The Oriental Ordeal

In general, R' Yechiel Spira of JKN does good work. I look at him as a sort of maverick. He has found an issue that is close to his heart and he has decided the Jewish world isn't as careful or as knowledgeable as it should be, and he has taken it upon himself to raise the level of awareness among the people, and better the kashrus situation in Israel. And most of what he does is good.

One could say who is he to go around on his own and tell people what to do and set policy, but that is really the way it always works. Things can slide and until somebody steps up to the plate and does what he sees to be right, it will continue to slide. It is often one person who takes on a project who can and does make changes to the system.

I remember hearing the story of the fellow who survived WWII and he felt that shaatnez was an issue that people had no awareness of and therefore were being nichshal in. He took it upon himself and went around from community to community and gave lectures on it and eventually set up and taught shaatnez labs and in the merit of this one fellow's efforts, he resurrected a mitzvah that was basically in the dustbin (so the story goes at least).

That being said, when such things are happening there are always sure to be victims of the new policy being set. Spira is not setting policy, but he is creating an awareness and a movement to a new level of kashrus awareness that did not exist before. And as more people jump on his bandwagon, the standards of the communities begin to shift.

A good example of this, I think, is how R' Spira relates to the Rabbanut. While he had tremendous praise for the way the people and rabbis in the Rabbanut system work, and he made clear that nobody has the right to call any hechsher treif just because you dont rely on it, he strongly insinuated that they are full of kulas and can't be relied upon. When one community rav spoke up at the lecture and said that he has taken courses in the Rabbanut and he explained how it works, different than how R' Spira explained, it puts the situation in a bind. No matter what he says, he does have an agenda - mostly it is good, to improve the kashrus situation. But it takes victims. And that's not always fair and reasonable when it is a drive by one individual. But that is the reality - he creates a motion, a forward moving train, and sometimes it just gets out of hand.

Case in point is the restaurant discussed in the last lecture, The Oriental, a Chinese food restaurant owned by a local family.

They have been under the hechsher of the Rabbanut Yerushalayim Mehadrin, and for whatever reason their certificate expired and they did not receive a new one. They continued to hang the old certificate, and R' Spira in his review of Bet Shemesh eateries called them on it. While it is a common thing that they keep expired certificates up, it is really wrong and against the rules. A common reason given for keeping it on display is that it has the mashgiach contact information. Whether that is enough of a reason to hang an expired sign I don't know, perhaps the proprietor can hang a separate sign with th phone number of the mashgiach, but R' Spira considers it automatically an attempt to defraud and deceive the public by making them think you have a teudah when you do not. And he said so loud and clear at tyhe lecture. Even though they already have received their newly renewed teudah, that barely got a mention, while he very loudly used them as an example of fraud via expired certificates.

Stating that such a restaurant is using fraudulent means can be extremely damaging to the restaurant, even if the accusation is incorrect, and especially because they are members of the same community as all of us.

The Viflics, the proprietors of The Oriental, put out the following statement on the local email list:

I was very kindly informed by one of my neighbours this morning regarding what was said about the kashrus certificate of The Oriental Chinese restaurant. and I would like to give our side of the story.

It is correct to say that our mehadrin teudah was in fact expired for a period of time, HOWEVER, during the WHOLE TIME we had a FULL-TIME MEHADRIN YERUSHALAYIM MASGIACH on the premises and daily visits from the rabbinut Bet Shemesh masgiach, which was not mentioned.

Anyone who had a problem with the certificate was encouraged to speak to our masgiach and if this was not enough, we gave them the the telephone number of the Mehadrin Yerushalayim supervisor.

I wish that Rabbi Spiro had spoken with us, toured our kitchen, spoken to our mashgiach (like some other establishments metioned). If so, he would have seen that the kashrut standards of the Mehadrin Yerushalayim were being upheld by us in conjunction with the mashgiach while we were working on fixing the expired teudah.

My husband, Itzak, is a frum, well-known and long-time member of the community. The kashrut of our restaurant has always been at the same high standard that is demanded by Mehadrin Yerushalayim even when our teudah was expired.

If you have any questions, please call us. We are always available to our patrons.

Please come visit our restaurant, come to our kitchen, speak to our mashgiach and judge for yourself.

Thank you
Tamar Viflic

That raises questions - is the certificate the end all? if the restaurant has a mashgiach, the certificate should be unnecessary anyway. While it still might be wrong to hang an expired certificate, no matter how good the reason, 15 feet further in the restaurant is a live mashgiach waiting to be spoken to who can verify that all the standards are or are not being kept at any given level. If you are truly conducting a thorough investigation, while it is good to be skeptical and feel free to criticize them for the expired certificate, why not walk into the kitchen, speak to the proprietor, speak to the mashgiach and get the whole picture? See whether the owners are trustworthy people or not, whether they are eidele and heimeshe people or not, whether there is or is not a mashgiach, and then give the community the whole story and let every person decide for himself whether to trust a mashgiach or wait until the new paper arrives..

I asked some questions about this incident to the Viflics, and to R' Spira.

I asked the Viflics why they kept the expired teudah up, if their suddenly getting a new teudah after months of not getting it was only because of R' Spira's investigation or was the timing just coincidental.

The following is the answer they sent me:

Mr. Spira had nothing to do with us getting the teudah..... the teudah was held up at the rabbenut Yerushalyaim office because people were on vacation, computer problems etc. that was what they told us anyway. We had already PAID for it before Mr. Spira started his investigation into The Oriental!!! Mr. Spira should have checked this out AND mention it in his article.

1) The teudah was not taken down as it had details of the Mehadrin Yerushalayim supervisor on it and people were encouraged to call him in case they had any questions. Bearing the fact that we always had and have a Mehadrin Yerushalayim mashgiach on premises.

2) After paying for the teudah, it took us almost a month to get it, as there were supposedly technical problems within Mehadrin Yerushalayim. There was definetly a delay in getting it to us... even though I was on the phone almost every other day.

3) Incidentally, I just checked out that the day that Mr. Spira came to the restaurant our teudah was actually paid for and 100% VALID, it was just stuck at the Mehardin Yerushalayim office. His investigation definitely had nothing to do with us re-newing the teudah.

4) BTW the whole time that the teudah was expired we paid for and were under their supervision.

4) I don't know if you have read his new booklet or were at the shiur however, two points; at the time the booklet went to print our teudah was already re-newed (okay he put a little section in the back saying that it was re-newed) however, at the shiur (last week) I was told by many people that he publicly bad-mouthed us and our teudah was already all in order over a month ago (if not more).........

Some of the facts that he writes about the other restaurants/establishments even though negative he turns them out positive. He does not mention the fact that my husband is a frum, well-known and long time member from the local community. Why did he not ask to speak to our even to our mashgiach?? Did he think about what he has done can ruin a small family run business..... He praises some establishments with non-religious owners etc.

The answers supplied by the Viflics seem very reasonable and understandable to me. It even raises a question about R' Spira's policy - here is a restaurant that ordered a new teudah, kept the original mashgiach and stadards, yet it took nearly a month to get the new teudah - according to R' Spira's policy, this restaurant has no right to operate until they get the new teudah - are they supposed to close just because the certifying agency cannot get the teudah out in a timely manner?

It also raises a strong question against the Rabbanut mehadrin, and any other agency with the same issues, why a food establishment pays for a teudah and cant get it for a month afterwards - while minor delays might be understandable, how can a restaurant continue to operate like this with no teudah for such a long period of time?

I also sent questions to R' Yechiel Spira, specifically why he stressed their expired teudah and not their new one (even though it did get a small mention, and in the book it got mentioned in the back as an added point), and also why he left it at the teudah issue and did not go in to speak to the mashgiach. R' Spira has not yet responded to my email (it has been 2 days) - if he does, I will publish his answers.

Based on all the information, I don't see why anyone could not at any point trust the Viflics and eat in their restaurant, especially considering they had a mashgiach temidi on premises the whole time throughout the ordeal, which is far better than what many restaurants have under the best of circumstances.