the debate over kosher restaurants in Jerusalem heats up

I have posted a couple of posts on the topic of kashrut and the "investigation" performed by the Kosherot organization into the current state of kashrut affairs in Jerusalem restaurants.

I therefore feel obligated to write about some new comments by Rabbonim who have commented on the investigation, so as to present fairly the opposing opinions (of course with my comments).

The first response is that of Rav Benny Lau (I think he is the nephew of the former Chief Rabbi). To see Rav Benny Lau's full letter in Hebrew, see this Ynet article and a briefer version of it can be found here..

Rav B Lau attacks Kosherot and its report as being a joke and better that it should never have been published. His main focus is on the restaurants in the report under the Rabbanut hechsher. He says regarding many of the claims that restaurants and mashgichim are not sifting flour or the legumes and rices, that many of these places do not bake their own breads or pastries, so they have no need for sifting their own flours, many do not sift legumes because they do not use them. Rav Lau claims that the mashgiach always sifts the rice and signs a report that he does so. Separating Trumos and Maasros is not an issue because the fruits and veggies come to the restaurant with the trumos and maasros already separated.

As well, another major issue is the bishul akum one - who lights the fire or does the cooking. According to ashkenazim, all we need is that a Jew should light the fire. Then, even if a non-Jew does the actual cooking, it is considered as if the jew did the cooking. Sfardim require that a Jew should do the actual cooking, and just lighting the fire is not enough. The Kosherot report found that many of the restaurants have a mashgiach lighting the fire but a non-Jew (usually an Arab, in Jerusalem restaurants) is doing the actual cooking. That presents a problem for sfardim, or for ashkenazim who want to be makpid on that level.

Rav B Lau responds to this issue as well. He claims that the Rabbanut does not claim to be ok for sfardim or people who are makpid on that level of Jewish cooking. Only at the level of mehadrin are they makpid on this. A mehadrin certificate, Rav B Lau says, can include every chumrah in the book. However, a regular Rabbanut hechsher is designed to create a bas elevel of kashrut that most people can adhere to. He says that not just ashkenazim hold like the Rama allowing a Jew to simply light the fire, but many Morrocan Jews also held like that.

Rav B Lau goes on to claim that those behind the report had ulterior motives, possibly to minimize the use of Arabs in the workforce. He calls the report a joke and better it should never have been written. He also approached the head of the Rabbanut, RavIlovitzky, and asked his opinion about the report. Rav Ilovitzky claims that the restaurants under the Rabbanut hechsher all adhere to the rules of the Rabbanut and this report claiming otherwise is false. He says that where the people of Kosherot could have used their energies in trying to improve things where possible and work together, their goal was really to try to destroy the kashrut of the Rabbanut.

This concludes my recap of Rav B Lau's letter in response to the Kosherot report. Again, if you want to see the letter in full, follow the links above.

I was then shown a letter of response from Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of Tzfat and the son of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (former Chief Rabbi of Israel). Rav Eliyahu writes, and I do not have a link any longer for this, as the link I was sent no longer works, but I still have the text, that Rav B Lau's letter is an attempt to take the debate out of the realm of kashrut and to politicize the debate instead. He says that Rav B Lau's response is an attempt to take us backwards 10 years in our level of kashrut observance to a time when there were hechshers for specific communities - such as a hechsher called "frankish" which was for restaurants that were good for sfardim (also known in the vernacular as "frankim") to eat in. Rav S Eliyahu says that Kosherot checked the status of Rabbanut Jerusalem restaurants to see if they adhere to the directives of Rabbanut Israel about a standard level fo Kashrut that is acceptable for all, and they found that it is really using the communal system [where most of the restaurants are only good for ashkenazim].

The basic goal, Rav S Eliyahu writes, is to use a standard that is equally acceptable for both ashkenazim and sfardim to go in and know the word "Kosher" means he can eat there without requiring any fine text. Today, the situation in Yerushalayim is not that. A Sfardi cannot go into a restaurant and know that it is kosher for him to eat there. Rav Eliyahu asks why Rav Lay wishes to impose ashkenazy rules on sfardi people, which will require separate hechshers for ashkenazim and sfardim..

Rav S Eliyahu goes on about that issue a little more, than he moves on to other problems mentioned by Kosherot. He says many of these problems are already well known and have been researched and mentioned by other organizations. Any place can make a mistake, but the state in Jerusalem is well beyond the level of the occassional mistake and the situation needs to be resolved.

That is the conclusion of my recap of Rav S Eliyahu's letter.

Now, my comments. I did not see the Kosherot report as focusing specifically on Rabbanut restaurants. While they delat with issues that the Rabbanut claims as standards yet those stabndards are not adhered to, I actually foudn that to be a minor part of the report. The main issue in the report was more focused on the various mehadrin hechshers that are either not reliable at all or do not keep set standards.

Every hechsher declares what are the stabdards of kashrut that it uses in its supervision. The question a consumer needs to ask and be aware of is what standards he wishes to keep, and if the hechsher on any specific restaurant supplies him with the standards he is looking for.

Meaning, someone who wants to refrain from eating dairy products made with chalav stam/akum, will know he cannot eat Rabbanut because they use chalav akum and he does not want to eat that.

The same is true for any other standard. if you know the Rabbanut keeps standards at the level you are confortable with, then go ahead and eat Rabbanut. If you prefer a different set of standards, then don't eat Rabbanut, but eat whichever one keeps the standards you are looking for.

One serious problem is when a hechsher declares standards, but does not adhere to those standards - either because they just do not or because of technical reasons such as the mashgiach cannot enforce certain policies. Then you have no way of knowing that you cannot eat there (based on the standards you are looking for).

The real revelation of the Kosherot report, however, was not really the Rabbanut issues. Even though they discussed them, I think the main focus was really on the hechshers that portray themselves as being mehadrin but use no standards and often do not send a mashgiach for any purpose other than to pick up a check.