Kashrus organizations are under pressure to remove the hashgacha certification from Ben & Jerry's Ice cream.
Jpost- Kashrut authorities are being called on to remove their kosher certification from all Ben & Jerry's ice cream products after their decision to boycott West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.
In response to the announcement made earlier this week, Jews in countries across the world have announced their intentions to boycott the product, with some going as far as to launch campaigns aimed at Kashrut certification organizations.
The Australian Kashrut Authority (KA) announced on Wednesday via their Facebook page that they would be removing Ben & Jerry's ice cream from their list of kosher approved products, and said that while the brand would still be certified kosher under the US based Kof-K certification, they themselves would be ending their long standing decision to list the ice-cream in their kosher product list.
In their statement, the KA stated that the decision was made "in support of those who proudly reside in Yehuda ve Shomron (Judea & Samaria)."
Despite the KA's reassurance that the American Kof-K certification would continue to certify the product, many US based Jews are campaigning for this to change.
Nachman Mostofsky, executive director of Amariah, a religious Jewish organization that claims to promote "the communal values of traditional Torah-true Judaism," tweeted a statement on Tuesday, saying that he had spoken to Kof-K, encouraging them to remove their certification from the product.
He encouraged others to do the same, and said that he had not been the only person to phone them that morning.
A similar statement was shared on the Amariah Twitter account, in which they said that as well as Kof-K, "the [OU Kosher] and [cRc Kosher] and any other certification should refuse them as well."
While some approved of this idea, others were less certain and questioned the choice of the KA, and the campaign against Kof-K, from a halachic point of view. As Kashrut refers only to how food must be prepared according to Jewish Law, the removal of a kashrut certificate due to political decisions could lead to misinformation.
Twitter user @AvrahamAdler replied to the Amariah announcement: "bottom line, people must know whether or not it is kosher. If [Ben & Jerry's] change their formulation and stop being kosher, that’s a real problem. People can choose on their own to stop supporting B&J #Antisemitism, but not at expense of Halacha. Halacha transcends emotions."
Regarding what @AvrahamAdler said,
ReplyDeleteWhat would you say about them giving a hechsher on food served in a toeiva restaurant/bar? Just focus on the food and ignore everything else?!?!
He didn't say focus on the food. He said focus on halacha. B&J's views and actions regarding the State of Israel have nothing to do with halacha, and therefore should have zero relevance to kashrus organizations.
DeleteMany view the BDS movement to be rooted in anti semitism, and they should have moral standards aside from strictly looking the the prism of 'halacha'
DeleteWhat is a to'ievah restaurant? Where the weights are wrongly calibrated?
Deletehalevay it was just the weights that were wrongly calibrated
DeleteAguda views the BDS movement to be anti-semitism. https://matzav.com/agudath-israel-weighs-in-on-the-ben-jerrys-decision-to-boycott-yehudah-shomron-and-east-jerusalem/
DeleteUnless you disagree with their premise, why in the world would anyone want to be associated with such a movement? why is this a 'halacha' issue???
Halacha #1: עשיו שונא את יעקב
DeleteAdditionally, realize that delegitimizing the Jews living in certain areas - anywhere across the globe - is dangerous anti Semitism. Now it's ice cream that's cut off, and then it's any other type of food. After that it becomes excusable to murder ר"ל, as we've seen them try so many times.
Which leads into the next one.
Halacha #2: Actively supporting those who put Jewish lives at risk is אסור.
Every major kashrus agency gives hashgachos to corporations who have publicly held views that are the antithesis of halacha and torah hashkafa.
ReplyDeleteWhat about giving hashgacha to their rainbow/toeva flavors??
DeleteWe have some serious homophobes over here. Get over yourselves, stop searching under every rock for this.
DeleteFaulty weights and measures are תועבה.
and lgbt is the toevah of all toevas.
Deleteall the sexual sins in achrai mos are called toevah, homosexual is designated toevah among those other toevahs, or the toevah par excellence.
Depends on the situation but there are certainly non kashrus related circumstances that justify removing a hechser. Say a food company was a major donor to and made major proclamations for anti-frum organizations like Yaffed or Footsteps. It would be correct to remove the hechser and stop dealing with them
ReplyDeleteIf ever there was an illustration of the "slippery slope" argument, it's here.
ReplyDeleteToday it's something (B & J's anti-semitic bent) that a fair percentage of the folks may agree on. But tomorrow, it may be something that is more of a niche concern: something that an increasingly smaller sub-group thinks is "biroomoi shel oilam".
What's a horrific toievah to one group, is a more "manageable" deviation to another: one that doesn't require the fairly drastic action of removing the certification from a heretofore perfectly kosher item.
Then what ?
Kashrus organizations become the gatekeepers for the ever-changing vagaries of political/moral expediency ?
We have watered down standards for kashrus, with competing agencies having different standards ?
More machloikes - and the consequently inevitable chilul HaShem amongst the various "levels" of actual orthodoxy ?
That's what we call a slippery slope.
Responding to a boycott with a counter boycott is not a slippery slope. Enough said.
DeleteOh, and another thing:
ReplyDeleteI have friends - who are admittedly not as makpid as I am - that already look at the whole hashgacha industry as being fraught with cronyism, quid pro quo, and dubious motives that have far less to do with actual kashrus, and far more to do with financial expedience.
If B & J loses the certification, they will likely assume that nothing has changed with respect to the ingredients, and that it is merely another example of the aforementioned.
B & J, on the other hand, in the event that it does lose the certification, is under no obligation to not change the ingredients in ways that might - while still being dairy-free - contain other chashashos of tarfiss.
If you don't think that's a consideration, I am confident in saying that you truly lack ahavas yisroel, and you don't care about the collateral damage of someone (who you obviously never cared about to begin with) possibly eating tarfiss.
And that says a lot about where your priorities are at.
That you'd rather sanction a multimillion dollar corporation that doesn't actually give a hoot about your pathetically feeble protest - because the dent in their bottom line will be non-existent, at best - over the very real and very present chashash of achilas tarfiss.
A Kasrus organization is under no obligation to be hold themselves hostage because of those who will continue to eat the product after they remove their hecsher because those people decided on their own that the product is still kosher.
DeleteTHAT is a slippery slope.
The argument that removing B&J hashgachah is at the cost of Halachah is moronic. It is not as if they are giving a hashgachah to something tried. They are just saying they don't want to do business with a company that discriminates against Jews.
DeleteThere maybe hundreds of foods that are kosher but do not have a supervision and therefore can not be eaten.
As far as worrying about people who will eat it anyways. I am not particularly worried about the effect that removing the hashgacha will have on those people. Someone who is so lax about kashrus that they will eat things without a hashgacha, is likely eating treif anyways
12:39 - you may be right, they may be eating tarfus anyway. But at this time when they are eating B & J's, they are not. And after the hashgacha is removed, they might. Mitzvos and aveiros are not a zero sum game.
Delete