our first product, and to this day, our flagship product, is our cereal line. In 1985, Mr. Landau, the founder of our company saw that people were eating bishul akum cereals.

At the time there weren’t any quality kosher cereals that were bishul Yisrael, hence Taanug was born. Our cereals revolutionized the kosher industry and to this day are a staple in many Jewish households and schools.

Why the name Taanug? It’s pretty “Jewish” sounding.

Well, that’s who our customers are. Also “taanug” means pleasure or enjoyment; feelings we want associated with our products.

What are your favorite Taanug products?

That’s personal! (laughs). I would say our cornflakes because of how popular it is. I love our pretzel thins because they are delicious and a bit addictive. And my favorite cereal is wheat squares. Our oil spray is a mainstay. Personally, I love our new line of cereal bars. In today’s hectic world, people don’t always have the time to sit down for a bowl of cereal. (However if they do, I’m sure it’s Taanug cereal) Our cereal bars are a great “meal on the go,” filling and delicious.

What’s new for 2015?

“We actually came out with this new product today; Taanug Toddler Bites.

They are small cookie-like bits that toddlers can hold in their hands and eat by themselves. We are very proud of this new product as we look to expand the Taanug line and ensure that every member of the Jewish family can have some “Taanug.”

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What’s the longest you took in developing a product?

Mr. Landau always wanted to produce a pillow type cereal. It took him several years of trial and error, and fine tuning the product until we produced Taanug Wheat Squares Cereal. The effort paid off as it’s delicious and made with whole wheat. It’s a product he is very proud of.

Quickly, why should someone choose Taanug?

Quality, quality, quality. That’s our motto. We strive for quality in order to be able to produce a line of gourmet products. We aim to ensure our products are of the finest ingredients and we trust it’s the best out there. We also believe our products are priced lower than other similar products.

Did you know?

Taanug was the first company to produce a full line of kosher bishul Yisrael cereals?

How are you able to offer your products for a lower price?

We bargain hard (laughs). It’s true. When manufacturing a product, we look for manufacturers who can produce our products for the price we want, in order to be able to pass the savings along to our customers. Quality for a good price, that’s unique to Taanug.

Back to cereals, are you able to “copy” mainstream cereals?

That’s a great question. Most of the ingredients and concepts existing in mainstream cereals aren’t unique to them, and have existed in different forms for many years. You can’t copyright putting raisins in cornflakes. We identify which products our consumers would like to see and modify it to make it kosher and fit the Taanug standards.

We work to ensure that we produce a tasty gourmet product with the highest standards of kashrus; we use the CRC –Hisachdus as our hashgachah. I would proudly add that we often hear from consumers that our cereals, specifically our cornflakes and crisped rice, surpass even the mainstream competition and are staple foods.

THE KOSHER ISSUE

THE HEALTH GARDEN Location, Chestnut Ridge, New York Employs: 10 Year established: 2010

25 MUST-KNOW KOSHER BRANDS

Two words to describe your company – All natural

Yoel Phillip Health Garden is the first company to introduce kosher natural sweeteners to the world. With an extensive background in the health food industry, The Health Garden’s natural and strictly kosher made in the USA Xylitol, Erythritol, Stevia, and Agave Nectar have rapidly become a popular alternative to sugar and other allegedly toxic artificial sweeteners.

Mr. Phillips becomes very animated when discussing the direction The Health Garden is taking. “We brought to the kosher scene the first natural kosher sweetener – Xylitol – which rapidly became a popular alternative to sugar and other sugar substitutes, but we didn’t stop there. We also introduced Erythritol, a sugar alcohol derived from the natural glucose found in fruit, which does not cause gastric distress like some other sugar alcohol-based sweeteners do." And other sweeteners, Stevia, and Agave Nectar have followed. Agave Nectar is actually sweeter than sugar, and thus less is required to sweeten beverages and baked goods. Its pleasant taste and lowcalorie count make it a natural and healthy choice, as the body absorbs it slowly – similar to fiber.

However, what most excites Mr. Philip today is the latest offering by Health Garden: “SugarLess,” a product

What’s new for 2015?

The Health Garden intends to play a significant role in bringing sweetness and good health to the Orthodox community. Their latest offering, “SugarLess”, is made from a combination of erythritol and stevia, and the consumer gets all of the sweetness of sugar, with none of the negative attributes found in other— even natural – sweeteners. Additionally, its consistency and potency are similar to that of sugar, making it an optimal choice for using as a sugar substitute when baking.

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Kashrus supervision: Rabbanim of the Skverer beis din

Did you know?

A common myth in this field is that since these sweeteners are natural, they do not need a proper kosher certification. It’s just the opposite! Because they are natural, they raise unique kashrus concerns. For example, we once discovered that raw ingredients in a certain product were being boiled in a farmers’ kitchen!

made from erythritol and stevia combined. The product’s calorie and glycemic index counts are 0, so that with “SugarLess,” the consumer gets all the sweetness of sugar, with none of the negative attributes found in other — even natural — sweeteners. In addition, its consistency and potency are similar to that of sugar — making it an optimal choice for using as a sugar substitute when baking. By combining the two, The Health Garden is able to deliver the consistency and ratio of sugar, refrain from using artificial fillers, and eliminate aftertaste.

Many kosher companies, including Manischewitz and Mehadrin (think cheese snacks), have begun using Health Garden sweeteners, along with countless bakeries, fish stores, and take-out establishments.

"Our community has been moving toward adopting a healthier lifestyle for a while now," says Mr. Phillip. "We have collectively realized that a constant intake of sugar and other processed foods does have consequences. And we at the Health Garden intend to be here to address this awareness with hight quality, healthy, and natural alternatives, with a strong emphasis on quality kashrus. Our kinderlach will reap long-term benefits when we feed them more natural food and cut down on the sugar.

By continuing to indroduce new innovations in the world of natural sweeteners to the kosher consumer, the Health Garden is devoted to play a significant role in bringing sweetness AND good health to our community."

Health Garden Sweeteners: SWEET Choice The HEALThY Choice The KOSHER Choice

The

845.774.2387

No Articial Fillers No GMO Or Gluten No High And Low Blood Sugar No Cavities And ADHD No Aftertaste

Your body will thank you - and your taste buds will never know the difference.

Our sweeteners are proudly used by major kosher food companys Like: Sweetness Grows Here...Naturally!

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G i f t C e rt i f i c at e s & F u ll M e n u

ava i l a bl e o n o u r we bsi t e !

Kosher food has gone beyond the kitchen of your bubbe. Now it's an industry. But what is that industry all about, and how do kosher companies market their products in an increasingly crowded field? Menachem Lubinsky (aka Mr. Kosher) gives insight on Kosherfest and the industry, while Isaac Eidlisz pulls apart the world of kosher marketing.

THE KOSHER ISSUE

Mr. Kosher—The Kosher Food Market—Brandstorming

MARKETING & NUMBERS

"Food marketing is more important now than ever."

The dollar value of the kosher product market?

It's got a lot of zeros in it.

—Isaac Eidlisz of Media OTG

8% 8% 8% Good products

Keeps kosher all the time

Occasional Vegetarian

55% Health and safety

38%

"The dynamics go well beyond what they were years ago, when kosher was just because it was necessary."

—Menachem Lubinsky of Lubicom Marketing Consulting

etarians

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THE KOSHER ISSUE MARKETING AND NUMBERS

Menachem Lubinsky is president and CEO of Lubicom Marketing Consulting, a public relations, advertising and marketing firm he founded in 1984. He is also a recognized authority on the kosher food market. In 1989 he founded Kosherfest, the first-ever trade show for kosher products. In 2013, the show featured 369 booths and attracted over 7,000 visitors.

Menachem Lubinsky

Mr. Kosher AKA

By Alex Vogel

When did you become interested in marketing?

When I left the Agudah, after being there for 13 years, I opened my own marketing firm in Manhattan. This was in 1984. It was a small firm that serviced a number of real estate clients, including Donald Trump. Around two years later, I was approached by a man, a Conservative Jew, who was a museum curator. He’d been arrested in Moscow for talking to “refuseniks.” In any case, he had this idea of putting together an expo on Jewish life and kosher food, so he’d gone to the OU. The OU shlepped him along for a year before telling him to go to someone else who could make it big; that’s how he came to me.

At the time, I was marketing real estate, nursing homes, doing dinners. I had taught marketing and had an MBA from Baruch College.

The very first expo was held in the Javits Center in 1987, when the kosher food industry was still in its infancy.

Thousands of people came. The fire marshal closed us down because of the overflow crowd. It was covered by almost every media network.

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Tell me about the growth of the kosher food industry over the past few decades.

It’s been amazing. The biggest change was that the supermarkets of America bought into the concept. When we first started out, there were less than a handful that were really into selling kosher products. Outside of New York, it was a rarity. Some of them aren’t even around today, like Waldbaum’s. So the main thing that happened was that kosher food suddenly became accessible to people who don’t even keep kosher.

Why would they want to eat kosher if they don’t have to?

For a variety of reasons, with the cumulative effect that the industry benefits, picking up a percentage here and a percentage there. What I mean is that there are people who happen to like kosher pastrami or kosher pickles.

As these products became more widely available, more of these people bought them. Then you have a group that believes that kosher is healthier; I’ve even had people

stuck with one kind of mayonnaise or ketchup. There are dozens tell me that their pastor told them this. They believe it’s of brands. So it became highly competitive. better because it’s supervised. The government can’t possibly police every single food item, so at least with a rabbi, there’s another pair of eyes. Sometimes, though, they can’t What’s the basic premise of Kosherfest? even articulate it. I’ve been to markets that have kosher By design it’s supposed to be a trade show, which means a sections in locations where you never see a yarmulke. place where buyers can meet sellers. But it’s also a once-a-year Then you have Muslims who don’t have a halal store in opportunity to showcase the kosher food industry and meet their area, so they go to the supermarket and buy kosher. people connected to it. A lot of manufacturers are overjoyed that There are also some Christians who eat only kosher. instead of having to travel to meet potential customers, these Someone told me the other day that he’s selling a lot people come to them. It also makes the dynamics of potentially of Israeli candy, sugar-free Must gum, stuff like that. A awkward social exchange and interaction less complicated. lot of non-Jews are buying it because it happens to be in the supermarket aisles. But it’s also now in the Costcos, The Lubavitcher shaliach in Berlin once told me that Walmarts, Targets and Trader Joe’s stores. It’s expanding. kashrus certification gives Jews a sense of identity.

Would you say that Kosherfest does something similar?

When you see products with four or five kashrus It’s certainly been a major boon for kiruv. Years ago people stickers, is it safe to assume that the cost gets used to talk about how difficult it is to be a Jew. First you had passed down to the consumer? And why are they to go buy a chicken in the market, then find a shochet, pluck the doing that? feathers, soak it and salt it… Nowadays things are obviously a The reason is that no one wants to give up on any lot different. sector of the market. So if there’s a perception that if a certain hechsher is added they can pick up another sliver, it Do you have ever to deal with controversial hashgachos becomes worth it. They don’t necessarily pass on the cost or weed out non-kosher food items? because they make it up in volume by selling their prodWe’ve had some issues. Our policy is that as long as exhibiucts in places like Williamsburg and Kiryas Yoel. So there’s tors post their hashgachah clearly we’re comfortable with that. I’d a good financial incentive. say that over the years a handful of exhibitors who weren’t up to standards managed to sneak in, but they were immediately Lots of times, when some kashrus agenices give a sniffed out by the buyers. hechsher, they are essentially putting their approval on something the OU has already approved. Should By inviting a company to Kosherfest, aren’t you giving it the consumer be made aware of that? your stamp of approval?

There’s a good reason they rely on the OU. When someNot necessarily. I think that some companies go in hoping thing is made in a factory where everything is automated it will give them a marketing advantage, but they soon find and all the ingredients are predetermined, it’s just a quesout that most people are educated consumers. Even if you’re tion of getting on the computer and reading what’s inside not Jewish, you pretty much know the major certifications.

I think that the market has been able to police itself to an the product. It’s very rare for rabbanim to object to a speamazing extent. There’s been a tremendous improvement in cific ingredient.

Sometimes it has to do with the rav hamachshir. If a chathe cooperation between hashgachah agencies and the adopsidishe hashgachah knows the rav hamachshir from a major tion of high standards. Years ago, someone would put a “P” kashrus organization and they’re comfortable with him and believe he fits their standards, they’ll occasionally give their endorsement. Other times they’re super-cautious and add their own mashgiach, particularly when it comes to meat, which obviously adds to the cost of the product.

Today’s wine is of a much higher quality than the wine we drank as children. Tell me about other changes in the quality of kosher food.

You can’t even compare it to 26 years ago, when the show first started. Let’s start with the number of products.

In those days, when we took a count we could only find around 1,700. Today there are well over 225,000.

The quality is tremendously better for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is technology. Nowadays, consumers are so much more savvy. There are choices. You’re no longer

Kosher food quality today is tremendously better for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is technology.

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THE KOSHER ISSUE

by the

Numbers

12,350,000 Number of kosher consumers in the US

MARKETING AND NUMBERS

1,300,000 Number of year round Jewish consumers

Kosher food today is a necessity, but it’s also become part of a lifestyle. on a product, which for one agency meant “Passover” and for another one “pareve.” Today, a certain level of achdus has been reached that most people don’t even realize. Of course, there’s competition. But in terms of uniformity, enormous strides have been made.

So you don’t police. You let the buyer do his own homework.

Correct, and 99% of the time it works. For example, you won’t see a company like Hebrew National coming to Kosherfest. They know full well they would get a lot of flak and that they don’t belong there.

Anything you’d like to see from this year’s event?

I’m always intrigued by the number of new products; this year we’re looking at upward of 500. Thanks to modern technology, we’ve gotten to a point where almost anything that can become kosher is kosher, and we have a demographic today that wants that. Younger consumers are willing to pay the price for an expensive bottle of wine. And presentation has also become important.

Magazines such as Ami have regular features that update people and keep them aware of trends. The dynamics go well beyond what they were years ago, when kosher food existed because it was necessary. Today it’s necessary, but it’s also become part of a lifestyle.

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3,500,000

Number of Muslim and other non-Jewish consumers of kosher products

195,000

Number of koshercertified products (packaged goods)

325,000

Number of koshercertified ingredient products

19,000 Average number of kosher products in US supermarkets

2,500

Number of products kosher certified in 2013

11,400

Number of kosher-producing companies and plants

THE KOSHER FOOD MARKET

5.2 MILLION

21%

Average Annual Growth of the food industry (2010-2013)

78% Observe

12%

16%

8% 8% 8%

JEWS IN THE US

16%

Percentage of Americans who either regularly or occasionally purchases kosher products because they are kosher (i.e. kosher hot dog)

Passover

Good products

Eats halal

Keeps kosher all the time

Occasional Vegetarian

For family relatives

35%

55%

Taste or flavor

Why Americans Buy Kosher

Health and safety

38% Vegetarians

SOURCE: MENACHEM LUBINSKY / LUBICOM MARKETING CONSULTING

THE KOSHER ISSUE MARKETING AND NUMBERS As the number of kosher goods grows by leaps and bounds, it’s only natural that contemporary kosher food marketing is ballooning into a giant industry.

Kosher food manufacturers are producing more and more sophisticated and competitive products, making the demand for professional marketing greater than ever before. Isaac Eidlisz, CEO of Media OTG, a cutting-edge advertising agency, with particular expertise in kosher food marketing, discusses the marketing needs and strategies of today’s kosher food brands.

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What’s new and different today?

The field of new high-quality kosher products with the highest level in kashrus is exploding. I remember when the kosher consumer accepted that certain products were simply not available with a good hechsher.

This mindset has drastically changed. The consumer nowadays expects more items on the shelf. Kosher food companies understand this and are constantly hunting for new and improved products.

Another reason for the upsurge in kosher products is the availability of shelf space. The small kosher groceries are becoming a thing of the past, with large modern

BY DAVID HOFFMAN

labeled differently; therefore the ten-cents-cheaper brand wins.

In reality, companies invest a tremendous amount of money, time and research into finding or creating the highest quality products and bringing them to the kosher market. I’ve been involved in the creation of many of these products. Some actually took more than a year to fine-tune until the company was satisfied. It’s frustrating that people should think these products are more of the same.

And that’s why food marketing is more important now than ever. The greater the selection of products, the more informed consumers need to be. It is our job to educate the consumer, to explain why all products are not the same and to highlight their differences.

supermarkets taking their place. Every city with a large Jewish population now has kosher supermarkets with a lot of freezer and shelf space. So companies feel secure that their products will have prominent exposure, giving them another reason to expand their product lines.

You represent about twenty of the top kosher brands in the US. What’s the hardest part about marketing in the kosher food industry?

Marketing always presents a challenge, not just in the food industry. It’s not about portraying something in a “good light.”

Good marketing is about the company effectively informing the public of its message.

When a client approaches us with something new and unique, our job is to inform people about this unique product or service in a memorable way. It gets harder when similar or related products are also available. Then we not only have to inform the consumer about the product, but also what makes it different.

I sit down with the client and get a full understanding as to why their product is an improvement on the one that is already available. Then we “brand-storm,” deciding how best to get the client’s message to the consumer.

The greatest challenge of marketing in the food industry comes down to taste. There’s an old joke about a guy who remarried in his old age. He didn’t like the way his new wife made omelets.

Every time she cooked one for him, he’d say, “My ex-wife made it much better.” But he could never explain how it was better.

Then one day his wife accidentally burnt the omelet, and he exclaimed, “Wonderful! This is just how my ex-wife made it!”

So you can introduce a product that is, according to expert opinions, better. But people like what they’re used to, even if it’s of lesser taste and quality. One of our clients worked for years to introduce a product that all professionals agree is the best in taste and quality, but it took time for consumers to realize that the old product that they were so familiar with was not as good as the new one.

We have many creative methods to tackle these challenges, but the most important part of marketing is developing a feel for the product and understanding the client’s message. I always tell my staff that the only way that we can deliver a believable message is if we believe it ourselves.

Is there really a difference in taste or quality between different brands?

Absolutely. In fact, this is one of the biggest challenges that we as marketing professionals face. All cans look alike: same shape, size and touch, making people think that they’re all made by the same company and just In some of your large campaigns, you have used all dif1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5 / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / A M I M A G A Z I N E

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THE KOSHER ISSUE MARKETING AND NUMBERS

Bango: Concept: Chicken Recipes

Coca-Cola: Concept: Cola with your meal

Oreo: Concept: Double Lait

Isaac Eidlisz Explains

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADS

Mateus: Concept: Wake up to good coffee

Heinz: Concept: Ketchup goes with chicken

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Tic Tac: Color: Stripes of fun colors on black background Concept: Connecting mint candy with fun Product: Clear photo Copy/Font: Retro style font

Nestle: Concept: Natural water

ferent kinds of media: billboards, print ads, online advertising, etc. What’s the best way to advertise?

Ami, of course [smiles]. Every campaign is unique. We take into consideration the most effective way to reach the target audience for that particular campaign, as well as the advertising budget. I do find great results when a brand campaign includes more than just ads. Sharing the company’s story, history and adventures along the way can go a long way toward developing a loyalty to the brand.

Has marketing become too expensive, effectively shutting out the smaller businesses?

The short answer is: You cannot afford not to do marketing. Those days are over. The kosher consumer is becoming more and more savvy, and unlike the older generation, they look for more than just price. We try to work with every client’s budget and create a marketing plan accordingly.

There are two types of marketing: advertising and “branding.” Both are important, but most marketing experts agree that branding is vital for the future of any brand. We have witnessed very popular kosher brands of the past become nearly invisible today. They were the best, untouchable…

How this did happen? They were so overconfident that they thought marketing was a waste of money.

Does anyone believe that Coca-Cola spends billions of dollars annually on advertising in order to sell more cans of soda? Coca-Cola spends more money than any of its competitors because it wants to remain the largest in its arena for the foreseeable future. Anyone who thinks that they are big enough and advertising is for newbies is greatly underestimating the power of creating and maintaining loyalty to a brand.

You can bring the best-tasting, highest-quality products to the consumer for 30 years, but if you haven’t “branded” your company, you are vulnerable to other brands introducing similar products. Consumers don’t care how many years you’ve been in business. If another brand showcases something appealing, they need a reason not to try it. The only way to provide that reason is to create an emotional loyalty to your brand. A “Coca-Cola person” will turn up his nose at a Pepsi, not to mention a generic cola.

But Coca-Cola is a national brand. Does it work the same for kosher products? Is our community is influenced the same way as others?

Of course every community and culture is different, but we are the same in some ways. Every culture has its own unique ways of communicating and getting a message across.

Israeli magazines have completely different graphics in their ads than US magazines. That’s why it is important to work with marketing people who are intimately familiar with

your target audience’s culture and community. I agree with you that the marketing people who are very successful with Coca-Cola would be a failure with marketing our brands.

Our readers often describe some ads as nice. As a marketing consultant, what do you consider a “nice” ad?

Of course you always want to see nice, colorful graphics, but you have to remember that ads are not designed to be placed in an art gallery. An ad is designed to portray a message. So if the ad effectively delivers that message, it’s a nice ad. Not every message is the same. Sometimes you want beautiful graphics and pictures; other messages are best delivered in black and white with just a few words.

With so many options for placing ads, what type of publication do you suggest for branding purposes?

Well, Ami, of course… Branding is psychological, so the reputation factor is very important. A branding ad works best when it is placed in a publication with a good reputation. Putting an ad in a less-respected medium or periodical might hurt the brand, rather than help it. Also, branding is not time-sensitive, so you get the best value for your money when you advertise in publications with a long shelf-life.

Marketing experts also unanimously agree that branding works best when it is introduced at an early age, so reaching out to the younger audience is also vital for any successful branding campaign.

Conventional wisdom says one should put food ads in women’s magazines, since the mothers often do the shopping. Do you consider things like that when you place ads?

There are several things to take into account. For example, studies show that the younger members of the household, from early teens and up, have a greater influence on which brand is purchased than do the parents. So limiting the target audience to just one demographic, like mothers, is shortsighted.

Also, because branding is designed to create a loyalty to a brand, it’s important to reach out to everyone regardless of whom we think does most of the shopping, because everyone has an influence in their own way.

Any exciting new products that you’re working on?

I have been blessed to work with the largest kosher brands in the industry, so naturally there are always some new products. However, I am not at liberty to talk about them here.

One thing I can share with you that we are working on a very exciting new product called Jaxx. It is similar to the popular candy known as Klik, but this breakthrough product will also be available in a pareve version.

•

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COMMUNICATED

THE PEOPLE BEHIND Meny Hoffman | ptex group

Q:

What mistakes have you seen food companies make when they market their products?

A:

Too many companies come out with the exact same products, making it harder to differentiate your company’s product from the competition.

A Q&A Session

supermarket, for example, and you'll see six or seven jars from different companies but they all look very similar. Isn't is confusing to stand there as a consumer and figure out which mayonnaise is the best to buy?

If these brands would spend time identifying what makes their product unique and, more importantly, highlighting that difference right on the label, it would stand out on the shelf and actually entice consumers to make the purchase. Strategic marketing for the smart and savvy consumer.

Walk down the mayonnaise aisle in your local

Sam Schwartz | gcny marketing

Q:

What are the key words that the heimishe Jewish consumer responds to most in print advertising?

A:

It  is not the words. It is more about the feeling the brand evokes.

long way. Our market now reflects current market trends that use advertising to convey a feeling and evoke emotions such as trust, quality, fun, health or even "chapping" a good deal. At the end of the day, an ad has to make the consumer feel proud to put that cookie or yogurt into the shopping cart.

At GCNY, we believe that the Jewish market has come a

Shimon Weinberg | kent marketing

Q:

What do you predict will be one of the hottest food trends we are going to see in 2015 for the Orthodox market?

A:

Although Kent Marketing represents Royal Wine, I think the trends will be very similar in food and wine. The Orthodox market will continue to follow the steady growth of the mainstream market looking for high end and gourmet foods. The kosher consumer has become more health-conscious, looking for natural and high quality products. It seems that quality has become more important than price and the consumer is willing to pay more.

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COMMUNICATED

THE FOOD ADS

By Ben Rosen

A:

Yossi Blumenfeld | gcny marketing

We at GCNY always encourage and guide our clients to run along with the current advancing markets and be ahead of the game.

Q:

What do you think is the trend for take-out and ready-to-serve food, for people who find it hard to make everything homemade for Shabbos—but want a homemade taste?

As the kosher market is evolving to service a younger and trending (hard-working) audience, supermarket 'deli' departments have grown to become a central focus in everyday kosher shopping. Food presentation is getting dedicated attention, and chefs really have to spice up their recipes to make the consumer feel at home.

Wolf Schwartz | KOA Creative Group

Q:

When you look at the best-selling products in the kosher market today, what would you say is the reason they are attracting the Orthodox Jewish market so strongly?

Moshe Indig | indigo creative solutions

Q:

What food ingredients are exciting the kosher consumer this year the most, and why?

A:

Its hard to pinpoint a specific product, because in recent years there's been a growing interest for specialty and exotic food products in the general market.

Kosher food was always considered of higher quality for

A:

After 20 years in the business, I still find the same trends to be repeating themselves. At the end of the day, grabbing consumer attention comes down to three simple things: a serious product that fills a need; a marketing strategy that’s a proper fit to the product and its benefits; and the strategic placement of advertising materials in publications that cater to the product’s target audience.

reasons such as food safety, taste and cleanliness and with the recent increased awareness of health, more consumers are opting for items with kosher certification labels. Nonkosher specialty food brands have been making their products kosher to improve quality and gain a larger target market, automatically opening the kosher food industry to a wider range of products that weren't available until now.

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e

DO YOU SEE ME NOW? A request for a donation to my former school stirs up painful memories AS TOLD TO CHANY BARON

THE TWO MEN SITTING IN MY OFFICE had outdone themselves. An impressive brochure with overlapping pages illustrated the various stages of their institution’s development. I could choose a room or a specific service. The lunchroom, classrooms, the girls’ division or the boys’, the yeshivah or the kollel. Perhaps I was partial to the tutoring room…

“Gentlemen,” I interrupted. “This is beautiful, but I can’t be a part of it. I’m not going to donate to the mosad.”

I swiveled to the side of my L-shaped desk and fiddled with a drawer to collect myself. This had taken enormous courage, but I felt I wa.

Don’t get me wrong. This was by no means an impetuous act of miserly malice, and I told them as much. “If you find me another institution or cause, I’ll sign you a check tonight. Just not to this one.” And that, again, took real courage.

When one graduates from years of attending a particular mosad with its lineup of school, yeshivah, and kollel, there is a natural tendency to feel beholden to that establishment and its expectations. It’s as if they own you. They’ve invested so much in you and now you must pay them the dividends, if not in nachas then at least materially. I was never one of those who could possibly turn his back on the people who raised him, though. I was a fine part of the community. By denying them what they expected from me, I was openly setting myself apart. By informing them that I had enough to give, just not to them, I was marking myself 206 A M I M A G A Z I N E / / N O V E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 4 / / 1 9 C H E S H VA N 5 7 7 5

as an opponent.

But I was relieved that I did it.

I felt I had reclaimed my dignity.

Twenty-five years ago, when I sloshed to cheder in my blue lambswool coat and red galoshes, mittened hands gingerly grasping a slippery sandwich bag full of pretzels, I had nothing to look forward to.

I was mediocre in each part of the school day. Not being from the good boys nor of the particularly bad, I was unremarkable in every sense of the word. Indeed, nobody remarked. Unless they were going up and down the rows, no rebbe ever stopped at my desk to call on me. The first time a new rebbe tried, I gave a simple, one word answer in a low, peanut-buttery voice and that was the last they’d request of me. At recess, I was the last in the pack. Awards were granted and received, yet never by me. My grades hovered somewhere between exemplary and terrible. The years could have passed right through me and I would have remained there in my centerright seat, forever unseen amidst a muddle of faces.

Thus did I pass through the elementary grades of cheder. Around me, boys boasted of bar mitzvah plans; levush, yeshivos, and tefillin were discussed and rehashed. I listened, sometimes adding a word or two, which nobody seemed to acknowledge.

My parents are the warm, homey type.

People who don’t make waves but work on building up the world one person at a time, beginning with themselves. They don’t own chesed organizations and they don’t run around saving people. All they do is raise children in a happy environment.

My bar mitzvah reflected their attitudes. We had a small catered meal in a low-ceilinged hall. My parents’ circle of well-wishers dropped by and close family sat down. My friends came, ate up the sweets and left, and by the next day it was all over.

I was the bachur who, if you came into yeshivah wondering who would be part of your class and found me there, you’d say “Who else?”

I didn’t count. For years I didn’t.

My brother, bless him, was determined

to crawl out of the nothingness we brought with ourselves to the outside world. My place of comfort—the endless monopoly games I played, the intricate Erector Set constructions I put together, the clay I carved—wasn’t enough for him.

He honed his talent and became the class musician and composer. Later, he took his skills to yeshivah becoming the singer for the rosh yeshivah’s album. From there it was a hop, skip and jump to singing on stage. The danger of invisibility was over for him.

I, however, remained invisible for much longer. I got engaged and married. People could be seen nodding quickly when they heard of our announcement. My wife is as unassuming as me. Her father is a butcher, her mother a seamstress, and she had no special lineage to boast of. Neither could she hide behind exceptional looks, talent or intelligence. We are simpletons to the world.

Yet to me, she was the world. We understood and appreciated each other, and together we set out to build our own family.

I was in kollel for the first year of our marriage. Every day I got up at the crack of dawn, davened, and went to learn. My chavrusa was someone who had brilliant learning partners for the rest of the day but charitably “donated” two hours to learn

I WAS UNREMARKABLE IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD. THE YEARS PASSED RIGHT THROUGH ME AND I REMAINED FOREVER UNSEEN.

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with me. I felt belittled by the arrangement, but had to admit that without any special connections, I needed his favor. Besides, he was kind and gracious in addition to being erudite, and didn’t see it the way the person who set us up did. He was enjoying the learning immensely, and so was I. At the coffee urn, I’d pick up the news but didn’t contribute much. I was used to being unnoticed, and despite having a good grip on politics and economics, I didn’t feel like piping up now. When I did, I was that little boy again: slimy voice, sweaty palm, naturally disregarded.

I don’t think anyone missed me the day I left kollel. I became the assistant to a contractor and, as my fellows back in kollel said, I was his “schlock shames.”

The curious thing about Mr. Sendrowitz was that he needed me. He even liked me.

In fact, he really got me. I could hardly believe it, but he actually trusted me. He trusted me to talk to his colleagues and competitors. He gave me the important phone calls to make and took me with him to his meetings. He relied on me to finish what he couldn’t, and after a year of being in the shadows of Mr. Sendrowitz, I was more alive and had a straighter back than in all the previous years combined.

I began to trust myself to make decisions. My opinion and thoughts mattered.

I felt ready to strike out on my own.

Mr. Sendrowitz encouraged me to become an equal player in the field. He had a hashkafah in business, as in every part of his life, which was propelled by serious thought. He believed that there was no such thing as competition, only expansion. As long as we were doing what we do best and making the world a better place through our efforts, there was room for everyone at the top.

With this thought in mind, along with Mr. Sendrowitz’s blessing and his available ear for any queries I may have, I set out on my own. I saw success immediately. Like those long games of monopoly I would play almost every afternoon, where no one ever won and everyone amassed a small fortune, I saw myself buying properties, refurbishing, selling, and growing my bottom line. Two years hadn’t yet passed and, when I looked into my bank account,

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COMMUNICATED

Q

FREIGHT SHIPPING SPECIALIST Q SHIP USA ANNOUNCES ATTENDANCE AT 2014 KOSHERFEST TRADESHOW

Ship USA, a shipping broker coordinating freight shipping nationwide, is now announcing its participation in Kosherfest, where the company will be in attendance as an exhibitor. At the annual B2B tradeshow, Q Ship USA will introduce the kosher community’s leading businesses to innovative and customized shipping strategies.

“Kosherfest is simply the most important tradeshow for businesses in the kosher industry, attracting a diverse community of attendees who share a common goal: growing their businesses and showcasing their latest products.

At Q Ship USA, we’re here to help every company achieve that goal by finding the best ways to move products into new markets. As a shipping broker, we help every client chart a path to greater success. This Kosherfest, we’re ready to help attendees cut costs, blaze trails, and discover opportunity,” said Charles Kohn, President and CEO of Q Ship USA. As a shipping brokerage company, Q Ship USA leverages its expertise in the shipping market to match each client’s business to the most appropriate freight shipping company. Q Ship USA’s professional team conducts the necessary research, carries out negotiations, and ensures that the shipping company can meet the client’s needs at the best avail-

able price. Q Ship USA serves as a guide to the shipping industry, leading each client in business decisions through unparalleled familiarity with the field.

As a dedicated advocate, key logistics resource, and partner in success for every client business, Q Ship USA brings a unique networking opportunity to this year’s Kosherfest tradeshow.

Company representatives at Kosherfest can introduce attendees to a wide range of specialty shipping options ideal for food service businesses, including provisions for refrigerated and frozen loads. In addition to its onsite presence, Q Ship USA maintains a wealth of online resources detailing the many options its customers can select as the company builds shipping plans.

From expedited shipping to truckloads, LTL, rail, intermodal, and more, Q Ship USA searches the industry for everything a client might need and delivers reliable shipping on a conservative budget.

To learn more about Q Ship USA’s participation in Kosherfest as well as its available shipping options, visit http:// www.QShipUSA.com or call (844) 7744787.

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I could hardly believe that the long string of numbers represented an amount of money that belonged to me.

Seven digits turned into eight and kept climbing. Not bad for a day’s work, but what was I supposed to do with more money than I could consume in a lifetime?

I felt giddy, like when I was a little boy peering into my father’s register. All those dollars available to me. Even if I bought ten candy bars, there would still be more left.

I told my wife to spend freely, which she happily did, but her purchases amounted to nothing. My wife, as I’d known from the day we first met, was simple. She didn’t need a lot of anything and was never in the rat race for recognition. She was fine to continue shopping at Target.

I was also satisfied with whatever I had.

My car didn’t need an upgrade. Our apartment rental was still serving us well, and I wasn’t interested in buying a house elsewhere because the neighborhood worked well for us. My office was functional if not stately, but it had served me well for my first fortune, and I trusted it would suffice for whatever venture I continued to pursue. My clothing was becoming. A vacation felt redundant. We’d been to Israel last year and my wife found travel with young children tiring, nor would she want to leave them behind.

People urged me to invest and reinvest.

I didn’t feel that their advice pertained to me, and my financial adviser had my back. Now what?

Philanthropy spoke to me. Finally, I could make my mark in the world. Mr. Sendrowitz’s words came back to me: “If we want to make the world a better place, there’s room at the top for everyone.”

I involved myself in several meaningful projects. I bought insurance for every teacher and melamed in the school network that my children attended and donated to their scholarship fund. I paid wages to any shadchan who logged his phone calls and made more than 50 outgoing calls a week.

Word got around that I was out to donate.

I got offers that I looked into. Some of them got a write-off check while others were welcomed to make partner.

And now these two gentlemen, one my

previous eighth grade rebbe, the other my menahel’s son, were here in my office to fundraise.

“Tell us more about this,” said my eighth grade rebbe, Rabbi Goldstein.

“When I was just leaving kollel…” I began, attempting to judge how safe it was to divulge the real reason behind my dismissing them. I decided to continue.

No longer was I sitting at a desk in their school after all; it was they who were sitting in my office. “I was walking home from the hat store when I met Gershon Fogel.” They both knew who he was and were in fact working for him. He was the administrator for the entire mosad.

“I felt good. I was wearing my new hat and I knew I looked confident. He was coming out of his car, busy with his phone, and had a self-assured swing in his hands. ‘Good evening,’ I greeted him.

“He gave me a distracted, uninterested smile, as if he didn’t even see who I was and I thought, He’s never going to like me.

Even when I have a position that’s higher than his, he still won’t like me. It will look like he does because he will pursue me, but I’ll know it’s not true. I will know the façade because today, when I approached him as one human being to another, he showed me his real face.”

My two visitors looked uncomfortable. Rabbi Goldstein looked into my eyes. “Today is that day for you,” he said.

“You’re finally there, where you’ve always wanted to be. We’re coming to you and you’re sending us away.”

He said it kindly. I knew he understood.

“Look, I know you’re only fundraisers.

You make a percentage and I don’t want to gyp you. If you come up with any other cause, the money is yours.”

I gave them a standard donation and they got up to leave. After walking them out, I sat down, my head in my hands.

It had been quite a climb to get here.

Without realizing it, I’d become what my brother had before me, someone important. I was now in the position where I was impossible to ignore, as gatekeeper to the funds everyone wanted.

That’s all I was, though—the gatekeeper.

I wasn’t my money. It wasn’t me they were looking for. For an institution that had allowed me to grow up in their halls vir-

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tually unnoticed, I was just another hurdle to surmount. This time, however, I would not be overcome. No amount of sweet talk and promises of gold plaques would move me away from my position at the vault.

I also knew that my money wasn’t me.

Money hadn’t made me important. I was the same yungerman I always was, only now my feet wore sharper, more comfortable shoes.

The only way to recognize myself was to respect myself. I was the steward to my funds, the overseer of its execution. I could do this well and it was I and I alone who would know how important I was.

Maybe one day I could forgive those who never saw me. I could see how, as an unassuming child who demanded little, I got less. I could see how hurt I was, how I really did want attention. I deserved attention because I was a Yiddishe child, if for no other reason. But I also never possessed the courage to ask.

I called Rabbi Goldstein back. We had a private meeting, just the two of us. I wasn’t going to give anything to the institution.

My name should not grace the halls of the yeshivah where the real live version of me was so cavalierly disregarded without any big bold letters attached to his smallish frame.

But I had another far more effective way to help the institution that raised me. I could save the children still languishing in there, waiting to become someone.

We sat for a long time outlining an agenda. There would be therapists and training for the rebbeim and teachers, by experts in the field of chinuch and emotional development. Extracurricular outlets where the kids could shine if they wanted to. Success training for the older boys and business classes for the kollel.

I would be an anonymous donor.

Although I’d be unrecognized once again, today I realized how I could make the ultimate contribution to the world. By just being plain, quiet me.  To submit your story for this column or to have your story featured here, please contact us at submissions@amimagazine.org.

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my word!

A S H E R V. F I N N

Each week, “My Word!”—penned by the esteemed president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to English—highlights often-misused or misspelled phrases or words, common grammatical challenges, unusual expressions or neologisms. Or it just calls attention to curious or interesting locutions.

So if you want to learn some new things about English—or are already expert in the language and want to prove it to yourself—you’ve come to the right place.

Political Science

T

he weeks before the recent mid-term elections— and the weeks before most every election—seem to well demonstrate that there is no relationship whatsoever between politics and politeness. Candidates who might have better spent their time working out coherent plans and policies instead expended yeomen’s efforts on calling one another Communist cannibals or closeted neo-Nazi vampires.

Is there, though, a relationship between, if not actual politics and politeness, the word “politics” and the word “politeness”?

In a word, no. In two, none whatsoever.

“Polite,” of course, means “showing good manners toward others.” It derives from the Latin politus, or “refined”—literally, “polished” or “made smooth.”

A lovely word that comes from that same Latin root is “politesse,” meaning “formal politeness” or “proper courtesy.” It comes to English by way of the Italian politezza, which you now know is not, in fact, a variety of pizza.

“Politics,” at least in its original sense, means “the science, art, or practice of governmental affairs.” In much of the word’s usage, due to the aforementioned sort of cannibal/ neo-Nazi rhetoric that the political process engenders, along with other unsavory elements (tactics and people alike) that have come to be associated with it, the word carries a negative connotation, as in phrases like “playing politics” or “politics as usual.”

The word comes to English from the Middle French politique, which in turn derives from the Latin politicus, “of citizens or the state.” But Greek is the original source of that root, as a polis was what the Greeks called a city-state. The word “metropolis,” meaning “large, busy city,” evidences that root,

as it is a combination of the Greek polis and mētēr, mother (as in “mother of all cities,” echoing a locution made popular by the late Saddam Hussein, who spoke of the “mother of all battles” and experienced the “mother of all defeats”).

A word that “politics” has fathered that can carry both positive or negative connotations is “politic,” meaning “prudent,” “tactful,” or “shrewd.” Thus: “Rabbi Kleindorfholtz, having bumped into Avrumi at the pizza place (where he had asked for a politezza and received a flourish and tip of the hat), decided to be politic and not query him about his absence from shul for the prior two months.”

Or: “Moishe, opting to be politic rather than entirely truthful, told Miri that all the grocery stores had been clean out of broccoli, and that maybe a potato kugel might work better for Shabbos.”

A word that might seem to be related to “politics” (since it is in fact related to politics) is “poll,” which, of course, refers to a sampling or collection of opinions on a subject or candidate. It, though, has no relationship to either politics (the word, that is) or politeness (which few telephone pollsters, interrupting as they do innocent people’s dinners, seem to embrace).

“Poll” comes from the Middle English polle, meaning “hair of the head,” from the Middle Dutch pol, or “head.” A poll, after all, is a “head count.”

No, “Poland” doesn’t come from either of those words, but rather from the name of a West Slavic tribe, the Polanie. But that does remind me: How many pollsters does it take to change a light bulb?

One, but with a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. 

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O

r u

JOURNEY B Y R A B B I S H OL OM F R I E D M A N N

A W E E K LY L O O K A T T H E K L E I N M A N F A M I LY H O L O C A U S T E D U C A T I O N C E N T E R

The Food We Eat

APPRECIATING THE ABUNDANCE HASHEM HAS GIVEN US

W

hen I learned that this issue of Ami would be devoted to kosher food, I wondered how this column could fit in, sandwiched between so many glossy pages of mouth-watering delights. Would this loyal and devoted audience be interested in any of my gastronomical exploits throughout my travels? Probably not. It occurred to me, though, that the Holocaust really does have an apt place in this digest of delicious digestibles.

Food has always had a prominent role in society; it is a central part of our lives, both in times of scarcity and abundance. Unfortunately, we may not recognize and appreciate the gift of nourishment unless we are crushed by its absence. Lessons from those times give us a healthier perspective in today’s world, when we are surrounded by endless options for every palate.

I recall a story about Rav Mendel Kaplan, z”l. Reb Mendel was born in Baranovich and was a talmid of Rav Elchonon Wasserman. After the war, Reb Mendel became a rebbe in Skokie and then in the Yeshiva of Philadelphia. Reb Mendel did not discuss his wartime experiences often; he was always focused on the task at hand and the current challenges his talmidim faced.

However, on occasion, he would find a meaningful way of giving the next generation a glimpse of how he was changed by the war.

One day in the beis hamidrash, a sefer fell off a shelf onto the floor. Reb Mendel watched as a bachur hurried over to pick it up, give it a kiss, and replace it on the shelf. The bachur was surprised when he

too extreme an example. One need only recall the abject paucity of pre-war Jewish communities, which stands in clear contrast to our society. Although there’s endless anecdotal evidence, there is one story that sticks in my mind. In the 1920s, Mrs. Ruchoma Shain and her husband left the relative comforts of America and moved to Mir, Poland. Mrs. Shain later wrote that

“I just wanted to tell you that anyone who went through the War knows that in truth, the same should be done if you see a piece of food on the floor.” heard Reb Mendel call him, wondering what he had done to attract his rebbe’s attention. “What you did was just fine,” Reb Mendel reassured him. “I just wanted to tell you that anyone who went through the War knows that in truth, the same should be done if you see a piece of food on the floor. Hashem’s food is just as precious as a sefer! It too deserves a kiss.”

In truth, the Holocaust may even be

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she was quickly educated about the value of food in her new town. She once stopped into a neighbor’s apartment, and noticed that the freshly baked bread had been put away on top of a cabinet. Mrs. Shain asked her friend why she did not serve it while it was still hot and fresh. The shocking response was that she could never serve fresh bread, because her children would then beg her for more—a request she

A 1936 appeal for food for Polish Jewry (Schenkolewski Collection, KFHEC)

could rarely fulfill.

Not enough bread?! Would any of us ever be faced with such a challenge?

Doubtful. We may keep a secret stash of chocolates hidden from our kids, but never our bread!

The brachah of plenty has its challenges.

Of course, most families do have careful shopping habits, and sadly, there are too many who struggle to put food on the table. But certainly, the standard of living of today’s average family cannot be compared to times gone by, and it’s easy to see how such abundance can dull our awareness to the power of the perspective shared

by Reb Mendel.

Fortunately, the Torah has once again offered a solution to shape our outlook.

Of the many brachos we make each day, there is only one mentioned in the Torah —Birchas Hamazon. Yet, from here Chazal expound on the importance of expressing our gratitude to Hashem. They formulated

different brachos for various foods, as well as brachos of thanksgiving, such as Shehecheyanu.

But while the Torah has given us the framework for this concept, it’s our job to make it work. In a variation of the old adage, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t teach it how to make a brachah. Countless times each day, we have an opportunity to thank Hashem for the bountiful food He has given us, but doing this properly is a lifelong challenge. It would do us well in this endeavor to remember that each morsel is truly precious, deserving of a slow brachah with kavanah. This, I’m sure Reb Mendel would agree, is even better than a kiss.

•

Rabbi Sholom Friedmann is the director of the Kleinman Family Holocaust Education Center, located in Brooklyn, NY. To learn more, visit kfhec.org. You can also contact the center at info@kfhec.org or at (718) 759-6200.

I Am Only Frum On the Outside

D

ear Stuck:

Dear Rabbi Taub: I recently picked up an Ami Magazine at a friend’s house, and I was very impressed with your column. I would like to ask your advice.

I am an 18-year-old girl from a typical yeshivish family and went to a regular Bais Yaakov school. Despite my background and education, I have never really felt a connection to Yiddishkeit.

I remember at a young age wondering why I had to listen to Hashem and thinking I would just deal with it after I die. Today, I think I believe in Hashem, but it’s not enough to have an impact on my life.

On the outside, even as far as my parents are concerned, I am a typical Bais Yaakov girl. But I always dream of leading an irreligious life, even though I am too scared to go against the flow. I never do anything really rebellious, but I don’t hesitate when it comes to things no one will notice. For instance, I’m not always careful with hechsherim, and I am sometimes lax in hilchos Shabbos.

Now that I am entering the dating parshah, I find myself in a dilemma. My parents think I want a good, frum learning boy, but how can I marry such a guy? I can’t deceive someone into believing I’m a good girl when in truth I wouldn’t even be frum if I had a choice.

Is it too late to change? How can I become better when nothing I heard in the past had any effect on me? I would appreciate it if you can answer me as soon as possible. Thank you.

Stuck

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I am gratified to hear that you discovered my column and found it helpful. All the events of our lives are arranged by Hashem’s detailed supervision, and this development was surely significant. I understand from your letter that the dilemma you have posed to me has been on your mind for a while but you are only reaching out now. Everything has to be at the right time, so I suppose now is the time. I pray that Hashem will guide me in responding to you and that the timing is also right for you to receive a fitting response.

You say that despite your education, you have never really felt a connection to Yiddishkeit. Unfortunately, you are not unique in having this complaint. Many young people today manage somehow to go through the entire Jewish education system and still fail to connect to Yiddishkeit on a personal level.

Without going into a whole discussion of the chinuch system (perhaps another time), let me just say that the fact that you recognize your problem and have decided to turn to someone to help you is commendable. This shows that you are seeking.

Although you lack feeling, you are aware that you lack feeling—and you are sensitive enough, baruch Hashem, to want to advance your spiritual condition.

I want to add that although being samei’ach b’chelko, contented with one’s lot in life, is a virtue extolled by our sages, it is understood that this refers to one’s material welfare. When it comes to spiritual matters, however, being samei’ach b’chelko is a serious character flaw, for one must always strive for higher and higher levels in one’s relationship with Hashem. I am very glad to see that you are not content with your spiritual standing and that you are open to some kind of change.

Of course, the fact that you are discontented in this regard is no great surprise.

After all, you are a bas Yisrael, a daughter of our holy nation; you have a neshamah and you yearn to be connected to your Maker. And that is why it is unacceptable to you that you don’t feel a connection. I emphasize that it is unacceptable to you, not to anyone else; remember, nobody else is aware that you have this challenge. You yourself are bothered by your present condition. And yet that itself—being bothered that you don’t feel a connection—is a kind of connection, isn’t it?

I am reminded of the story of the Jew who went to the third Rebbe of Chabad, the Tzemach Tzedek, and confessed to him that he had doubts about his faith. “And why should that bother you?” asked the Tzemach Tzedek.

“But Rebbe,” the man cried, “I’m a Jew!” “Ah,” said the Tzemach Tzedek, “then everything is all right.”

So now that we have established that your problem is actually a healthy problem, let’s talk about a solution.

It’s interesting to me that you share a recollection from your childhood. In other words, this isn’t a new development. You didn’t lose your feelings; you never really had them. Again, this is a positive sign. It’s not as though you have fallen from your level—you never really arrived in the first place. But it’s never too late to get started. In fact, something makes me think that when all of this finally does click for you, you will not only experience a sudden and noticeable growth in your emotional connection to Yiddishkeit but you will progress at a very fast rate. All you need is a shift in thinking.

What is that shift? Well, let’s look at where you’re starting from and then look at where you are headed, b’ezras Hashem.

Your early thoughts about Yiddishkeit— the idea that you would “deal with it after I die”—show that you somehow formed a

premise at a young age that the only reason we serve Hashem is because of reward and punishment in the World to Come.

It’s easy to see how that (faulty) premise would lead you to the point where you are today—thinking that perhaps you believe in Hashem, but not enough for it to have an impact on your life.

This line of thinking has its own logic. If the only reason for doing mitzvos is to be rewarded after your life is over, it makes sense that believing in Hashem would not move you very deeply or affect your daily conduct and emotions. Perhaps we can correct this flawed premise.

extrinsic value is whatever arbitrary worth your parents decide to assign to it. So if they promise to take you out for ice cream if you finish the task, they have assigned an extrinsic value to the act of cleaning your room.

But the act of cleaning a room does not have any natural connection to ice cream.

The act of cleaning a room does not gener-

We don’t need to be bribed or threatened to do a mitzvah because it has enough inherent value to motivate us.

Do you know the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic value? For instance, the intrinsic value of a ten-dollar bill is only a few cents—if that much; it is only what the actual material of the bill is worth. A ten-dollar bill and a hundred-dollar bill are both made of the same type of linen-based paper, and they are worth only the amount of that piece of linen.

Now, the extrinsic value of a ten-dollar bill is ten dollars because that’s not the value of the paper; it’s the value of what the paper represents, which is a promissory note from the government.

The same concept can be applied to a task. What is the intrinsic value of cleaning your room? Well, if you’re ten years old and your parents have to threaten or bribe you to clean your room, then it is a task with very little intrinsic value. But its

ate ice cream. You see the disconnection?

Now, what is the intrinsic value of a mitzvah? You know this; it is stated in the principle “S’char mitzvah mitzvah—the reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah itself.”

It seems that the way you have been thinking about mitzvos is that the mitzvah itself must have very little intrinsic value. If it had intrinsic value, you wouldn’t have to be paid to do it, would you? It is not difficult to see how this kind of thinking would lead you to a place where belief in Hashem has little impact on your daily life. Your belief is still intact; that never went away.

But the degree to which that belief affects you practically was severely diminished.

And yet the truth is that a mitzvah really has the ultimate intrinsic worth—to the extent that it is its own reward. We don’t need to be bribed or threatened to do a

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mitzvah because it carries enough inherent value to motivate us. What is that value?

You know that the word mitzvah means commandment, but it is also related to the Aramaic word tzavsa, which means connection. A mitzvah is a connection—to the One Who commands us. After the soul leaves the body, it’s easier to see and appreciate that value, but the value is always there; reward (or punishment) in the World to Come really refers to an added sensitivity to something that is already there. What is there? The connection to Hashem, which is the intrinsic value of the mitzvah.

This concept has a parallel in human relationships. Let’s say there is an intellectual who spends his days immersed in lofty abstract concepts. A simple water carrier walks past him schlepping his buckets, and the intellectual doesn’t even notice him.

Not that he looks down on him, which would be a negative trait; he has no arrogance or condescension. The two simply have no connection. There is no reason for the intellectual to notice the water carrier, and so it is as if he doesn’t even exist.

If we would try to bring them together, what common ground would they have?

The water carrier could not even begin to discuss with the intellectual any of the concepts that he spends his day immersed in. Conversely, that which preoccupies the water carrier’s thoughts as he carries water is something that the intellectual cannot relate to. If, however, the intellectual asks the water carrier for a drink and the water carrier obliges… then there is a relationship. Suddenly they are connected, and all of their differences become irrelevant.

The gap separating the Creator and His creations is obviously greater than that separating the water carrier and the intellectual. The latter difference is finite and quantifiable, whereas the difference between Hashem and His creation is infinite and cannot be quantified. Nevertheless, when Hashem asks us to perform a mitzvah and we do so, it creates a bond between us. The mission is the relationship,

and the relationship is the mission.

The third Gerrer Rebbe, known as the Imrei Emes, once heard that one of his chasidim was traveling to Paris on business. The Imrei Emes called in the chasid and said, “I know they sell very good cigars in Paris, and I would appreciate it if you would buy some for me.”

Although he was somewhat taken aback by this uncharacteristic request, the chasid was happy to comply. After he had conducted his business dealings in Paris and was returning to Ger through Belgium, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten about the cigars. He jumped off the train at the next town and purchased the finest cigars he could find there.

When he returned to Ger, he went to see the Imrei Emes, who asked for the cigars.

The chasid answered, “Rebbe, I must be honest and say that I didn’t actually buy these cigars in Paris. On the way back I made a special stop in Belgium and got the best Belgian cigars available. I was assured that they are of equal quality to the French cigars, if not better.”

“My dear son,” said the Imrei Emes, “do you think I need cigars from Paris? I wanted you to remember that even in Paris you have a Rebbe…and you forgot.”

This story illustrates that when one asks another to do his bidding, it creates a connection, a relationship, between them. So even if the Imrei Emes, sitting in the town of Ger in Poland, is not concerned about cigars from Paris, what he does care about is that the Jew doing business in Paris should be connected to him, and the errand of fetching the cigars was designed to accomplish that.

The mission is the relationship; the relationship is the mission.

The point was not the purchase of the cigars. The point was that the chasid’s entire trip to Paris should be affected and changed—and even more, that he should be changed. He should go to Paris as the chasid of a Rebbe in Ger. This is the meaning of “S’char mitz-

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vah mitzvah.” The very act of being commanded and fulfilling the commandment carries with it a deep relationship between the commanded and the commander— between a human being and Hashem.

Once you understand that this is the true value of mitzvos, I think it will be very easy for you to hold each mitzvah dear, even the “small” things that you have rationalized are not important. For if the mitzvah is a connection, what does it matter if you are asked to bring cigars from Paris or oranges from Florida? It’s about the relationship.

And the converse is also true; if one acts counter to Hashem’s wishes, he disconnects from the relationship.

I think that if you learn to view your relationship with Hashem in these terms, you will have a lot more motivation to do mitzvos than the shallow reason of being “too scared to go against the flow.” I will note that if yiras onesh, fear of punishment, is the only motivation that is keeping a person observant, even outwardly, it is still better than nothing. But it is a very low level, and one must seek a more mature motive for doing mitzvos.

You are about to enter a new phase in life. I pray that Hashem gives you clarity as you begin dating. It is definitely not too late to change. On the contrary—everything is hashgachah pratis, and this is the perfect time to change. You ask, “How can I become better when nothing I heard in the past had any effect on me?” The answer is that, for whatever reason, you were not ready before, or the information was not presented to you in the proper way. Apparently that wasn’t the time. But we are all on a journey, and this is the phase of the journey you have reached.

May you report good news.

•

With blessing, RST Questions to Rabbi Shais Taub should be sent to ask@amimagazine.org.

On Yahrzeits A TIME TO REMEMBER WHY WE REMEMBER

T

here is the caricature of the secular American Jew who only shows up to shul on Yom Kippur. Lesser known, and even more common, is the Jew who only shows up when he has yahrzeit.

This is somewhat ironic, as the concept of yahrzeit has no clear historical pedigree, and it is certainly not mentioned overtly

by Chazal (cf. Nedarim 12a).

Even the term “yahrzeit” has an interesting history. While I imagine most, if not all, readers are aware that this is a Yiddish/ German portmanteau that literally means “yearly-time” and refers to an anniversary—specifically as it relates to the date of the death of a family member—this was not always clear.

Rav Yosef Chaim of Bagdad (d. 1909), in his sefer, Ben Ish Chai, alludes to the fact

that while even Sefardim used the term yahrzeit, few understood its true meaning.

In his teshuvos (Rav Pa’alim vol.4, ‘Sod Yesharim’ siman 16) he explains that he and most other Sefardim were under the false belief that this term suggested either an acronym or perhaps a reference to a deeper mystical term. It would seem from other Sefardi works that many Sefardim believed the Hebrew acronym suggested for the term yahrzeit was: Yom Asifas Regel TZ’addik Yihye Yom Tov (the day when the righteous are gathered should be for a yom tov)!

Eventually, the Ben Ish Chai explains, he came across the sefer Nishmas Chayim

by R’ Menashe Ben Yisrael (as well as the Levush to siman 133:1) that described this word as being of Ashkenazi/Yiddish etymology.

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That Ashkenazim were able to choose the name for this concept is of little surprise. As pointed out above, historically, even the concept of yahrzeit—although codified in the Shulchan Aruch—is of dubious origin. The most logical historical explanation is that it was the Chachmei Ashkenaz who created this day as a takanah at some point after the 800s CE (Some say that it was institutionalized by Rav Hai Gaon). Even Rav Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, and himself of Sefardi descent, quotes Ashkenazi sources as his support for establishing halachos for this day (Orach Chayim siman 621).

Several years ago a close family friend, Rav Aaron Levine—the former menahel of Ner Yisroel Toronto, who has written several sefarim on subjects relating to the halachos and hashkofos of death and the

BY RABBI MOSHE TAUB

sick—stopped by my shul. After davening he went to his car and brought me a set of his new two-volume work, Kol Bo L’Yahrzeit (Encyclopedia of Yahrzeit).

As some of the more common and fascinating sh’eilos that rabbanim receive relate to this topic, this sefer is an invaluable resource. Must one fast on this day? Must one visit the cemetery, and if so how much cost must one incur to do so? Is one candle enough for two yahrzeits on the same day?

Another common, and sensitive, sh’eilah, especially in a Young Israel, is if a daughter—when there are no brothers—may say Kaddish quietly from behind the mechitzah so long as a man will be saying it loudly.

I, too, am not immune to some interesting yahrzeit queries This past week was the yahrzeit of my mother, Rebbetzin Judy Taub, a’h, and, as has become my minhag, I perused much of this twovolume set.

As a kohen, is there an inyan for me to go to the cemetery just to see the matzeivah?

May I enter a cemetery if I make sure not to come within eight amos of a plot (See shu’t Tzitz Eliezer 4:15)?

But beyond the halachic issues are the philosophical difficulties.

Yiddishkeit is a culture of life; while we long to be reunited with those who have passed on, we do not pine to accomplish this with our own death; rather, we hope for the time that they return to us through techiyas hameisim.

Jews comfort themselves with memories of days to come.

Strange then that it was we who began a system, and almost all nations followed, where we recall the departed based on their date of death—their yahrzeit—as opposed to their date of birth. Would it not be more fitting to celebrate their original arrival into this world, their birthday? Are we not remembering the life they lived?

What, after all, was gained by the date of their demise?

Several yahrzeits ago it occurred to me

that a yahrzeit does not come to celebrate the day someone left this world, rather to recall their arrival in the next, their “eternal birthday,” when, finally, all that was worked for, all of their zechuyos, is attained and all that was hidden is revealed. A yahrzeit is not about our loss per se; for that we have our personal memories and mementoes. Rather, a yahrzeit is the realization and remembrance of the moment loved ones truly began to live, when unshackled by life’s challenges they were finally able to witness the results of their deeds.

This idea can be helpful when relating to another yahrzeit difficulty.

Rav Chaim Paltiel (13th century) is quoted by the Bach (YD siman 217) as

consider removing whatever it is that is bothering us so as to assuage the departed’s newly found—and undeserved—pain caused by our predicament (Maharam Shick)!

I would add the following suggestion based on the idea above: One of the earliest incidents recorded of visiting the dead is Kalev visiting Me’aras Hamachpeilah when traveling with the meraglim and Yehoshua.

In fact, some even suggest that that same day was also Yaakov Avuni’s yahrzeit.

It always seemed that the purpose of Kalev’s visit—and indeed the subconscious purpose when anyone visits the feld—is to be inspired by the life of the niftar/nifteres.

Kalev needed to be reminded that, like

Some suggest that when we daven at a cemetery we are hoping that the zechus of the departed will assist us. wondering why we are even allowed to visit and daven at a cemetery. Are we not concerned that this could lead one to be doresh el hameisim (directly requesting from and praying to the dead, a most serious infraction)? And if indeed due to this we are not to daven there, why else do we go?

Numerous answers are given to his query, and explaining what indeed our goal is when visiting a beis hachayim.

(See Shalal Rav, Shelach, p.190, for various suggestions, as well as how to avoid serious halachic concerns when davening in a cemetery.)

Some suggest that when we daven at a cemetery—while certainly only directing our tefillos to Hashem—we are hoping that the zechus of the departed will assist us. Others suggest that we are actually informing the departed of our needs and/ or problems, thereby causing Hashem to

Yaakov who fought against Eisav and lived a difficult life, he persevered and is now comforted in Shamayim. He was reminded as well of the conflicts of Avraham and Nimrod, Yitzchak and Yishmael. This not only inspired him to daven better, but galvanized him to face the challenges that awaited him.

While we do not focus on death, Yiddishkeit has found a way to be inspired by it.

Most importantly, a yahrzeit serves to remind us that one day, achar meah v’esrim shanah—unless Mashiach comes first—we will need to serve as that inspiration for our own children. 

Rabbi Moshe Taub has served as the rabbi of the Young Israel of Greater Buffalo since September 2003, and he also serves as the rav hamachshir of the Buffalo Vaad Hakashrus.

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221

Us

Between

The insights and perspectives of husband-and-wife team Ruchama and Yisrael Feuerman

State of Mind RUCHAMA FEUERMAN’S TURN

O

nce, when my youngest was going through a miserable teething bout, crying to no end that piercing baby cry, I randomly thought: What if we were in an underground bunker, in Warsaw or Kovno? What if someone had taken us in to hide us? Would my baby and I have been thrown out? Would they have smothered her to drown out her cries? Then I stopped and had to ask myself, Isn’t it weird to be thinking like this? A little out of touch?

When I ran that disturbing daydream past

my husband, I expected him to dismiss it, but he admitted the same idea had crossed his mind.

Gottenyu.

Is this just a reflex of being Jewish?

Truth is, ever since my first Holocaust documentary, which I saw in fifth or sixth grade (who can forget the devastation of skeletal Jewish bodies stacked on wagons like pick-up sticks?), I’ve been in a state. I’d call it a Holocaust state of mind but that feels sacrilegious. I have fed this state with books throughout my adult years. I read

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these books like I’m reading my own life.

Always I’m wondering: What could I have done differently so that I and my family would’ve escaped? Where would I have hidden them when they came for us? In a laundry basket, beneath a load of dirty clothes? Inside the boiler? The piano? Most of the time, they sniffed out the person anyway.

Someone I work with tells me a story how when the Nazis came pounding on her grandmother’s door, she offered the officer a mug of hot chocolate and the family was

BY YISRAEL AND RUCHAMA FEUERMAN

spared. A friend says how her father’s jokes had the Nazis rolling on the ground at the pits, convulsed with laughter, and how in this way some Jews managed to escape.

Someone else relates how his father found favor in the eyes of the Nazis, and once, when his tooth rotted, one Nazi officer even arranged for expert dental treatment. The son shows me a picture of his father, short, thin, balding, utterly nondescript but with a goofy, enchanting smile. These improbable stories actually happened, as unlikely as they sound. I find myself practicing my own version of a goofy enchanting smile, but when that fails (it looks weirdly psychotic), I go out and buy boxes of hot chocolate.

You never know.

It’s that “You never know” that follows me each morning as I pass the crossing guard, Anna, a short, sturdily-built woman in her late 60s. I emphatically say good morning and thank Anna for her work, and encourage my daughters to do the same. Why do I do this? Sure, I believe in showing gratitude and politeness, and Anna is a conscientious crossing guard, but something more calculated is at work here.

In the iconic Hassidic Tales of the Holocaust, a rabbi stands in line, waiting to be sent to the right (life), or most probably left (death) like most of the people before him. Finally he stands before the dreaded Nazi who will decide his fate, and recognizes his old neighbor, the one he used to greet every morning, in former, more peaceful days. Once again, he says, quietly. “Good morning, Herr Mueller.” The Nazi’s eyes flicker in recognition. He wishes his old neighbor a good morning back, and sends the rabbi to the right, to life.

It’s a well-known story, and its message —the power of a civic formality to foster a deeper connection, indeed to turn a monster executioner into a human being, even if only for a minute—has surely moved many. But

how dreadful to feel that a normal human impulse, to say good morning, a civility for its own sake, is now freighted with imagined hopes for rescue at some later date. Say good morning now to all the “service” people, the gardener, the school crossing guard, the bus driver, the mail lady—after all, goes the thinking, you never know when you will need them.

The tale has so seeped into my consciousness it has ruined—no, poisoned—harmless exchanges between me and my non-Jewish neighbors. I’ll be chit-chatting with Mrs.

the map; the UN’s obsessive attention to Israel’s perceived failings, where the egregious abuses of other nations are totally ignored; fresh attacks against Jews across the globe. And whenever a religious-looking person gets arrested in a high profile way, I think, now we’re really sunk.

Somehow I’m brought back to Anna, the crossing guard. By the end of the school year, Anna has come to love me and our daughters and craves our hellos, and I feel a real affection for her. There is something in the way she stands there in the rain, both

It’s that “You never know” that follows me each morning as I pass the crossing guard.

Paz, a very considerate and wonderful neighbor. She regularly drops off toys on everyone’s porch, games that she no longer needs, making sure to distribute them equitably among the neighbors. Her lovingly tended garden is a feast for my eyes. Still, when I casually admire her exquisite rosebushes or offer to bring a bag of groceries inside, I sometimes wonder (as horrible as this sounds): Am I secretly storing up credit in case of a Holocaust?

I glance sideways at our non-Jewish neighbors, acquaintances and friends: Which ones would squirrel us away in their basements or attics, as if to say, we won’t let anyone tell us what to do with our Jews. Or which of them would give us away? In Poland, 1942, neighbors turned neighbors in for bags of sugar.

I’m caught between feeling ashamed of this line of thinking and justified in my anxiety. After all, there is a daily barrage of bad news for the Jews: an almost-nuclear Iran frothing at the mouth to blast Israel off

soldier-like and motherly, making sure everyone safely crosses, that gets me each time. The last week of school, my daughters buy her a beautiful mug and her face collapses a little in a panic of joy, as if she’s not used to getting tokens of appreciation, and we’re both smiling at each other, taking in this nice New Jersey moment. But then I go and ruin it all by thinking, Now I’ve really nailed it. For sure, she’d keep me in her place a week.

Yuck.

But my affection for Anna is real!

Maybe.

But it’s a Holocaust-hedged affection.

But not entirely. Not entirely. 

Ruchama Feuerman, MFA, is a novelist and has been developing writers for over 20 years (www. ruchamafeuerman.com). Yisrael Feuerman, PsyD, LCSW, helps fathers and sons get along. The Feuermans reside in Passaic, New Jersey.

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223

Eats of Life

“FOOD, HEAVENLY FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD”

A

h! It’s the Food Issue, and despite the fact that the fine publishers of Ami told me that I am off the hook and they would not demand an “Eats of Life,” I felt it right to challenge myself and contribute a bit to the menu.

I thought it would be an easy task, but I feel like the fellow who walked into his doctor’s office with a carrot in one ear, a pickle in the other and a grape in a nostril, complaining that he was not feeling well. The doctor looked up and said in a

flash, “You’re just not eating right.”

It is not as easy as one may think to write about food.

I wonder if there were similar ads back in my father’s native pre-war Tzitivyan, Lithuania’s periodicals to the mouth-watering ads depicting succulent delicacies in the pages of todays prestigious periodicals. There probably would have been a black and white full-page ad depicting a piece of schmaltz herring and a kichel. (There was no color in Lithuania). And I am sure it would have been

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derided as being over the top.

But I shall refrain from critiquing those delicious-looking ads. After all, how can I knock delicious food or the advertisers of such. Yidden and food have had this symbiotic relationship from time immemorial. For better or worse, one of the first commands and transgressions in the Torah pertained to foods that were allowed and foods that were prohibited.

Our liturgy is replete with references to “Meat and fish and all sorts of delicacies.”

We are told that when Erev Tishah B’Av

BY RABBI MORDECHAI KAMENETZKY

falls out on a Shabbos, our meals should not be impeded by mourning and we are allowed to have a meal like Shlomo Hamelech in his glory! And the Gemara tells us that Avraham’s meal was even more sumptuous than Shlomo’s! So what’s wrong if we get a glimpse of what they may have been serving in the tent?

And then, of course, as children we were taught about the unimaginably varied flavors that would manifest themselves in the man, which we would conjure up in our minds. I pity my poor parents who were only able to imagine a dry kichel and a shtickl herring.

From humanity’s very get-go, food played a role. More importantly, perhaps, so did restraint. We could have eaten anything in the Garden of Eden, save one item—but no! Man needed that one, too.

Unfortunately, the command not to eat something was transgressed and the enduring balancing act between permissible and prohibited still teeters today. Like a see-saw, our love/hate affair with certain foods—be it a question of kashrus, or just unnecessary indulgence—versus a Jew’s eternal quest for holiness and abstention, simmers subtly in the conscience of every palate and stomach.

There is an apocryphal story, one that I have even heard with my revered zeide, Rav Yaakov, as the protagonist with the witty end-line, though I doubt its authenticity, knowing my zeide.

The story goes that at a very fancy wedding a table was set for the distinguished roshei yeshivah and rabbanim. The waiter was taking orders and asked each one if he would like the prime rib that would be specially grilled to his taste, or a piece of fish that was ready and waiting for the religious rabbis who often deferred eating meat outside their homes. One by one, the roshei yeshivah and rabbanim quietly debated in their minds, possibly wor-

ried that ordering the succulent steak on offer might look uncouth, or worse, that they had lapsed in their fastidious kashrus observance. Each of them waited and then scrunched his face while nodding ever so slightly. “Git mir fish.”

The last rav at the table shrugged and said, “Git mir fleish. I’ll take the steak.”

Turning to his astounded colleagues he said, “Rabbosai, I guess that my taavah overcame my gaavah! My desire overtook my ego.”

There was a time in my life when I actually had proposed a unique diet wherein I would never eat anything that I had to stand in line for. I called it the “es pas nit” diet. I did lose quite a number of pounds via that method, but always debated whether the self-imposed denial was a product of my haughtiness or a true desire to cut back. And then new caterers came on the scene, whose delicacies transcended the typical kugels of old, and the aromas and appearances of their magic

The waiter asked each rabbi if he would like the prime rib that would be specially grilled to his taste, or a simple piece of fish.

Indeed, I often struggle with that conflict—not necessarily because of a question of kashrus, it’s just that sometimes my ego, and imagined eminence, makes me uncomfortable standing in line at a smorgasbord for a piece of kugel. (A lamb chop is perhaps a different story.) I often think to myself, I am a grown man. I have children and grandchildren. My wife is a most wonderful cook and there is always something to eat at home. What in the world am I doing waiting on a line to get served food as if I were in a high school cafeteria?

Images flash in my mind of the Charles Dickens character Oliver Twist standing in a line of orphans with bowl in hand pleading in a twee British accent: “Please, sir, I want some more.” “More?” shouts the man in the play… the rest of the dialogue fades away as I stand there, suddenly unabashed in front of the food and the non-English-speaking waiter who is carving or tossing or stir-frying, depending upon what the fare’s method of preparation requires.

had me shed my self-perceived eminence and join the food line with everyone else.

Of course, I rationalized it as I conjured up another probably apocryphal debate that our roshei yeshivah would relate in the name of none other than Rav Yisrael Salanter.

It seems he was thirsty one night after he had gone to bed. The debate in his mind was whether or not to take a drink.

Did he really need it or not? On the one hand, maybe he did not need a drink and his craving was simply a desire that he ought to control. On the other hand, maybe his body did need the liquid, and it was his laziness that was feeding his resistance. Perhaps he truly needed the drink but simply did not want to get out of bed, and was rationalizing his refusal to get up by tying it to the holier motive of abstention.

The story goes that Rav Yisrael arose from his bed, poured the water from the pitcher into a glass, then poured it back into the pitcher and returned to bed.

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225

My dear friends, for better or for worse, I must admit, despite the impact of that insightful story, I did not stand in line and wait for a piece of London broil to be carved only to give it back to the waiter.

No. I succumbed—or at least was about to—when I spotted a rosh yeshivah who indeed had more class (and more years)

begin and end with “Wanna drink?” Even the l’chayim that we, or at least the chasidim among us, reserve for a yahrzeit is offered by the gentile world before the body hits the ground.

I am sure that in the gourmet food stores in the WASPier neighborhoods of this country, I will never find four com-

There are just certain foods that are so intrinsic to our faith that no one outside of our box understands it. than I. He was sitting at a table alone, sipping a seltzer, looking in a sefer. I brought him the dish I had stood in line for.

But let’s face it. No matter the background, culture, or level of religiosity— food reigns.

One of my less yeshivish neighbors, who was a baal teshuvah (I facetiously say “was” because, like many of us, he has finished doing teshuvah and is now, baruch Hashem, walking down the slippery slope with the rest of us) told me of his Pesach seder, back in the day before he began the process.

Basically his seder went something like this: “We were slaves. We were freed. Let’s eat.”

But sadly I must admit, the “Let’s get to the food” anticipation drives many a spiritually centered occasion, relegating the main event to the back burner, if I may use a cooking allusion.

Gentiles, for some reason, gluttonous as they may appear, aren’t associated with a geshmake Thursday night cholent.

Instead, they are more likely linked with Johnny Walker and conversations that

peting brands, each with 15 varieties of herring. I doubt I’d even find herring! But maybe that’s because there are just certain foods that are so intrinsic to our faith that no one outside of our box understands it, and any attempt to introduce a higher form of fish into our culture would be met with disdainful curiosity at best.

One of the more famous jokes that made the rounds of the Borsht Belt— oy, another gastro-etymological reference!—concerned one Sadie Finkelstein who lived in an apartment on New York’s Lower East Side for over 50 years. Her son, David, had made it big in the corporate world as a cosmopolitan businessman, wheeling and dealing, traveling to places as far-flung as the Himalayas of India and the French Riviera. Of course, he shopped the finest Paris boutiques and bespoke tailors on his excursions to the world’s more civilized locales.

For his mother’s 75th birthday, David decided to send his mother a gift of the finest Russian caviar and France’s most exquisite Champagne. From his hotel suite in Paris he had the items shipped

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with one-day delivery—chilled Champagne and fresh caviar!

A few days later, David called his mother. “Ma,” he asked, “did you receive the package?”

“Sure, I received the package,” his mother said. She did not seem impressed.

“Well, how was it?” David asked in anticipation.

All he heard was a sigh. Then a pause.

“To tell you the truth,” said Sadie, “the ginger ale was very sour and the blackberry jelly was a little too salty.”

There is an amazing psak that I heard in the name of the Chasam Sofer, that medical testing on gentiles cannot be used as a halachic determinant for Jews. We are just different.

But, as a choleh who was very near and dear to me summed it up when he was given a very dire prognosis by his doctor: “Doc,” he said, “those stats don’t apply to me.”

“And, why is that?” asked the stuffy surgeon whose reading glasses were perched on the tip of is nose.

“Because,” said my friend with a smile, “I eat cholent.”  Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky is the rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Toras Chaim at South Shore, a weekly columnist in Yated Ne’eman, and the author of the Parsha Parable series. He can share your story through the “Streets of Life” and can be reached at editorial@amimagazine.org.

A collection called The Best of “Streets of Life” is now available from BentshPress.com.

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