What Sefardi leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef considered an ongoing consumer deception and kosher fraud directed at Sefardim has largely come to an end.
Ashkenazi Deception Has Begun To End, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Says
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
During his regular Saturday night lecture, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef reportedly discussed an issue that has troubled him for many years – the status of the Badatz kosher supervision of the Mea Shearim-based Ashkenazi haredi umbrella group Eida Chareidis for Sefardi consumers.
Yosef said that in the past, Badatz was uniformly deceptive and mislead Sefardim, causing them to believe that they could eat in Badatz supervised restaurants when in most cases, that was not the case because Badatz allowed non-Jews to place food on the grill, and for Sefardim, this is not considered to be bishul yisrael. Therefore, for Sefardim, Badatz food was prohibited.
Yosef said Eidah Charedis knew they were deceiving Sefardi consumers when they did not specify on their kosher supervision certificates displayed in restaurants that their supervision was not bishul yisrael according to the author of the Shulkkan Arukh (and therefore was not bishul yisrael according to Sefardi halakha).
But, Yosef said, after all these years, progress had finally been made.
“[M]any of them [Badatz restaurants and kosher supervisors] have repented and corrected this matter by prohibiting non-Jews from placing food on the fire,” Yosef happily noted.