------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

According to the announcement, dairy sufganiyot must be marked with a clear and obvious symbol, sticking a small blue flag in the donut with the word "chalavi", dairy, on the flag. Looks almost zionistic to me, but blue is the color commonly used for marking dairy. 

They warn the public to look out for the markers so as not to stumble in confusing dairy and pareve sufganiyot. They dont even mention the option of meaty sufganiyot!

I would note that this seemingly only applies to places under the Eida hechsher, so if you go to Roladin or Kadosh or one of the many other places that will be selling fancy sufganiyot, you probably wont see these flags.

And I would even guess tahat Eida hechsher places will also not put a little flag in every dairy sufganiya. It seems similar to the law about marking the price on every product in the store - there is no shortage of stores that just dont bother. They will probably mostly make do with just a sign of some sort.

To note: the audience at this symposium is to a yeshivish crowd (good to be aware of the context and know who they are speaking to so you understand what they say)...

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

While personally I think it is not necessary, I do not see any big deal in this. People pay for the electricity. The people using the "kosher electricity" , necessary or not, will be paying for it in their electric bill. I wont be paying for anyone else's electricity, no matter where they get it from. It is even a good thing, with so many communities generating their own electricity illegally using generators and hooking up apartments and synagogues in dangerous ways that are not according to any standards, supplying it properly from the electric company will put an end to that, maybe. I am sure someone out there will still say it isnt kosher enough and will still operate a pirate generator, but most of those who want it will hook up to the official system. So this will minimize the danger to the public.

That being said, I wonder how many hechshers this electricity will have to have. Will it be Rabbanut, and if it is will the Haredim rely on it? Will it be Eida? will it be two or three hechshers certifying the electricity as kosher? Will there be a choice of regular and glatt electricity?

And I dont understand why this has to be passed as a law? Can't the electric company just decide to supply kosher electricity to those who want it without passing laws for it?

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

Rav Lau has paskened that cultured meat is pareve but. "Pareve but" meaning, it is pareve, but....

Stressing that this only applies to the type of cultured meat he investigated and others that use other methods might be different, Rabbi Lau paskened this type of cultured meat is pareve, with some conditions and qualifications largely about the maris ayin aspect of it:

1. as long as there is supervision that the cells were taken from the embryo and all other parts and ingredients used in the process are supervised, this will be kosher and pareve

2. if it will be marketed as meat or as a meaty product, and if it is made to look like meat and taste and smell like meat, there would be room to be strict and consider it kosher but not pareve as far as eating/cooking it with milk

3. it should not be advertised alongside dairy products as doing so might cause people to be lax about milk and meat.

source: INN

bon apetit

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

super interesting if you want to hear more about the kashrut reform, right "from the horse's mouth"

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------

According to Israel Hayom, Osem produces it ketchup from tomato concentrate mostly produced int he Ukraine. With the war ongoing, Ukraine has been unable to supply the product, making it difficult for Osem to produce their ketchup.

The alternative they found was to produce the tomato concentrate here in Israel. They then discovered that this might be ok for the general market as they can use tomatoes and tomato concentrates from hetter mechira produce, but the Haredi market would ot accept that at all. 

According to the report, Osem has enough stock left to last a couple of months but new production is all going to be using hetter mechira produce for the foreseeable future and their ketchup will not bear a mehadrin kashrut certification. They are looking for alternatives.

So pay attention to the ketchup you buy, if that matters to you. Make sure it has a hechsher you rely on.

I am not sure why Israel and Ukraine are the only two choices. If they could buy from the Ukraine, there must be somewhere else they can buy from now to avoid the hetter mechira issue.

The affected restaurants and stores are:

Halo Teiman in Neimi Mall

Dagei Bet Shemesh

Pizza Meshulashim in Shaarei Ha'Ir Mall

Pizza Meshulashim in RBS on Kishon St

and without the rabanut hechsher it is likely they wont have the mehadrin hechshers either (as it is illegal, besides for whatever problems might have been discovered, and the mehadrin hechshers usually adhere to this law of requiring a base hechsher of the Rabbanut)

I dont know what happened, and my assumption is that it will be resolved quickly, but be aware of the situation and if you go to any of these (or other) places check the hechsher to see what is current, if that is important to you.

Meshulashim announced on its FB page the following:

All branches of Meshulashim have the hechsher of Rav Landau of Bnei Braq with a permanent mashgiach from the time it opens until closes. That is unconnected to the kashrut of the local council who request large sums of money that is not justified in exchange for their kashrut.

It is a shame that the religious council are "warning" the public without also saying the reason for removing the kashrut - which is only a demand for money that it does not deserve.

UPDATE 02/06/2022 - Meshulashim and Rabbanut Bet Shemesh have to an agreement on the dispute and the Rabbanut has re-issued its kashrut certification for both branches of meshulashim.

That sounds funny and weird, but in Israel the Burger King chain of fast food restaurants has some branches that are kosher. The kosher branches also serve cheeseburgers using vegan cheese and kosher bacon, aka facon, made from turkey. This fellow went into what he thought was a kosher branch of the chain based on the sign in front of the shop broadcasting to the public that it is kosher.

This fellow enjoyed his cheeseburger, thinking it was kosher and was so impressed with the quality of the vegan cheese commenting to a server on the way out that it tasted just like the real thing. The server responded that it tasted like the real thing because it is the real thing. The branch is not actually kosher and that was a real cheeseburger made from real meat and real cheese.

It turns out this branch had once been kosher and had the word "kosher" on their sign, but then changed to being a not-kosher branch and just never bothered to change the sign. The fellow eating there clearly did not look for the kashrut certificate but figured the sign saying kosher was enough, not "enough" as in certification but he figured if it says kosher and he knew it as kosher from the past, he surely didnt think twice about it and just assumed it is still kosher.

I am not coming here to say they should have removed the word from the sign so he is right for suing them. Nor am I coming her to say it is his own fault for not checking so he should not be suing. I am sure they were not trying to be deceptive with the sign, but they should have removed it when they decided to go not kosher. He wasnt looking for an excuse when he ate in a restaurant without checking for a kashrut certificate, nor was he trying to set them up for a suit, but he should have checked - one should always check as things often change in the restaurant industry, though to be fair many of us most of the time do not check if we are already familiar with a place - we simply assume nothing has changed.

This was an easily preventable unpleasant incident in which both sides are probably equally at fault.

The food production industry is in a flux right now. The Strauss recalls due to salmonella have led to further recalls by other companies for a variety of reasons. 

A product with the kashrut certification of the Eida Hachareidis and labeled as pareve has been discovered to actually contain minor amounts of dairy substances. 

This is not just an allergen warning that some people worry about and does not actually affect the halachic status of the food item. This is the opposite of that. They found actual dairy in the product, and there was not even an allergen warning about minute traces, let alone significant amounts. I heard the amounts discovered are still not enough to affect the pareve status of the food, but people with allergies to dairy/lactose should be careful. 

Mistakes happen. Hopefully nobody allergic was adversely affected by this mistake, but mistakes happen, even to the "best" of hechshers.

There might be issues, such as infestation, or in Israel issues like truma and maaser... The shmitta year upon us has brought a new one not considered in most years - supervision on marijuana from the aspect of shmitta. Marijuana grown in Israel during the shmitta year could be a problem of having kedusha, or possibly being completely prohibited if one considers it in the category of sefichin. Other issues might be using hetter mechira for marijuana, or importing from other countries or using what is called yevul nochri - non-Jewish grown marijuana, and one might want supervision for any of those issues.

A company in Israel that produces/grows medical marijuana announced that their product has kashrut supervision from Rav Yosef Efrati ensuring that they are shmitta compliant. The company report believes this certification will spur an increase of sales in the religious and Haredi markets.

This is seemingly the first time a marijuana company in Israel has received kashrut certification.

source: Hamechadesh

we are living in interesting times..

I dont know how they grow the marijuana while being shmitta compliant. Maybe in hothouses, hydroponics, and the like. 

I also wonder if marijuana gown [improperly] during shmitta would have the status of sefichin and be prohibited or if it would need to be treated with kedusha, special care for shmitta produce. And, if one had marijuana with kedusha status, could one just bake it into edibles for consumption or could one also smoke it - ie would burning it be considered its normal use and ok or would it be considered destroying shmitta produce which is not allowed?  So many questions!

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------