Rabbis Ban Strawberries – Again

This time it's Religious Zionist rabbis in Israel.

Halachic ruling forbids strawberries
Torah and Land Institute finds tiny insect that clings to fruit despite washing, pesticide
Kobi Nahshoni, Ynet

Strawberries sold in Israel are infested with tiny insects that cannot be removed with water or pesticide, and are therefore forbidden according to halacha, The Torah and Land Institute has announced after a series of laboratory tests.

Rabbi Yehuda Amichai, who heads the institute, told Ynet that "it used to be enough to take the green leaves off of the strawberry and wash it with soap, but today the bugs stick to the dots on the fruit, and emerge even after a good washing".

He said strawberries that had been sprayed with pesticide were not safe either. "In the end they also have insects that won't come off, even if there are less," he said.

Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu ruled on the issue after consulting with a number of experts. "This is another derivative of the Shmita year," he told Ynet, referring to the fact that on every seventh year, farming is forbidden to Jews, resulting in the growing of strawberries in the Palestinian territories.

"In the Arab sector the fields are watered with waste water and as a result there has been an overflow of insects. Then the strawberries grown by Jews in Israel were also contaminated," he said.

The solution, according to Amichai, is to either peel the skin from the fruit or to puree it in the blender. Although the puree will still have parts of insects, he explains, the halacha does not forbid their digestion.

But scientists and agriculturists are already working on a solution to the crisis, which includes the washing of strawberries in a large, Jacuzzi-like vat that eliminates the insects entirely. Rabbi Amichai said he hoped the method, still in preliminary stages of development, would work out.

The reason pureed strawberries are acceptable to this rabbi is din baria, a rabbinic construct that makes a tiny insect weighing far less than a kezayit (a roughly olive-sized measurement) or even a  hatzi kezayit (half that) completely forbidden if whole, even if it is still whole but lost inside a large amount of kosher food.

To compare, a 10 pound piece of non-kosher meat mixed up with two pieces of kosher meat is kosher, even if one piece is in your attic, one in your refrigerator and the third in your basement. As long as one piece cannot be distinguised from another in terms of kosher or non-kosher, the law of rov, majority, applies. And that makes all the pieces of meat kosher to eat. The same rule applies if you are dealinng with three whole chickens, two kosher and one non-kosher.

However, if the bug is not whole then it can be made battel (negated), based on the amount of kosher food in the mixture. So pureeing strawberries (and the tiny, not really visable bugs that come with them) makes the bugs not whole, and then makes them negated in the resulting mixture.

I still contend bugs this small are not a kashrut problem. They cannot be easily seen with the naked eye, if they can even be seen at all.

Past that, the standard for what can and can not be seen is not what a  person with excellent vision can see under high quality artificial light or bright sunlight. It is waht the average person could see before there were eyeglasses, artificial lighting, clear glass windows and smoke free heating sources – in other words, if you can't easily see a bug because the bug is very small, then the bug should not pose any kashrut problem.

Many Orthodox rabbis, however, disagree.

Previous Strawberry Bans: 1, 2.

[Hat Tip: Chicago Samson.]

Comments

[critical_minyan]

some possible solutions besides the strawberry Jacuzzi:
1) every charedi should have to have a piece of flypaper glued to the top of their mouths to attract the bugs.
2) truly frum charedim should have to puree all their food in a blender, not just strawberries. this will also prevent food from getting stuck in your teeth and causing a problem of mixing milk and meat.
3) its basically what is going on now, but the rabbis should make it official; ban all fruits and vegetables from the Charedi community. This whole vegetable thing is a fad anyway.

[Garnel Ironheart]

Okay, okay, let's just cut through: who do we have to pay to get strawberries kosher again?

[Hometown Postville]

ROFL! Critical minyan! When I first glanced at the article title, I had a fleeting thought that strawberries were being banned because of their blood-red color! ie.reminiscent of the taboo monthly women's curse. I didn't think it took a rabbi to hand out health issues! (although I understand the connection of insects to meat!)

[Yosef ben Matityahu]

not too slowly, but surely and deliberately, orthodox judaism is following a besotting path!
if this is judaism, why be jewish?

[Masorti]

Yosef,

This isn't Judaism--this is Orthodoxy. The two are quickly becoming mutually exclusive.

[Successful Messiah]

"the standard for what can and can not be seen is not what a person with excellent vision can see under high quality artificial light or bright sunlight. It is waht the average person could see before there were eyeglasses, artificial lighting, clear glass windows and smoke free heating sources"

So the standard is what a legally blidn person can see, without egeglasses, after sundown, with no lighting, through a window caked with grime and in a smoke filled room? And you base this on your extensive knowledge of halacha that you dreamed in you mother's basement?

[Chicago Samson]

I think these shoteh Hasidim should just pasken for their own foolish families and nobody else.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Strawberry Fad (apologies to Beatles)

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm gonna ban Strawberry Fad.
Green stuff is bad and nothing to eat healthy about.
Strawberry fad is over.

Poskining’s easy with eyes closed, misinterpretating all you read.
It's getting hard to be frum but it all stresses out, life doesn't matter much to me.
Let me make you frown, 'cause I'm gonna ban Strawberry Fad.
Healthy is bad and kishka to clog ateries.
Strawberry fad is over.

No one I think is frummer than me, I mean it must be assur or else.
That is you can't you know not sin but it's all right, I think gehenna's pretty swell
Let me make you frown, 'cause I'm gonna ban Strawberry Fad.
Kosher ain’t a meal and no anti-oxidants.
Strawberry fad for never.

Always you, all the time, never me; but you know I know ‘cause I had a cholom. .
I think I know I mean a 'Yes' but it has to be “no;” that is I think you are a Golem.
Let me talk down to you, 'cause I'm gonna ban Strawberry Foods.
My science is crude and nothing to get holy about.
Strawberry bugs, feh, never!.
Strawberries banned forever.

(Whispered over fadeout): And NO cranberry sauce!

[WoolSilkCotton]

YL, as always, you rule!
And nothing to get hung about.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Thanks, WSC.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

YL, loved that Magical Mystery Tour!

There's nothing to be grown that can't be treif
There's nothing grown by God that always safe
Underneath the rabbis' rules you'll have to chafe
No fresh fruit!
All you'll eat is bugs
All you'll eat is bugs
All you'll eat is bugs,bugs
Bugs are all you'll eat.

Next up, a song for Mashgichim from the same movie/album: Rabbi, you're a bitch, man.

Interesting (ha!) JTA piece by Avi Shafran saying how Madoff is better than Sully, proving again a-morality of haredism.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/04/03/1004222/bernie-sully-and-me/

[david]

Well the Rabbi from Safed (famous for his outrageous racism) is blaming the Arabs. Maybe that has something to do with it?

[WoolSilkCotton]

++Office of the Chief Rabbi | April 03, 2009 at 11:46 AM++

That article, and the idiots commenting in support, pretty much summarizes how perverse orthodox 'judaism' has become.

[Shmarya]

So the standard is what a legally blidn person can see, without egeglasses, after sundown, with no lighting, through a window caked with grime and in a smoke filled room? And you base this on your extensive knowledge of halacha that you dreamed in you mother's basement?

The halakha was codified before incandescent or florescent lighting, good eyeglasses, etc.

And nowhere in that codification to you find that the person checking for bugs needs to have perfect vision.

It is very clear that Jews checked for bugs as they were, good eyesight or not.

[SJ]

Beware of the evil strawberry. The evil strawberry is coming to get you. Even Superman fell to the evil strawberry. The evil strawberry tastes good. XD

[Yosef ben Matityahu]

"Beware of the evil strawberry. The evil strawberry is coming to get you. Even Superman fell to the evil strawberry. The evil strawberry tastes good. XD"

Thanks SJ, everything is becoming clear after reading your input.
I come to realise now that the issur of strawberry does not really rest on the existence of bugs. But rather on the fact that stawberry being a luscious fruit, is not tzniusdik.
And therefore a ben theuyreh should keep away from it.
I think...

[david]

I don't know how you guys can be so cynical. HaKodosh, Boruch Hu, is VERY concerned about whether Jews eat these strawberries!! Indeed, it is a spiritual matter of the highest importance.

Good Shabbos!

[Yochanan Lavie]

YL, loved that Magical Mystery Tour!

Actually, it's a Tragical History Tour, like the Rutles. Loved your parody, too.

Goo, goo, g'Jew.

[Equal Tim e]

--And you base this on your extensive knowledge of halacha that you dreamed in you mother's basement?--

I believe he is basing it on Chullin where the Gemara explains that maggots found inside a piece of meat are kosher providing that the meat was properly slaughtered. Later commentators presume that this is still valid because in their initial state the maggots were too small to be seen.

Perhaps his mother has a set of Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch in her basement? Perhaps you should wander over and ask if you could borrow them?

He is absolutely right - since the time of the Talmud the simple standard has been that if under normal conditions one can't see the bugs and if they do not alter the taste of the finished product - they aren't there. That a group of utra-Ortho engaged in a "Ist is mir machmir" contest doen't alter that fact.

[Chicago Samson]

Most Jewish mothers throughout history had a t'viat ayin -- call it good kitchen sense when it came to knowing how to run a kosher kitchen. These stupid Haredim rabbis are not going to be happy until they make all Jews like Jainists in India, who walk around with masks on their faces, for fear they might eat a bug.

Wouldn't it be grand if these idiot rabbis showed as much concern about treating people ethically, and solving the agunah problem once and for all?

These shoteh Haredim and Hasidim should wear a sign on their rears that say, "If you think we are really stupid, the PLEASE just kick right here in our asses!"

[Radical Feminist]

Come on guys, would you really want to eat strawberries with bugs in them? I am not even kosher and I think I'd pass ick!

[Equal Tim e]

--Come on guys, would you really want to eat strawberries with bugs in them?--

On the surface it DOES sound yucky - but the fact is that EVERYTHING you eat has bugs on it. Some are simply larger or more numerous than are others.

[A. Nuran]

Excellent point ET. All your food has bugs. It's not just salads or asparagus or strawberries. Pretty much anything you eat made of vegetable matter has insects in it - parts, larvae, eggs and whole adult creepy crawlies. That includes your Passover matzoh and the beans in your cholent.

The FDA publishes standards for how much of what is in different sorts of food. You can be positive that your food is right up against the permissible filth levels. And even the stuff that's over the line is infinitely cleaner that what Moses, Hillel or Maimonedes ate.

[Just a Goy]

> 'Next up, a song for Mashgichim from the same movie/album: Rabbi, you're a bitch, man.' - Office of the Chief Rabbi

Sweet!

YL - How about a rendition of Steppenwolf's, 'Born to be Kvetching'?

[WoolSilkCotton]

Any sensible person knows to thoroughly rinse all fresh produce before use. Some people buy a spray I've seen at the supermarket, which contains some sort of detergent that helps, without ruining the food.
Beyond that, we know that all fresh foods will contain tiny bugs/organisms/contaminants, no matter how hard you try to cleanse the item. If you're really really worried, then don't eat anything raw.

Of course, as always, the orthodox world has to go ape shit mental ballistic about the issue.

[Ben Amalek]

I make a pretty good living selling high quality Chinese microscopes to the orthodox concerned about the insect problem.