Thursday, July 9, 2009

The politics of Kashrut, and their impact on Hebrew National and Triangle K

http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/cover_story/hebrew_national_kosher_politics/

Hat tip Jeff

Hebrew National & Kosher Politics

What’s kosher about answering to a higher authority?

July 10, 2009

Kenneth Lasson
Special to the Jewish Times

Hebrew National & Kosher Politics

“No one should see how laws or sausages are made.”

— Otto von Bismarck

Barbecued hot dogs are as American as apple pie on the Fourth of July — and as universal, for that matter, as Israeli cookouts on Yom Ha’atzmaut or Lag B’Omer. In fact, they’re consumed around the world, from Australia to Zambia, and have become a major part of the increasingly capitalistic fast-food business in communist China and Russia.

But nowhere are as many hot dogs eaten as in the United States. We bite into more than 20 billion of them a year — some 818 every second from Memorial Day to Labor Day, according to the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. (Yes, there is such a group, which also lists things like the biggest hot dog-selling cities — Baltimore/Washington is third behind New York and Los Angeles — as well as even more arcane trivia.)

It’s a $4 billion-a-year business, a large share of which is the kosher dog market (preferred by 6 million Americans, according to the NHD&SC, only a quarter of whom are Jewish). And that number is growing at twice the rate of consumption of all other kosher foods.

Little wonder, then, that the controversy surrounding the Hebrew National brand — which was recently rated by Consumer Reports as the best in overall quality among all hot dogs (Oscar Mayer, the largest producer, came in eighth) — is mushrooming by the day.

But the most fascinating fact may be that many Orthodox Jews will not eat any Hebrew National meat products. The underlying reasons for this irony are a hodgepodge of Halachah (Jewish law) and rabbinic infighting — power, profits and politics — much of it as juicy and spicy as what goes into the common sausage.

Here’s the story, in a variety of casings.

Rabbi Jehoseph H. Rabag, chief kosher supervisor for Triangle K From Whence the Wiener?

One of the oldest forms of processed food, the common sausage can be traced as far back as the Roman Empire. (It was mentioned in Homer’s “Odyssey” in the ninth century B.C.)

According to food historians, the edible “dachshund” or “little dog” was created in the late 1600s by Johann Georghehner, a butcher in Coburg, Germany, who later traveled to Frankfurt-am-Mein to promote it. (In 1987, Frankfurt celebrated the 500th birthday of the frankfurter in that city, although the good burghers of Vienna (Wien), Austria, point to the term “wiener” as proof of the concoction’s true birthplace.)

Bruce Kraig, a professor emeritus in history and humanities at Roosevelt University in Chicago, writes that although many lay claim to the hot dog roll as their own invention, it is likely the Germans introduced the practice of first eating their dachshund sausages on warmed buns.

The American version probably made its first appearance in the 1860s, when German immigrants sold sausages with milk rolls and sauerkraut from pushcarts in New York City’s Bowery neighborhood.

In 1871, Charles Feltman, a German butcher, opened up the first Coney Island stand, selling some 3,684 dachshund sausages in rolls during his first year in business. (Nathan’s Famous Frankfurters, which didn’t start until 1916, sold more than 360 million in 2008.)

Another German peddler named Antonoine Feuchtwanger began selling hot frankfurters during the St. Louis “Louisiana Purchase Exposition” in 1904. He provided a white glove with each purchase so that his customers’ hands would not be burned. His wife suggested that he cut costs by putting the sausages in an elongated bun, which his brother-in-law, a baker, dutifully supplied.

The origin of the term “hot dog” is in some dispute. Visitors to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago consumed large quantities of the sausage sandwiches, which in the same year became the standard fare at baseball parks. They were also current at Yale as early as 1894, when “dog wagons” sold them at the dorms — the name a sarcastic comment on where the meat came from. (“A hot dog is a cartridge filled with the sweepings of abattoirs,” H. L. Mencken said years later. “I devoured them in Baltimore way back in 1886, and they were then very far from newfangled.”)

Various urban legends link the first hot dogs to baseball games — at either Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis (home of the Browns) or the Polo Grounds in New York. The latter is said to be where a sports cartoonist named Tad Dorgan was covering a Giants game there on a cold day in 1902, when he heard a vendor cry out, “Get your dachshund sausages while they’re red hot!” He hastily sketched some barking dachshunds tucked into warm rolls and captioned the drawing with a simpler reference to “hot dogs.” The cartoon, however, has never been found — so the story might be little more than, well, baloney.

Hebrew National hot dogs Answering To A Higher Authority

A true immigrant success story, the Hebrew National saga began in 1905, in a six-story walk-up on East Broadway in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The Hebrew National Kosher Sausage Factory processed kosher meats for New York’s numerous delicatessens. In 1928, a Romanian immigrant butcher named Isadore Pinckowitz (later Pines), who had begun peddling meat from the back of a horse-drawn wagon, bought the Hebrew National plant and landed a contract with Waldbaum’s, the city’s largest grocery chain catering to Jewish households.

At first primarily aimed at the growing number of Eastern European Jews filtering through Ellis Island, the company gradually expanded its product line and consumer base. In 1935, Isadore’s son, Leonard, took over the business and began to take advantage of the newly booming supermarkets. By the middle of the 20th century, Hebrew National had become the largest, most recognized kosher brand in the United States.

In 1965, the company launched its famous “We Answer to a Higher Authority” advertising campaign. The slogan quickly achieved its purpose, morphing into a symbol for quality and appealing to both Jews and non-Jews alike. After a series of corporate buyouts, Hebrew National became National Foods and moved its headquarters and distribution center to a large processing plant in Indianapolis.

In 1993, National Foods was acquired by huge food conglomerate ConAgra, which sought to capitalize on the Hebrew National reputation for using pure beef and disdaining artificial coloring and flavoring additives. By now, Skip Pines, Leonard’s son, had taken over. In 2004, Hebrew National closed the Indianapolis operation and moved into a state-of-the-art kosher processing plant in Quincy, Mich.

Today, with a work force of 500 people in the U.S., Hebrew National is the largest kosher meat processor in the world, producing 720 million hot dogs a year. It’s the leading brand in Baltimore, San Diego, Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Denver and San Francisco.

Although Hebrew National also makes salami, bologna, knackwurst, polish sausage, deli meats — even its own brand of sauerkraut and mustard — it’s best known for its beef franks, which do a big business at ballparks around the country. Most of the hot dogs sold by Aramark, the Orioles concessionaire, are the Esskay brand (up to 15,000 at a single game and an estimated 750,000 a season), but Hebrew National dogs are also available at the concession stands (where they’re cooked on non-kosher grills).

Don’t look for them, though, at the kosher stand at Camden Yards; never have been there, probably never will be.

The Politics of Kashrut

More than one prominent Orthodox rabbi has suggested that modern kashrut “is 2 percent Halachah and 98 percent ego and money and politics,” which might explain why many of the people interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity.

Over the past half-century, kosher certification has become big business, and is not limited to food processing. The largest among them, certifying close to a half-million products, is the Orthodox Union. But there are at least a hundred other companies, many of them privately owned and operated, each with its own distinctive symbol, offering supervision for a price.

They come in all shapes (Circle K, Diamond K, Heart K, Triangle K) and from far and wide (California K, Florida K, Earth K). They apply their seals of approval to everything from hidden ingredients that need supervision (like chemicals and colorings) to products that, according to most rabbinic authorities, don’t (like aluminum foil, bottled water and peaches). They cover specialty confection stores (like the local Cinnabon in Towson Town Center) to franchises of international restaurant chains (like the two Dunkin’ Donuts and a Subway sandwich shop on Reisterstown Road).

Kosher meat is probably the most complicated food to supervise, with the simple strictures provided in the Torah to the detailed practices and processes interpreted and promulgated by rabbinic scholars over the centuries. Although disputes among Orthodox authorities about precise interpretations of halachic parameters have existed for ages, most will agree that there is a well-defined objective standard. Meat below this baseline is un-kosher; above it, kosher.

By the 1930s in Baltimore alone, there were more than 300 kosher butchers — at least, they called themselves kosher. According to a recent article by Rabbi Dovid Katz, a respected historian, this was also “a golden era for cheaters” — so much so that the local rabbis took out an ad in the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES appealing to Jewish housewives not to rely on the Hebrew sign on a butcher shop that read “Kosher.”

At the bottom of the notice was a message in Yiddish: “Koift nisht fun die chislers!” (“Don’t buy from the cheaters!”). In one incident, “genuine” kosher hot dogs were imported from New York and widely consumed, until it was discovered that they were not kosher at all.

In fact, there seemed to be a never-ending series of kashrut scandals at the time, many involving leading rabbis. Much of this was reported in the New York Times and later catalogued in a book by Harold Gastwirt titled “Fraud, Corruption, and Holiness: The Controversy Over The Supervision of Jewish Dietary Practice in New York City, 1881-1940,” which is a kosher version of Upton Sinclair’s classic 1906 muckraking of the meatpacking industry, “The Jungle.”

Which kosher supervision is considered the most reliable? It’s hard to get a definitive answer from anyone who has a stake in the business — but most will agree that what it boils down to is a matter of trust. The faith that many strictly Orthodox kosher consumers rely upon is that vested in their local rabbis, many of whom in turn appear to be more subject to peer pressure than knowledgeable about the technicalities of kashrut.

It’s been five years since Hebrew National decided to change from its longtime in-house kosher quality control to an independent supervisory authority. It chose the Triangle K, under the direction of the Ralbag family, to put into place the strict standards required by Halachah.

Rabbi Jehoseph H. Ralbag, the chief kosher supervisor of the organization, was born in Jerusalem, where he studied at the Yeshivas Etz Chaim and Merkaz Harav. For the credential-minded — who seem to make up a large part of the observant Orthodox community — he is proud to note that he received rabbinical ordination “with the highest honors (Yore Yore Yodin Yodin),” by the most pious rabbis of the Holy Land: Rabbi Iser Zalman Meltzer (rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Etz Chaim); Rabbi Yacov Moshe Charlap (rosh yeshiva of Merkaz Harav); and Rabbi Hirsh Pesach Frank (chief rabbi of Jerusalem).

Rabbi Ralbag is presently the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Israel in New York City. He is the author of the “Sefer Imre Yehosef,” a scholarly book on Jewish law, and has published numerous articles on various Torah subjects. He is also the kashrut consultant of the magazine The Synagogue Light, and is an executive member of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.

The everyday operations of Triangle K Kosher Supervision and Certification are currently overseen by Rabbi Aryeh L. Ralbag and his two sons (Rabbis Eliezer and Tzvi Ralbag). Like his father, Aryeh Ralbag received a high-order ordination in Jerusalem. He heads the beit din (rabbinical court) on the Agudath HaRabbonim, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and is also chief rabbi of the Orthodox community in Amsterdam.

Of the major brands under Triangle K supervision (which include Sunmaid, Minute Maid, Wonder Bread, Del Monte, Frito-Lay, Mogen-David, Birds Eye, Ocean Spray, Hawaiian Punch and Mott’s), Hebrew National is easily the most complicated.

It took Rabbi Ralbag two years to set up Triangle K’s certification process for Hebrew National. It’s a huge operation. To keep the supply of meat flowing requires four slaughtering houses, one salting facility and a central processing plant — all under round-the-clock rabbinical supervision.

“Our mashgichim [supervisors] are carefully selected, scrutinized and regularly tested for their knowledge of constantly changing technology. They are all God-fearing men who learn every night; all are well-paid and work three-day weeks, with substantial rest periods,” he said.

Soon after Triangle K took over in 2004, the top lawmaking body of the Conservative movement issued its seal of approval for all Hebrew National meat products. The decision was supposed to have a large impact on religiously observant Conservative Jews, especially those living in smaller communities with limited access to kosher food.

Orthodox Jews, however, continued to stay away in droves, for reasons that remain unclear but appear to be largely bound up in rumor, innuendo and ambiguity. Many ostensible adherents to strict Halachah consider Triangle K to be “unreliable.”

Others refrain from buying Hebrew National because its meat is not “glatt kosher.” That term is used to describe a more expensive and complicated form of rabbinical supervision that requires the lungs of a ritually slaughtered animal to be carefully scrutinized for any imperfections.

If none are found, the animal is considered “glatt.” Minor imperfections, however, do not render it unkosher. This, too, is a subject of some controversy.

A number of rabbinic experts feel that the term glatt is overused — that is, relatively few animals truly meet the standard, which has become more a marketing tool than guarantee of superior purity.

Rabbi Yitzchak Abadi, who studied in Lakewood, N.J., under the famed Rabbi Aaron Kotler and was once the exclusive halachic authority in the Haredi (fervently observant) stronghold of Lakewood, N.J., founded a popular Web site called kashrut.org . Rabbi Abadi’s son, Aharon, who now runs the Web site, declared that Hebrew National’s meat “is certainly kosher for all who do not eat only glatt.”

Although it is preferable to eat glatt when available, says Rabbi Abadi, it is a chumrah, a voluntarily accepted restriction. Those who don’t limit themselves to glatt are still keeping kosher.

At the time Hebrew National switched to Triangle K, the Jewish newspaper The Forward editorialized that, although the stricter glatt standards “could help put an end to the string of urban legends and sordid explanations for why Orthodox Jews won’t consume [Hebrew National’s products], for a variety of sociological and religious reasons, the decisions are unlikely to translate into a significant increase in sales.” That prediction has proven accurate.

The number of Conservative customers account for only a small share of the kosher market. For many of the Orthodox, the main problem remains that Hebrew National is not glatt kosher.

Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the Orthodox Union’s kashrut department, told The Forward that while the OU once certified both glatt and non-glatt meat, in the 1970s “market conditions” caused the organization to limit its supervision only to the former.

Kosher Mustard ‘Kashrut Mafia’

But glatt continues to mean different things to different people.

“What’s glatt in Cleveland might not be glatt in Baltimore,” says Rabbi Don Moskovitz, a locally based mashgiach who works for several kosher certification organizations. Moreover, there are many Orthodox Jews — especially in smaller Jewish communities around the country — who do not limit themselves to glatt kosher meat but still consider themselves strictly kosher.

“Many people follow the higher glatt standard,” says Rabbi Moskovitz, “but there’s nothing wrong with Rabbi Ralbag’s hashgachah [endorsement] on meat. Hebrew National has to overcome some problems with its historical reputation.” He adds that he’s more concerned with the kashrut of everyday milk than he is about people eating Hebrew National.

“I’d love to make Hebrew National all glatt kosher,” says Rabbi Ralbag, “but there simply isn’t a large enough supply of meat in the world that would satisfy the traditional truly glatt standard ?and demand.”

Queried about the kashrus of Hebrew National, a spokesperson for the OU said that “we do not comment on other kosher certifications.”

The response was different, however, from the “Kashrus Hotline” of the Baltimore-based Star-K organization. “You should not eat Hebrew National.” When asked why, she said the Triangle K “is not considered reliable.”

Rabbi Aharon Abadi speaks bluntly about the multimillion-dollar kosher supervision business. “You want to do business in this industry, you need to follow the rules of the ‘Kashrut Mafia,’” he said. “Most are just businesses with a touch of religion. Just enough to use it to bully us into following their program. Ask anyone in the food industry. They know. Try getting an outside hashgachah in an area that is already someone’s turf.”

As to Triangle K, Rabbi Abadi wrote on the kashrut.org Web site, “Rabbi Ralbag is a G-d-fearing man and if he says it’s kosher, you sure can eat it. I can’t say the same for many of the other labels out there.”

“Do you remember when Drakes [a widely marketed brand of snack cakes] was under Rabbi Ralbag?” asked Rabbi Abadi. “It was treife [unkosher] according to some of these guys. Then the establishment organization got the account, now it’s kosher. Do you think they went out and kashered the whole plant, changed all the ingredients and so on? Please!”

According to Rabbi Ralbag, various Orthodox authorities summarily banned Coca-Cola when it was supervised by Triangle K in the early 1990s — but immediately accepted it as kosher the moment it was taken over by the OU (without any change in formula or processing). He says that Triangle K follows the traditional rules set down in the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law, and that its seal of approval is accepted categorically by the chief rabbi of Israel, where a large number of its products are widely distributed.

No Full Skinny

One local caterer who requested anonymity said, “You’ll never get the full skinny on kashrut supervision” — intimating that political and monetary considerations are paramount to candor.

Trustworthiness can be very subjective. The same Orthodox Baltimoreans who believe that Triangle K is not reliable because of past indiscretions broadly accept Star-K, even though it once certified a local non-Jewish caterer that served treife food on a “kosher” cruise.

The OU and Star-K have had numerous disputes over specific products. Each, for example, has had a policy prohibiting caterers under its supervision from using meats certified by the other.

Fans of kosher hot dogs might find this policy particularly egregious. Caterers under Star-K are currently forbidden to serve two brands of miniature hot-dogs-in-blankets, as well as 999 kosher hot dogs, all under the OU.

Star-K also bans sauerkraut marketed with the OU seal. (Consumers calling the Star-K’s kosher hotline are told that “we don’t have information” on those products. When asked if they can be used, the receptionist says, “I guess not.”)

For his part, Rabbi Ralbag has nothing negative to say about other kosher authorities. Instead, he refers obliquely to those who do with an old quote: “I think it’s sometimes more important what comes out of someone’s mouth than what goes into it.”

Kenneth Lasson, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, is a frequent contributor to the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES.

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Israeli High court deems jews for jesus bakery kosher

Court declares Jew for Jesus 'kosher'

Jun. 30, 2009
Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST

A Jew for Jesus who demanded kashrut supervision from the Chief Rabbinate won a Supreme Court decision on Monday likely to spark another confrontation between the nation's highest legal arbiter and the Orthodox rabbinical establishment.

In its verdict, based on a precedent that found belly-dancing to be unrelated to kosher food, the court ruled that an Ashdod baker's belief that Jesus was the messiah did not make her baked goods unkosher.

Therefore, argued the court, the Chief Rabbinate could not demand more stringent kashrut supervision arrangements than for any other baker.

The Orthodox rabbinate reacted negatively.

"It's absurd that the Supreme Court is telling rabbis how to keep kosher," Ashdod Chief Rabbi Yosef Sheinen said in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post.

"What does the Supreme Court know about kashrut?" asked Sheinen. He said that according to his understanding of Halacha, an apostate Jew could not be trusted to adhere to the laws of kashrut.

"The Supreme Court is undermining the level of kosher supervision," added Sheinen, who said he had not read the entire ruling yet and therefore had not fully formulated his opinion.

In 2006, Sheinen revoked a kashrut supervision certificate issued to the Pnina Pie bakery in his city when he discovered that its owner, Pnina Conforty, was a messianic Jew.

Later, after Conforty petitioned the High Court of Justice, Sheinen and the Chief Rabbinate agreed to a compromise.

The rabbinate's governing body ruled that if Conforty wanted a kosher supervision certificate she had to meet certain conditions not normally demanded of secular Jewish eatery owners.

Conforty had to hire a worker approved by Sheinen. This worker had to be paid by Conforty via the local religious council or via an employment agency, and not directly by Conforty, to prevent extortion.

This worker would be allowed to bake and do other errands for Conforty in addition to his kashrut supervision role, but Sheinen would define the worker's duties and salary.

In addition, Conforty had to give a kashrut supervisor keys to the bakery.

The Chief Rabbinate also demanded that she promise not to engage in missionary activity on her premises.

Conforty refused to accept these conditions and the Chief Rabbinate refused to soften them.

The High Court on Monday rejected Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger's argument that Conforty's un-Jewish religious faith undermined her trustworthiness.

"The Kashrut Law states clearly that only legal deliberations directly related to what makes the food kosher are relevant, not wider concerns unrelated to food preparation," ruled the court.

The decision rested on a ruling handed down by the High Court two decades ago involving Ilana Raskin, an immigrant belly dancer from Philadelphia who enjoyed tremendous popularity in the late 1980s until Jerusalem's chief rabbis ruled that food served in wedding halls and restaurants in which Raskin appeared was not kosher.

That High Court rejected the claim made by the Chief Rabbinate at the time that any owner whose immoral sensitivities were callous to the depravities of belly dancing could not be trusted to serve kosher food.

Justice Eliezer Rivlin wrote that his court accepted the distinction made in the Raskin case between "core" kashrut issues and considerations that were not directly pertinent.

Dr. Aviad Hacohen, dean of Sha'arei Mishpat Legal College and an expert in religion-state issues, predicted that the High Court's intervention in the Chief Rabbinate's decision-making would spark a religious war.

"We are likely to see a rekindling of old animosities between the Supreme Court and the rabbinate," said Hacohen. He pointed out that Sheinen was aligned with the more haredi stream of Orthodoxy and that Ashdod was heavily populated by the Ger Hassidic sect.

"I also think it is highly problematic for the High Court to make a distinction between 'core' kashrut issues and ones which in its eyes are not relevant," Hacohen said.

Meanwhile, Conforty said she was ecstatic.

"I've been waiting for three years for this decision," said Conforty, who added that without kosher certification her business had been failing.

"Finally I won. This is my baby," she said.

Conforty said that when she opened her first bakery in Gan Yavne in 2002 she enjoyed impressive business success. But after her faith was publicized in an article in a Messianic Jewish magazine, she suffered from demonstrations outside her bakery and posters with her picture distributed throughout the city warning that she was a missionary.

As a result, Gan Yavne Chief Rabbi Meshumar Tzabari revoked her kashrut certificate. At the time she did not fight Tzabari.

In 2006 she opened another bakery in Ashdod. But soon word got around that she was a Jew for Jesus and former customers and haredi anti-missionary groups began picketing her bakery while Sheinen revoked his certificate.

"I should be allowed to praise God in any way that I want," said Conforty, who grew up in a traditional Yemenite family. "No one can force their religious beliefs on me."

Conforty said that she "came to faith" while working in Ohio for an evangelical Christian family.

"God arranged it that I arrived at a place where there were Christians who love Israel more than most Jews do. Their love and faith were so different from the religion I learned at home that was based on fear. I was never taught to serve God out of love until then. They taught me that Yeshua is the messiah."

Conforty said that her gradual embracing of faith in Jesus put her marriage in jeopardy.

"I was on the verge of divorce and I prayed to God. I said to him, 'If Yeshua is messiah then you have to bring my husband back to me and make peace between us. No more than 10 minutes passed before my husband came to me and accepted the faith."

Conforty said that she did not actively proselytize. "But if someone shows an interest, I talk openly."

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1246296531827&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
[ Back to the Article ]

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

cute site with older jews telling jokes...

JTA - Jewish & Israel News

and it was filmed in an old haunt of mine, highland park!

Did you hear the one about the bubbe telling a joke …

By Alex Weisler · May 14, 2009

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Like the summer action flick "Snakes on a Plane," director Sam Hoffman's Jewish humor Web site is up front about what it offers: old Jews telling jokes.

From February through the end of April, OldJewsTellingJokes.com offered just that. Each Tuesday and Thursday, a new video was posted of an over-60 Jew raucously recounting his or her favorite jokes.

The site quietly has become a hit. The series' Facebook page lists nearly 2,000 followers, and the site has logged nearly 2 million video plays. A new season is set to premiere next month, and First Run Films recently optioned the Web series for a forthcoming release on home video -- hopefully by the fall, producer Eric Spiegelman says.

The OldJewsTellingJokes homepage may be spare, but the simple interface is effective enough for the site's needs.

Every video starts off with a snippet of "Dave Tarras' B flat Bulgars," a jaunty klezmer romp from noted Yiddish musician Henry Sapoznik. Each joke gets a simple title -- "Chicken" or "Broccoli," for instance -- and Hoffman writes a bit of backstory beneath each would-be Rodney Dangerfield or Fyvush Finkel.

The biographies are as tongue in cheek as the site's jokes.

"When we were growing up in the seventies, Bert had a groovy moustache that made him look a little like Gomez from the Addams family," Hoffman writes for one man.

"Notorious amongst her friends as an inveterate collector, she also plays a mean kazoo" is the descriptor given to one woman.

To cast the series in summer 2008, Hoffman's father, Barney, e-mailed 15 to 20 friends who fit three requirements: over 60, Jewish, capable of telling one hell of a joke.

Those who answered the call -- mostly men, and two women -- met at a vacant storefront in Highland Park, N.J., where Hoffman was waiting with a professional film crew, sandwiches and the guarantee of a free DVD for each participant, according to one of the joke tellers, Neil Lawner.

Lawner, an assistant professor of orthodontics at New York University's School of Dentistry, has three jokes posted on the Web site. He says the site's appeal may stem from a forgotten "Catskill Mountains vintage" brand of humor.

"It describes really a little bit of a lost generation of joke-telling Jewish guys," he said. "That standup comedy, joke-telling Jewish guy is a little bit passe. You don't see that much anymore."

In the months since its launch, OldJewsTellingJokes has become a hit in the Jewish blogosphere, frequently popping up on Jewcy, Jewlicious, Jewssip and other sites.

But San Francisco resident Adam Gomolin, 24, says he stumbled on the site a different way.

"It was my non-Jewish ex-girlfriend," he said with a laugh. "She had an abiding love of Jewish culture."

Six months later that relationship may be over, but Gomolin, a policy associate in the office of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, still checks the Web site frequently.

A young urban professional "not phenomenally connected" to his Judaism, the site is a way Gomolin can achieve some "commonality ... that je ne sais quoi."

"I'm not a pious guy, but I do have a very strong cultural feeling," he said. "It's in your bones."

On April 30, Spiegelman wrote an appeal on the site asking frequent visitors to write their own Jewish jokes and interweave them with family stories. The site's founders hope to craft a book from users' submissions, he said in the post.

Suzanne Leichtling says she was inspired to submit "The Frugal Traveller" -- a story about her father -- when a cousin e-mailed her about the site.

For Leichtling, a special education teacher from Cocoa Beach, Fla., the site succeeds when it goes beyond "just jokes."

"They were not really connected to anything having to do with the families," she said of the stand-alone joke videos. "[The new project] is like a cultural archive, a place for people to reminisce and then update their reminiscences to fit with the now."

Though Spiegelman says a few dozen stories have been received, just three have been posted on the site.

Gomolin's story -- "Special Food" -- recounts the time his grandfather Isadore Pollack, hungry for a late-night snack, mistook the family dog's diet chow for his wife's mandlen. His grandfather's death a year ago has brought the site's purpose into even sharper focus for Gomolin.

"For the first time, I'm forgetting Zayde a little bit," he said. "He's not as clear in my head as he used to be."

It's this, the fluidity of memory, that makes preserving a collective Jewish cultural consciousness all the more important, he adds.

"My father's side of the family is Holocaust survivors, and there's this movement to chronicle these stories before they're lost forever," Gomolin said. "I don't know if this is something that rises to that level of phenomenal importance, but let's write these stories down and let's share them."

Ohel’s Halachic Adviser: OK To Cheat On Taxes?

Ohel's Halachic Adviser: OK To Cheat On Taxes?

Rabbi Dovid Cohen: RCA panel he served on was quietly disbanded last week.

Rabbi Dovid Cohen: RCA panel he served on was quietly disbanded last week.

by Staff Report

The halachic adviser to Ohel Children's Home and Family Services, which receives millions of dollars in state and federal money, told a Bergenfield, N.J., synagogue audience in 2007 that tax evasion is permissible under Jewish law as long as one doesn't get caught, according to people in attendance.

The adviser, Rabbi Dovid Cohen, a Brooklyn-based, highly respected halachic expert who also serves as one of three rabbinic guides to Nefesh International, a network of Orthodox mental health professionals, is said to have made the comments about tax evasion during a Shabbat talk at Congregation Beth Abraham in Bergenfield in February 2007.

Now, more than two years later, the repercussions may be taking a toll on Rabbi Cohen

and his reputation.

Several in attendance at the talk said that Rabbi Cohen gave an extended response to a question from the audience, asserting that tax evasion is permissible under Jewish law, as long as there is no realistic possibility of being caught, thus causing a

The justification was based on the rabbi's apparent belief that the reason the rabbis of the Talmud forbade stealing from a non-Jew was only out of fear of anti-Semitism.

Virtually every halachic source agrees that tax evasion, as well as theft from non-Jews, is categorically forbidden.

Rabbi Cohen allegedly told his audience that he was making his controversial remarks on Shabbat — he is also said to have asserted that, like the biblical Esau, non-Jews still hate Jews — knowing he was not being recorded, and that if subsequently questioned about his statement, he would deny it.

The rabbi told The Jewish Week on Monday that the statements attributed to him were "totally misunderstood" and that he "repudiated" them.

Based on letters obtained by The Jewish Week, it appears that at least seven people in attendance at the lecture wrote to or called the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis, where Rabbi Cohen, though not a member of the RCA, served on its prestigious Va'ad HaPoskim, a group of halachic authorities. Some of the letter writers sought to have Rabbi Cohen removed from the panel; others simply attested to their having heard the rabbi make the remarks, which he denied to the RCA.

The RCA appointed a committee to look into the matter, and concluded that, based on Rabbi Cohen's assurance that he opposes tax evasion and affirms treating non-Jews with full respect, the matter was closed.

But last week, without fanfare or notice, the RCA disbanded the Va'ad HaPoskim.

Some speculate that it may have come about in light of recent reports in the Jewish press regarding Ohel, with which Rabbi Cohen is affiliated. Others note that the RCA passed a resolution at its annual convention last month calling on congregations not to give honors to those who engage in unethical conduct.

"So how would it look if one of their halachic authorities is alleged to have approved of cheating on your taxes?" one source noted.

In response to a query from The Jewish Week, RCA Executive Director Rabbi Basil Herring explained that the Va'ad HaPoskim move was taken "to avoid confusion." He said that while individual members of that group will be consulted on halachic matters, as in the past, the RCA's halachic decisions will continue to be made by its Va'ad Halacha, made up of RCA member rabbis.

But according to an RCA official, "the catalyst for the move was the Rabbi Cohen issue."

The official, like most others contacted for this report, asked not to be named out of concern about repercussions.

Asked in an e-mail whether it was appropriate for Rabbi Cohen to continue to serve as halachic adviser for the group, an Ohel spokesman did not respond.

Rabbi Cohen, an American-born graduate of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, with a pulpit on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, has a longstanding reputation as one of the most respected and practical-minded authorities in the charedi community.

"He has taken courageous positions" on matters of domestic and sexual abuse, according to Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, the outgoing executive director of the Orthodox Union. Though some halachic experts are reticent, as is Ohel itself, Rabbi Cohen has encouraged victims in some cases to go to civil authorities, including the police.

Rabbi Abraham Twerski, a psychiatrist and fellow halachic adviser to Nefesh International, said Rabbi Cohen is one of the most "highly respected" rabbis and "one of the most flexible halachic experts" who is unafraid to take lenient positions.

Both rabbis expressed surprise at the controversial statements about tax evasion and non-Jews attributed to Rabbi Cohen.

But another leading rabbi, who described himself as a longtime friend and admirer in many ways of Rabbi Cohen, said that though he had not heard of the tax evasion statement before, he found it "consistent" with the rabbi's views on non-Jews.

"The irony is he's a big liberal in the haredi world," the rabbi said.

Others recalled that Rabbi Cohen is no stranger to controversy, and that at a Nefesh International conference in 2000, he suggested that women in abusive marriages stay in the marriage for the sake of their children. After much heated discussion, he apologized the next morning.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Hilarious - The Lord Justice Hath Ruled: Pringles Are Potato Chips

Amazing how much time and energy are spent on some things…

The Lord Justice Hath Ruled: Pringles Are Potato Chips

By ADAM COHEN

Britain’s Supreme Court of Judicature has answered a question that has long puzzled late-night dorm-room snackers: What, exactly, is a Pringle? With citations ranging from Baroness Hale of Richmond to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lord Justice Robin Jacob concluded that, legally, it is a potato chip.

The decision is bad news for Procter & Gamble U.K., which now owes $160 million in taxes. It is good news for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs — and for fans of no-nonsense legal opinions. It is also a reminder, as conservatives begin attacking Judge Sonia Sotomayor for not being a “strict constructionist,” of the pointlessness of labels like that.

In Britain, most foods are exempt from the value-added tax, but potato chips — known as crisps — and “similar products made from the potato, or from potato flour,” are taxable. Procter & Gamble, in what could be considered a plea for strict construction, argued that Pringles — which are about 40 percent potato flour, but also contain corn, rice and wheat — should not be considered potato chips or “similar products.” Rather, they are “savory snacks.”

The VAT and Duties Tribunal disagreed, ruling that Pringles — which have been marketed in the United States as “potato chips” — are taxable. “There are other ingredients,” the tribunal said, but a Pringle is “made from potato flour in the sense that one cannot say that it is not made from potato flour, and the proportion of potato flour is significant being over 40 percent.”

An appeals court reversed, in a convoluted opinion that considered four interpretations of the law before ultimately rejecting three of them. In the end, it decided that Pringles are exempt from the tax, mainly because they have less potato content than a potato chip.

The Supreme Court of Judicature reversed again, in an eloquent decision. Lord Justice Jacob, in an apparent swipe at the midlevel court, insisted the question was “not one calling for or justifying overelaborate, almost mind-numbing legal analysis.”

The VAT and Duties Tribunal took an eminently practical approach, he said. It considered Pringles’ appearance, taste, ingredients, process of manufacture, marketing and packaging, and concluded that “while in many respects” they “are different from potato crisps and so they are near the borderline, they are sufficiently similar to satisfy that test.”

The tribunal was not obliged, he said, “to go on and spell out item by item how each was weighed as if it were using a real scientist’s balance.” It came down to “a matter of overall impression.”

The Supreme Court of Judicature had little patience with Procter & Gamble’s lawyerly attempts to break out of the potato chip category. The company argued that to be “made of potato” Pringles would have to be all potato, or nearly so. If so, Lord Justice Jacob noted, “a marmalade made using both oranges and grapefruit would be made of neither — a nonsense conclusion.”

He was even more dismissive of Procter & Gamble’s argument that to be taxable a product must contain enough potato to have the quality of “potatoness.” This “Aristotelian question” of whether a product has the “essence of potato,” he insisted, simply cannot be answered.

In the Pringles litigation, three levels of British courts engaged in a classic debate over line-drawing, a staple of first-year law school classes. At some point, a potato-chip-like item is so different from a potato chip that it can no longer be called one — but when? Lord Justice Jacob invoked the wisdom of Justice Holmes: “A tyro thinks to puzzle you by asking you where you are going to draw the line and an advocate of more experience will show the arbitrariness of the line proposed by putting cases very near it on one side or the other.”

In other words, sometimes you just have to call them as you see them.

Conservatives like to insist that their judges are strict constructionists, giving the Constitution and statutes their precise meaning and no more, while judges like Ms. Sotomayor are activists. But there is no magic right way to interpret terms like “free speech” or “due process” — or potato chip. Nor is either ideological camp wholly strict or wholly activist. Liberal judges tend to be expansive about things like equal protection, while conservatives read more into ones like “the right to bear arms.”

In the end, as Lord Justice Jacob noted, a judge can only look at the relevant factors and draw an overall impression. His common-sense approach was a rebuke not only to Procter & Gamble, but to everyone out there who insists that the only way to read laws correctly is to read them strictly.

Stealing hotel amenities: right or wrong?

There's a fine line between in-room perks and sticky fingers

By Lynn Yaeger

Travel+Leisure

updated 3:55 p.m. ET, Tues., June 2, 2009

I stole a laundry bag from the Alvear Palace Hotel in Buenos Aires. It was made of thick ivory linen, embroidered with the words "dry cleaning" in cerulean blue, and looked like something that I could have found at an antique textiles show. But that wasn't the case.

I'm usually pretty scrupulous about purloined souvenirs. Of course, I help myself to soap and shampoo, sewing kits, even those black sponges meant to spruce up your shoes—oh, and ballpoint pens and darling little notepads. But the laundry bag was my first sojourn into the land of, what shall we call it ... outright theft?

How widespread is this brand of petty larceny? A brief survey of my acquaintances—a glass of wine, or three, helped them remember—reveals that B. (names are omitted for patently obvious reasons) spends an inordinate amount of time at her favorite inn in St. Bart's hoarding the Hermès soap (using the same one for the sink and tub and then pilfering the other), and K. became so addicted to the slippers at the Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg that she now begs peripatetic friends to bring back their extra pairs. Both of these tales were recounted in voices dripping with shame—which, it turns out, was entirely uncalled for.

The truth is that even the most parsimonious innkeepers want you to take their grooming products and paper goods home, the thinking being that every time you use an item that bears the hotel's name you'll remember what a wonderful time you had there and plan another visit (and not just to take more stuff). At the supercool Chic & Basic budget hotels in Amsterdam and Barcelona, the owners even anticipate guests' illicit impulses: their toiletries read, "This is the cutest soap that you will steal from a hotel. Enjoy it." and "Amazing quality shower gel rarely found as hotel amenity."

François Delahaye, general manager of Paris's Hôtel Plaza Athénée, confirms that the shampoo, shower gel, slippers, of course, and even ashtrays (remember those?) are good to go. Delahaye says anything with the hotel's moniker is extra-desirable. "If you want it stolen, put your logo on it," he tells me. Usually, he says, hotels shrug off minor light-fingeredness—it's just part of the cost of doing business. But sometimes it gets on even his steady nerves. Lately, he says, there has been such an epidemic of filched silver tea strainers that "it's become a nuisance."

At least he hasn't lost his sense of humor. He chuckles as he recounts the tale of the absconded umbrellas. Like all good hotels, the Plaza Athénée provides parasols for rainy days. At one time, they were not for sale, but that didn't prevent them from regularly showing up on eBay. (The hotel, noting this flourishing secondary market, now sells these brollies for $46.) Okay, François, what about my laundry bag? Was my misdeed really so awfully naughty? Silence, then a most surprising confession: turns out that way back in the day, Delahaye once helped himself to a laundry bag at a Rosewood hotel. This mischief, though hardly sanctioned by the property, had the desired effect. "Whenever I use it," Delahaye says, "I'm thinking about that Rosewood."

Lifting laundry bags is nefarious enough, but it's hardly world-class in the hotel-theft department. For that we must turn to the notorious saga of the bad, bad girl who told me in hushed tones that, while she was staying in a room with two beds at the Setai in Miami, she proceeded to carefully remove the Christian Fischbacher satin sheets from the unused bed, then meticulously remake it so as not to alert housekeeping. Or there's the story of the Kiton-suited banker who never met a wooden shoe tree he didn't like enough to take back with him to Park Avenue.

Now you'd probably think that even the most unscrupulous guest couldn't walk off with a nailed-in showerhead. Guess again. Andrew Stembridge, managing director of Chewton Glen, a manor hotel nestled in England's Hampshire countryside, says he's had visitors unscrew all types of furnishings, including the big bottles of Molton Brown lotion affixed to the spa's walls. Stembridge cheerfully volunteers harrowing tales of people pocketing silver sugar tongs and helping themselves to the iPod docks available at reception. "Sometimes the culprits are the fanciest people—it's not the guests on the special Sunday night rate. We just factor it in," he shrugs philosophically.

On the other hand, Stembridge is not afraid to fight back. Once, when an antique cup and saucer went missing from a room, he confided that he actually riffled through the guests' luggage, which had been stored as they took a final spin around town. "They had a lovely leather bag falling to bits," he remembers. As he suspected, the dishes were indeed packed in the crumbling old bag, but any triumph Stembridge felt at their retrieval quickly vanished when he realized "I couldn't zip the case!" He finally managed to close it, just minutes before Bonnie and Clyde returned.

That crockery wasn't for sale, but the good news is that plenty of coveted items offered by hotels can be yours, legitimately, for the swipe of a credit card. Have sweet dreams of the bed at the Four Seasons? Everyone knows you can order it. Develop an unwholesome relationship with the Perspex mini-mannequin lighting at the Soho Hotel in London? The property can arrange a set for you.

And what about that classic stuff-it-in-your-suitcase item, the terry robe? Plaza Athénée's Delahaye says that this is actually a much smaller problem than it was a decade ago, since there is frequently no room in today's carry-ons for these puffy behemoths. Do hotels really charge for swiped robes, making good on the threat implicit on those little signs in the bathroom? Since I have learned the hard way that a diet Coke gulped on the sly the final day of your stay will almost surely show up on your bill, I have always wondered about the robe scenario.

"We put a charge for the robe on a card if we can be absolutely sure someone took it, and didn't just pack it by mistake," says Leslie Lefkowitz, the Four Seasons Hotel New York's director of public relations. On the other hand, some hotels have bent the stick far in the other direction. At the Raffles L'Ermitage Beverly Hills, they not only gift a bathrobe to VIP guests, they monogram it, too. (But do these swells take their personalized dressing gowns homes? Nope—they often let the hotel keep them for use on subsequent visits.)

As it turns out, sometimes resisting temptation can be just as haunting as giving in to one's base instincts. My friend P., who has been traveling longer than many of us have been alive, recalls wistfully, "As you know, hotels of a certain caliber turn down the bed at night and put little linen towels down so your feet should never, heaven forbid, touch the carpeting. Not only did they do that at the Ritz in Paris, but they put down a second one for my dog. It had a bone embroidered on it with the words 'I Am Ritzy.' I didn't take it and, to this day, I regret it."

Maybe he should have just folded "Ritzy" into his Goyard duffel. Then he and Fido could have dreamed of the Ritz as they rested their tootsies back home, just as the sight of my ill-gotten Argentinean laundry bag has me fantasizing about dancing the tango at 2 a.m. in the grand ballroom of the Alvear Palace.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31046570/

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

SAD - Israeli Haredim take on the issue of sex abuse of children

Whats sad is that people feel ostracized in their community for dealing with this and the family mentioned in the article was pressured not to bring the matter to the police - and then to top it all off, teacher who abused the child mentioned in the article was seemingly rehired! Astounding that we tolerate this stuff.,…it makes you wonder who we care more about, criminals or kids

david

Haredim take on sex abuse of children

Jun. 3, 2009
Ruth Eglash , THE JERUSALEM POST

For Zehava (not her real name), the decision to break with the stringent cultural norms of her tight-knit haredi community in Ramat Beit Shemesh and report the suspected sexual abuse of her three-year-old child to the secular authorities came quickly.

"I grew up in the community, but I have always been open and accepting of the world around me," begins the haredi-raised Zehava, as she shares the story of her battle against the town's religious leaders, who in her view turn a blind eye to the ongoing problem of sexual abuse in the semi-private haredi school system.

"We have an epidemic on our hands, and there is complete denial here that there is anything wrong," she continues. "I spoke to the rabbis and other community leaders here, but they all called me a liar and said that this kind of thing does not happen here... but it does."

Sadly, Zehava, a recent immigrant from the US, has proof of such abuse and is one of a growing number parents from Ramat Beit Shemesh becoming increasingly frustrated with their leaders' continual denial of the problem.

"Families of the victims are made to feel stupid," she says, adding that they are very often ostracized for speaking out about the problem on any level. "But I will not keep quiet; I want to do all I can to make sure that this does not happen to another child," she insists.

"I still feel guilty that I did not pay attention and continued to send my child to [kindergarten] every day," continues Zehava, describing how her child stopped talking, would not sleep at night and was often inconsolable after being continually abused by the teacher.

Only after two years of medical checks and, eventually, speech therapy did the whole story come out. Zehava took her child to the Jerusalem Center for Child Abuse, where her suspicions were confirmed.

"I know this has happened in other schools, too, because I have since met several parents who tell similar stories about their children," says Zehava, who met with other haredi parents earlier this week under the auspices of the Beit Shemesh-based community organization Lema'an Achai to brainstorm ways to tackle the issue.

"We are a lightning rod for all sorts of problems in the community here," says David Morris, founder and chairman of Lema'an Achai, which provides among its services support and guidance for haredi parents who believe their children might have been sexually abused.

Last summer, the organization set up the "Safe-Kids" hot line in conjunction with the Beit Shemesh social welfare services to provide a lifeline to local families whose children have been abused. While the service has not been inundated with calls, Morris says there have been between five and 10 concrete reports of sexual abuse in the community - and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

"If only one in 10 children actually reports what has happened to them, and then only one in 10 parents goes on to officially report what has happened to their child, and the police or social welfare services only get around to investigating one in 10 complaints, that means there are many more cases out there that we don't get to hear about," he says.

According to Morris, the problem is concentrated in local independent schools - facilities partially funded by the Education Ministry but not supervised by it - which have failed to be supportive of parents who claim that their child has been a victim. In most of the schools, a rabbinic authority has the final say, and in many cases ends up believing the perpetrators' story over the victims', he says.

"I don't know why the community leaders chose to protect the adults over the children, but we hope that we can now start to get the word out that children have to be listened to and protected at all costs."

Morris also says that the response of the authorities such as the police and social services is slow and bureaucratic, with the accused not being found guilty or exonerated for years.

"It's a no-win situation," he continues. "Most people are greatly disappointed by the official response from both within the community and from outside."

"There is a combination of denial, protecting your good name and not involving the secular world, that is preventing [this community] from dealing with this problem," says one parent, whose child was sexually abused in a Beit Shemesh elementary school last year.

Asking to remain anonymous, the father recalls how his family was threatened and pressured by community leaders not to pursue the matter with the police, and how his child was ostracized by most former classmates.

"I was not willing to sit quietly and let it happen," says the father, adding that he immediately took the child to the Jerusalem Center for Child Abuse.

The social harassment is ongoing, he says, highlighting how even though the school's administrator initially fired the accused teacher, the institute's rabbis pushed to bring him back into the school.

Despite the pressure, "I was not afraid to speak out against the abuse... This is an issue that has to be addressed," the father says.

Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, executive director of the National Council for the Child - a nonprofit organization that lobbies for improved legislation to protect children and provides a support network for abused children - says Lema'an Achai's work and the efforts of individuals from the haredi community willing to speak out are great steps forward.

"There are serious problems with sexual abuse among the haredim in general, and particularly in Beit Shemesh," says Kadman, who has worked on several cases and has raised the problem with Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog.

"It is very difficult for individuals to break cultural norms and get the word out about what is happening," he observes. "And sadly, when they finally pluck up the courage to do so, the authorities do not deal with it quickly enough, and then it becomes too late. People retract their statements, or the children refuse to talk about it."

However, Kadman says, "I am really happy that people are willing to speak out finally about this problem. There are lots of barriers to dealing with this problem, but there is one law for everyone, and the rabbis or religious community leaders are not exempt from that law."

A spokeswoman for the Welfare and Social Services Ministry said the authorities were familiar with the matter, and it was being dealt with.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1243872320108&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Davetrek vs The World