Indian Restaurant Drops State Kosher Supervision Over Rabbis' Vegetable Demands

An Indian restaurant in the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem is reportedly the latest in a long line of food businesses which have dropped kosher supervision after facing what they say are "impossible demands" made by the state Rabbinate’s kosher supervisors.

Ynet reports that an Indian restaurant in the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem is reportedly the latest in a long line of food businesses which have dropped kosher supervision after facing what they say are "impossible demands" made by the haredi-controlled state Rabbinate’s kosher supervisors.

Ichikidana dropped its kosher certification after Shmuel Zamelman, Machane Yehuda’s new kashrut supervisor, reportedly began forcing restaurants in the market to buy their vegetables from specific stores.

Lehava Silman Herman, who owns Ichikidana, told Ynet that having a kashrut certificate just wasn’t worth the trouble.

“We are a vegan restaurant,” Silman Herman said, “so the kashrut is irrelevant, but we decided to cooperate with the Rabbinate because of religious Jews. After [Zamelman] arrived and decided that we must only buy in certain stores, I decided that I would not cooperate any longer.”

But the Rabbinate claims the change in the market’s long standing practice is actually no change at all.

"Every restaurant which receives a kosher certification must take leaves and vegetables [i.e., leafy vegetables and non-leafy vegetables] from a supervised place only. This has been a Rabbinate order for the past 30 years. The Rabbinate does not profit from this arrangement."

There can be several kashrut issues with vegetables, primarily related to bug infestation and tithes.

Comments

[Rebitzman]

There can be several kashrut issues with vegetables, primarily related to bug infestation and tithes.

My Hindu friends are at least as strict on this point as my more frum, kosher friends. I would have no issue eating in a place like this - kosher s kosher.

[jeff 2]

As a great Jewish sage once said, "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

[Jeff]

In addition to non-melting ice cream cones, our ancestors in the desert also had magnifying glasses and milliwatt lamps and tunneling electron microscopes with which to examine heads of broccoli for any trace of buggery (pun intended).

Also, I understand the vegetables back then were on a higher madrega as well, and could repel bugs as needed.

[Jeff]

Posted by: jeff | October 18, 2012 at 09:17 AM

And, once again - not me.

Please choose another screen name, especially if you're going to be promoting Christianity, which I loathe even more than I do Orthodoxy Judaism.

[seymour]

this is the new mafia racket. Lepke and Segal and Lansky would be proud.

In the past the mob would say buy from my supplier or else. The else was your shop being blown up. real messy people could get hurt. Police get involved and so on

this racket is much cleaner.

[danny]

I wish the same consideration would be given to viruses and bacteria on a Mohel's lips as that given to insects on vegetables.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Seymour: In fact, I have heard anecdotal evidence that the Mob is, and has been involved with the kosher food business.

From a prominent rabbi, I heard about a mashgiach who was caught stamping trief beef kosher. When asked why he did it, the guy replied "I want to live."

[Sarek]

So each and every vegetable from the "supervised" place has been inspected under the microscope for insects, etc.? To quote Col. Potter of "M*A*S*H", "horsehockey!"

It's extortion, plain and simple.

Pay me and no broccoli gets hurt.

[jancsibacsi]

jeff-This is what happens when you give them an inch they want a foot on and on until they take over youre whole existance just like a dictator or terrorist, they should of been stoped long long time ago with their absolute stupidity for evil to flourish good man just have to do nothing.

[Jeff]

they should of been stoped long long time ago

Yes, jancsi, they should have been, but the Modern Orthodox lacked the testicles and the Conservative and Reform were busy living their lives.

[Jeff]

From a prominent rabbi, I heard about a mashgiach who was caught stamping trief beef kosher. When asked why he did it, the guy replied "I want to live."

Why doesn't this surprise me?

"Don't ever ask me about my business, Shprintzy."

[jancsibacsi]

jeff-The unbeleivable part of hassidism is they act like children spoiled children and no one stands up to them as a child i realized what is going on they always want to rule any which way they can they use violence in fact violence is their weapon of choice acting like 2 year old tantrum throwers and they get away with it, i am so mad at the people who tolerated them for 1 minute not talking about a century its a crazy world we live in in fact its a lunatic asylem with theese mindless zombie retards called hassidim.

[jancsibacsi]

kyle -Go and get youreself killed you worthless excrement.

[albert]

Jancsi-douchebag
Pick up a long knife with the tip facing your right eye.
Thrust towards your body as hard as you can.
If still alive, repeat on left eye.

Posted by: kyle | October 18, 2012 at 11:55 AM

kyle -Go and get youreself killed you worthless excrement.

Posted by: jancsibacsi | October 18, 2012 at 12:11 PM

How did the loss of hasgacha of some insignificant Indian restaurant half a world away lead to this exchange. I am missing something here.

[rebeljew]

"As a great Jewish sage once said, "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

Posted by: jeff 2 | October 18, 2012 at 09:17 AM"

This 'great sage' speaks in tautologies and trite truisms and is, most likely, fictional.

[...]

Way to go jancele

[Rebitzman]

@albert

It happened because trolls are trolls, and trolls troll.

[Unheilige rebbe]

This mashgiach ,rabbi Zamelmen has an excellent web site on kosher booze, I think it's called kosherliqourlist.com ; wealth of information on kosher alcohol, some items are not commonly known as kosher in North America ( eg Benedictine ; jagermeister , berenjager, Baylis , sheridans, amarula, malabu rum , etc) That's just a side note and not related to this discussion

[haredi restaurants and take out are filthy .]

reg restaurants do not need haredi business.
let the haredi eat in their stinky restaurant . 'kosher' but dirty .
the area, beyond the customer's counter where the food is prepared ,is never washed. they keep making food one day after another , for weeks , still not washing anything .
they never wash the counter where ppl put their hands . they don't wash the tables where customers eat . the toilets are never washed in months . is that being kosher ?

[Jeff]

This 'great sage' speaks in tautologies and trite truisms and is, most likely, fictional.

It was a statement of Jesus'.

[Jeff]

Heh! Shmarya, the Captcha word was "Process"!

[ruthie]

many many jews in europe.....belgium, switzerland, france, germany,
spain, italy etc....eat in vegetarian and indian vegetarian. they're considered kosher. no meat.
i respect these people.

[Simon]

Sometimes I think the rabbanut has a problem with vegetarian people. The lengthy restrictions on handling vegetables probably discourage many meat-eaters from even bothering with them, and who knows, maybe obesity rates in the Ortho community are a correlation of excess consumption of meat, among other factors (sedentarism is another). Here in Chicago the CRC even bans several vegetables and fruits as effectively treif because they are "impossible" to check. Everything else has to be washed in a vegetable wash (expensive) or soapy water (disgusting and ruins herbs and mushrooms). We should be encouraging people to eat more vegetables and less meat for health and environmental reasons. There are "bugs" everywhere: in meat, in salmon, in vegetables. If you start using artificial methods to find microscopic creatures, you'll find them in everything you eat. It's important to practice food safety and hygiene, and incidentally, there are bugs who even live in our digestive tract and perform functions that are vital to our health. The idea that any food item can be bug-free is a fiction.

[David]

It's important to practice food safety and hygiene, and incidentally, there are bugs who even live in our digestive tract and perform functions that are vital to our health. The idea that any food item can be bug-free is a fiction.

Posted by: Simon | October 18, 2012 at 03:48 PM

Indeed. The human biome contains about ten times as many non-human cells as human cells (although only about 200 grams by weight).

[seymour]

it is becoming obvious that the ends goal is to live on torah alone

[Jeff]

Here in Chicago the CRC even bans several vegetables and fruits as effectively treif because they are "impossible" to check.

Anyone who listens to these lunatics is fool, but there it is - the entire frum world is based upon obsessive-compulsive behavior and "What will the neighbors think?"

[jancsibacsi]

The frum love to drag others into the abyss with themselfs one nut makes 10 thousand others nuts by this i mean their rebbes

[David]

"What will the neighbors think?"

Posted by: Jeff | October 18, 2012 at 04:57 PM

Heh, you know I saw Mrs Cohen buying asparagus at the market. Her children will not get good shidduchim...

[Jeff]

Heh, you know I saw Mrs Cohen buying asparagus at the market. Her children will not get good shidduchim...

It really does come down to that.

One Shabbat, while at the home of the MO rabbi I often mention here, I was in the kitchen with his wife and her sister (unsupervised; shocking, I know). The sister was a little surprised that the rebbetzen was serving asparagus. She told us she'd stopped buying it, as "someone had sent around an email" warning of its halakhic dangers. The sister seemed confused, so I asked her if she'd consulted her rabbi. She hadn't, so I suggest she do so, and she said, "You're right; I'll do that!" I was stunned. I asked the rebbetzen, "I, the gehinnom-bound apikorus, have to tell her how to handle it from the perspective of her own belief system? What is that about?"

I also said, "You're always telling me you aren't like the Haredim." She replied, "I can't vouch for what other people do, only for what we do, but I can tell you that there is a lot of pressure within these communities to conform." So I said, "They're making up their own chumrot now and there's a lot of pressure to conform. How are they not Haredim?" Of course, to that one she had no reply.

[Steven in UK]

I guess most of us, on this website, have no issues with fruit and vegetables, provided they are washed, and common sense hygiene applied.

However how meany of us consider ourselves Orthodox Jews, Haredim or otherwise?.

Can a case be made, "let them go their way, and we eat asparagus as we please!?.

[Alter Kocker]

This has happened in my city with a restaurant owner. As his accountant I took the Kashruth supervisor aside and plainly spelled out to him what I was prepared to do; I was going to the taxation authorities, and was going to name names. In short, the supplier's books were to be audited and the Kashruth supervisor's last three years of income tax returns were to be examined for undeclared income.

Kosher certification was granted within 1/2 hour.

[Jeff]

Kosher certification was granted within 1/2 hour.

What kills me is that even though everyone knows this goes on, they all still won't eat food without a heckscher, even the Modern Orthodox - even though that's precisely what their parents and grandparents did before the bearded wonders showed up to tell them they'd all been doing it wrong for generations.

I say it all the time - the Haredim have destroyed their way of life, and the Modern Orthodox have absolutely NO ONE to blame but themselves.

[Saul M.]

Our Kosher establishment here in Bala Cynwyd PA, has been written up a number of times by the board of heath for rodent poop in the food prep areas. I guess they check for bugs not poop

[Saul M]

Our Kosher establishment here in Bala Cynwyd PA, has been written up a number of times by the board of heath for rodent poop in the food prep areas. I guess they check for bugs not poop

[borges]

First, they came for the lettuce...but I did not speak up....and remember.. strawberries were the original "forbidden fruit"..

[spacedout BT]

It comes down to who do you trust where to eat- the Tibetan veggie establishment or the one with the mashgiach afraid for his life or the meat supplier is on the same madrega as Finkel from Shevach meats? I'll take the Tibetan hands down. Pass the barley bread and buttered tea, Trongpa!

[spacedout BT]

Rubashkin or rutabagas?

[Darth Zeidah]

kyle -Go and get youreself killed you worthless excrement.

Posted by: jancsibacsi | October 18, 2012 at 12:11 PM

WTF precipitated that oh-so tasteful remark? Who is Kyle, and what di he write?

[Red Chili Exporter]

You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something which I think I would never understand.