Limits to an Orthodox Union Hechsher
June 4, 2008 Orthodox Union, kosher
One of the defenses for the misdeeds of Rubashkin and Co. floating around the internet is that immigration issues, labor abuse, and animal cruelty should not affect the kashrut of the meat. These are separate issues.
After all, it’s not like…kol eisha (a woman’s voice). I know a prominent restaurant in Manhattan that primarily services a traditional and Modern Orthodox clientele. One day, they had a band. This band featured a female guest vocalist. A haredi man went apeshit. The management was very apologetic, and got him a table far away from the band, and if I remember correctly (it’s been a few years) gave him some portion of his meal on the house. He gladly accepted that, but never the less, promptly complained to the Orthodox Union the next morning.
The OU promptly gave the restaurant an ultimatum. Feature a female vocalist again, and you lose your hechsher (certificate of kashrut).
Illegal workers, labor abuse, brutal forms of slaughter…these are issues that do not directly affect whether or not a food product is kosher or not. But a woman singing, well…now that’s a problem.
14 comments
I remember reading that threat from the OU. wasn’t it in “David Kelseys guide to stuff he mades up prove his point”. I believe the altercation happened. can we see a source on the threat? or should we add it to the list of stuff we take your word on that your really lied about?
ps. all that is taken back with my apologies if u can prove it exists, but I find that hard to believe that u will have proof
danny, what do you think occurs when an OU certified restaurant faces haredi complaints about women singing live? Do they say it’s not their problem? Is that what you believe happens, danny?
no I say a couple things
1. I noticed your response failed to bring up any proof…cant say I’m surprised
2. not every rabbi at the OU agrees that all woman singing live is kol isha…so I don’t think they would threaten that.
danny, it’s a first hand story. Maybe there was another side to it.
I hope there was.
You know, I don’t even care if it is apocryphal. It could just as well be true. Case in point – haredim on that El Al flight a few weeks ago, staging a scene because the airline was going to – chos v’sholem! – show a movie.
Even if this particular incident didn’t take place, it doesn’t really matter. It’s happened somewhere, in some form. And, before someone says that the OU isn’t a haredi organization – all of Orthodoxy, with the exception of the most Left Wing pockets of Modern Orthodoxy, has been capitulating increasingly to the haredim for decades. That is the reality of the situation. To reference another recent discussion – that is why we now have glatt kosher.
a: a hechsher is given based on the supervision of a mashgiach
b: a mashgiach is expected to be a relatively religious person
c: a religious person is not supposed to be in a place where there is a woman singing.
d: either the mashgiach left and there is no supervision or he’s not religious enough and isn’t qualified.
what’s so hard to understand about that?
torturing the animals, torturing the workers, smearing dirt all over the food or anything else your overactive imagination can think of that’s not kashrus related is not a kashrus issue.
a kashrus organization is not the board of health, it’s not peta, and it’s not immigration. hint, it’s called kashrus.
I rest my case.
mohammed said
“c: a religious person is not supposed to be in a place where there is a woman singing”
What even another woman! Employ a mashgiachate!
Must a maschgiach must leave should a woman customer enter the joint proudly exhibiting her decolletage! If yes, than should a decollatage mashgiach be placed at the door of the establishment to keep such women out so as to allow the kashrut maschgiach get on with his ‘work’. How much time should such a decollatage mashgiach spent carrying out an examination? Should he use a magnifying glass?
Seriously speaking, the provision of hechsherim is just another form of extortion for providing jobs for the haredim boys just like the glatt shechita.
To be a mashgiach one must not just be religious, one must also be of a particular low level of intelligence. Who but a nebach would spend hours examining lettuce leaves for insects? Any restaurant owner who cannot outwit a mashgiach is unlikely to have the business acumen to deal with greater challenges such as outwitting the IRS.
Whether or not kashrut is maintained depends on the integrity of the restaurant owner and not the haredi Lieutenant Horatio Caine taking up space in the kitchen.
Sarcasm is better when it makes sense. You don’t think hechsherim are necessary? Fine, eat wherever you want.
Kashrus depends on the integrity o the restaurant owner?! Can I have some of whatever you’re taking?
If that were the case, there MIGHT be one or two restuarants in Boro Park, none in Manhattan and certainly no hechsherim on the food industry.
I was about to say try to deal with objective reality, but after a whopper like that I don’t think you would recognize reality if it bit you on the ass.
Objective reality is that whatever your opinion, other people want hashgocho and hashgocho has standards.
Jewish law does not trust the “integrity” of someone who stands to gain or lose by selling his food, and it requires supervision by a religious jew.
If you don’t like it, bang your head in the wall, the closest shulchan oruch or your local orthodox rabbi.
Mohammed, the earliest restaurants date from about the time of the formation of the Treife Medina just over 200 years ago. Inns and taverns were generally only used by travellers and were not supervised. The Rishonim have therefore nothing to say about restaurants.
You may be correct that Jewish Law does not trust the “integrity” of someone who stands to gain or lose by selling his food but the integrity of someone who supervises food in return for payment by the food seller is no less suspect.
The supervision authorities are as much subject to commercial pressures as the food sellers. You will recall my earlier post where I pointed out that Nikkur Achoraim was stopped because commercial pressure from meat suppliers inevitably lead to corruption of the frumest menakkers.
Indeed the Hareidi objection to the Conservative’s Hechsher Tzedek must be understood as being purely commercial. Even if the Hareidi establishment wanted to act ethically, they could not do so because they simply do not know how to as by most people’s standards, Haredi business ethics seem primitive.
As you yourself stated “torturing the animals, torturing the workers, smearing dirt all over the food or anything else your overactive imagination can think of that’s not kashrus related is not a kashrus issue.” Should however the Conservatives convince the general Jewish public that such matters might be a factor in deciding whether to eat such unethical but otherwise ‘kosher’ food, then the Hareidi Kashrus establishment would be at a distinct commercial disadvantage as understanding modern ethics is beyond them. It is for that reason alone that the Hareidi establishment does its best to convince the Jewish public of the irrelevance of ethics when it comes to kashrus. It is after all harder to run a protection racket ethically than to check a lettuce for insects or divert the publics attention by fussing about some woman’s voice or exposed wobbly bits.
I love how we are debating an event that never happened.
Danny,
Please see the following regarding the Belly Dancer case of the later 1980’s
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....A96F948260
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....A966958260
Wine, cheese and other things that were sold from town to town did have both supervision and certification. That’s going back at least hundreds of years, and there are responsa about it. In the old country jewish life was more communal. Whether or not there was official supervision, any traveler could stop by the local rabbi and get a handle on both the trutworthiness of the owner and the degree of kashrus.
The supervision authorities are as much subject to commercial pressures as the food sellers.
Not true. The supervisors are paid by the organization, not directly by the store, and although a kashrus organization might make some money selling shoddy certification to as many people as possible, there’s more of an incentive to market standards and integrity,. Besides for which, the Rabbis runnning the organization are a known quantity, and a different caliber of person than most restuarant owners I’ve come across.
Even if the Hareidi establishment wanted to act ethically, they could not do so because they simply do not know how to as by most people’s standards, Haredi business ethics seem primitive.
Have you considered writing for der stuermer or vnn in your spare time?
In a capitalistic society, services are created by demand. If there are enough people who want certification of ethics, then someone will do it. There’s no reason an organization which provides kashrus certification should focus on anything else, or charge its consumers for the expense of certifying something which they don’t want or need.
Your post on nikkur was even further removed from reality than this one. I really got to get some of whatever it is you take. I didn’t bother replying because I would have to debate too many screwed up premises to get to the point, and because your blatant prejudice against orthodox jews makes it unlikely that we would get to it anyway.
You believe that there’s a cabal of rabbis somewhere that created the demand of glatt kosher not because they sincerely believe that that’s what god wants or the law demands, but as a way to provide some jobs for some people in their community. A statement like that is ludicrous on its face, and shows nothing but your prejudice and ignorance of both the community and its rabbis. Anyone who either recognizes the community we’re dealing with or is willing to grant minimal integrity to rabbis as a whole doesn’t need that explained to them. and fuck anyone who doesn’t.
Remember the GLATT YACHT!!!! Kashrus is about eating-plain and simple—if a frum guy has a glatt meal with a frum girl who intends to spend the night with him it doesn’t make the meal treif!!!But that doesn’t make AARON A TZADIK EITHER–he will have to pay before BEIS DIN SHEL MAILA!!!!!!
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