When reading the report, and writing the post, I was wondering about a certain hechsher that was missing from the report. The Badatz of Nahalat Yitzchak. Nahalat Yitzchak is a hechsher that uses the name of Rav Kaduri zt"l, and purports to be a badatz, or a mehadrin hechsher.
I remember the first time I saw Nahalat Yitzchak. I was going to a shwarma place near work and passed another one that had been Rabbanut and they had this Nahalat Yitzchak hechsher hanging up. I thought that was great, as there are more mehadrin places near work. Over the next few weeks I saw a few more restaurants in the area that were hanging this Nahalat Yiztchak hechsher up in their windows.
One day I go into one of these shwarma places and was surprised to see a number of large murals on the walls of the restaurant. Some were benign, but one of them was a large mural of a woman in a bikini. I must say I was shocked that a place with a "badatz" hechsher would have such a painting on the wall. I left the place and questioned whether this was actually a reliable hechsher or not.
Shortly after that, someone told me about Nahalat Yitzchak that it is nt a reliable hechsher, and it is a grandson of Rav Kaduri who is more connected with the mafia than with religion, and he uses his grandfathers name for the hechsher, and the rest of the family rejects any connection to it. Basically, it is not reliable. It is a hechsher that is there just to charge a fee and make people think the restaurant keeps certain standards, and the mashgichim never show up.
Over time, Nahalat Yitzchak has taken on some popularity. Possibly because it is a cheap hechsher with a mehadrin sign. So why was it not included in the report? It would seem to be a perfect fit with the investigation that the rav was performing.
I do not know why it was not included. Perhaps that was one of the ones the rav wrote about where they did not let him in. Perhaps something else.
Regardless, Nahalat Yitzchak sorely needs to be addressed. Over the years, the Rabbanut has issued a number of warnings to people to not rely on the Nahalat Yitzchak hechsher.
It turns out that Nahalat Yitzchak has sued the Rabbanut for claiming they are nt a reliable hechsher. The suit was filed in the Supreme Court. Just the fact that they filed suit in secular court and not in beis din, that alone tells me something is wrong with this "badatz". But they went ahead and sued the Rabbanut.
In the court decision (see image of decision attached below), the court decided with the Rabbanut. The court said that based on the materials supplied by the Rabbanut, they are correct for not approving of Nahalat Yitzchak, and for warning people against them.
When i first moved here, and was working in Jerusalem, we used to order dinner at work. We ordered from burger's bar in beit hadfus, and i thought it was fine because it was a mehadrin hechsher, at least thats what they told me. Let me tell you something, those meals were awesome!
ReplyDeleteThen my wife and I went there one day and saw that they had this Rav Kaduri thing. I asked around about it later and discovered it wasn't reliable. (Apparently they upgraded to a different non-reliable hechsher since then, according to the report).
When my company opened a small sandwich counter in the office, the agreement they had with the restaurant was that they needed to have a mehadrin hechsher. Well the company got screwed pretty bad because the restaurant went out a bought one of these Rav Kaduri hechshers. The rumor at the time was that the Rav Kaduri hechsher didn't use mashgichim. They only certified that what the restaurant claimed they were serving "should technically be mehadrin". (I seem to remember that that was what was written on the teuda). That was what i heard about 4 years ago.
The funny thing was that i used to get omlet sandwhiches from them, not because i relied on their "mehadrin hechsher" but because i relied on their rabanut hechsher (which they also had).
you were lucky - often, the restaurants that get these questionable hechsherim, do so without bothering to get a rabbanut. It happens to be illegal, but that is what many of them do.
ReplyDelete"Over the years, the Rabbanut has issued a number of warnings to people to not rely on the Nahalat Yitzchak hechsher"
ReplyDeletewell i guess this is enough of a reason for some people to assume that nahalat yitzchak is acceptable.
rafi,
personally, i think kashrut supervision should be about kashrut. does it matter what's on the walls? i once spoke to a pizzeria owner in bet ha-kerem, where i stayed a few summers ago. i was talking to him about te'udot (he had regular rabbanut) and i asked him what keeps him from getting an upgrade. he said he complied with mehadrin and wanted it, but the only thing keeping him from getting it is that don't want him playing secular music for the customers. i thought this sounded a little funny and i wondered if he maybe there was a requirement of mehadrin he didn't understand.
anyway, maybe you could do a post for comparing for us rabbanut, mehadrin and badatz. (i'm talking about the practical differences in what each requires, not which is more "reliable" or "trustworthy")
LOZ - I agree. Kashrut should be about kashrut only. But it is not, so considering the context, I was surprised that a badatz would give a hechsher to a place with that image on the wall. It might not have bothered me otherwise, but it raised my suspicion considering they had a "badatz".
ReplyDeleteThe music seems more arbitrary... most music would be fine with me, but if they had a heavy rap or trance being played loudly, I might also become suspicious...
It is interesting that it was a non charedi organization who took it upon themselves to check out the level of Kashrut and then published their study.
ReplyDeleteKol hakovod to them
Josh(related to the Joshua of the previous post)
I was once working in a food establishment in Yerushalayim during my yeshiva days, and we were playing secular music on the radio (not blasting it,but it could be heard). A frum customer walked in, and asked us to shut it off, making the following point that has stuck with me and one which I agree with.
ReplyDeleteThe hechsher is not only on the food, but also on the type of establishment it is in general and the atmosphere of the store. Simply put, a kosher store cannot have a treif atmosphere.
Boy, what I wouldn't do for a shwarma right about now.....
ReplyDelete"The hechsher is not only on the food, but also on the type of establishment it is in general and the atmosphere of the store. Simply put, a kosher store cannot have a treif atmosphere."
ReplyDeleteWhy should that be the case? If one person thinks the store has a treif atmosphere, why should every person have to act as if the food is treif?
If you don't like the atmosphere, you should be able to buy the food and leave!
5 years later: Any update? I still see this hechsher in Modiin. What's the legal status of this hechsher now (vis-a-vis Israeli law)?
ReplyDeleteI dont know. I havent seen this hechsher in a long time. I thought it was long gone... will see if I can find out anything about it
ReplyDelete