Danish Bestiality

Did you know that there are

Laws in both Denmark and Norway are fairly open when it comes to a person’s legal right to engage in sexual activity with an animal. The law states that doing so is perfectly legal, so long as the animal involved does not suffer. According to the Danish newspaper 24timer, this interesting gap in the law has led to a flourishing business in which people pay in order to have sex with animals.

And that

clients come from abroad and travel some distance for [animal bordello] services. “But the clients tell us that it is much simpler to buy animal sex in Denmark than in their own country,” the owner said, explaining that many of his clients come from Norway, Sweden, Holland and Germany.

This is the country that had that giraffe killed.

And it is the country where

Halal and kosher meat will no longer be produced in Denmark, where the ritual slaughter has been banned after years of campaigning by animal welfare groups.  Dan Jørgensen, Minister for Agriculture and Food, backs the decision with certainty of his conscience, even as he is widely quoted by the media as saying, "animal rights come before religion".
The statement has stirred up much controversy and debate from Jewish and Muslim religious groups, which are not willing to take non-halal/kosher meat on a "platter".

It would that there are some Danes already having sex with humans-who-are-animals, that is, I mean, the people changing these laws to ban shechita.

Such a pain in the ____ .


(Thanks to BT) ^

This Just Lost Its Kosher Supervision Certificate

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Kosher Plastics

Here is a picture I snapped at our local mini-supermarket, owned by Shlomo Livyatan and managed by Shmuel Ashkenazi:

The latest in plastic storage containers for the Kosher consumer.

Dairy (blue).  Meat (red).  Parve (green).


You remember

"Just one word - plastics. There's a great future in plastics".

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A New Threat to Gefilte Fish (Oiy Vey)

Reported:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, in his 51st volume of Responsa, and deals with the Ashkenazi tradition of eating gefilte fish on the Shabbat.

He explains that

...one of the reasons behind the invention of the gefilte fish was a stiffening of the "borer" law (one of the 39 labors prohibited on Shabbat involving the separation of two or more food items that are mixed together [actually separating “Pesolet” (refuse, or undesirable substance) from “Ochel” (food)]). The preparation of gefilte fish involves finely mincing carp, including its fine bones. "The cheap and abundant carp has small spiky bones and many Ashkenazi arbiters found the gefilte fish cakes to be a simple solution" to the "borer" prohibition of removing the small bones...

The Rabbi's solutution? Simple - cancell out the problem:

In the book, the rabbi permits the removal of the carp's small bones on Shabbat, explaining that this does not institute a violation of the "borer" law. This means that Shabbat may be stripped of its weekly dose of gefilte fish, in favor of whole fish.

Actually, we Ashkenazim love gefilte fish so there is no way we're giving it up. Not for all the Sefaradi pilpul in the world.

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Bacon. Kosher. Kosher Bacon?

I passed a restaurant on Derech Chevron in Jerusalem and noticed something.

First, the kosher certificate and menu

then the menu

then what caught my eye

Well,

"artisanal"...has been used as a marketing buzz word to describe or imply an association with the crafting of hand made food products, such as bread, tofu, beverages and cheese.

One way of preparing:

Cured lamb breasts for bacon. A couple of them were cured with sage, garlic, and black pepper, the other with long pepper and allspice. Cured for 6 days, rinsed, dried, then lightly smoked over cherry wood for 2 hours at 200F.

But bacon?

^

"Roughing It" - Kosher Style

Kosher gourment style via Naomi:

Vietnam & Cambodia
January 2012

Even before Ha Long Bay was declared one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World last week, we had confirmed a fabulous tour to Vietnam and Cambodia.

There are few rooms left - so please hurry to register at today's price. Now that Ha Long Bay is officially one of the most spectacular tourist destinations in the world, prices are bound to rise dramatically!!

We will be attempting the almost impossible - eating authentic (but Kosher) Vietnamese and Cambodian food. Fortunately we will have hands-on Hashgacha by Rabbi Aaron Michelson of Modi'in. Glatt meat, regular milk. Best hotels, a great English-speaking guide from Israel and local guides. A minyan we already have...

Click here for the itinerary: the main tour is from Monday Jan 16 to Thurs Jan 26. In addition, you will be able to come early (as many are) to relax over the weekend before the tour starts, and/or to stay on for the Shabbat after the tour at the fabulous Borei Angkor Wat 5* in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

No Kosher tour has EVER attempted such a level of luxury, cuisine and Kashrut in this part of the world before. We are pulling out all the stops to ensure you enjoy every minute of this fascinating tour.

India
February 2012

We will quickly exhaust our dictionary of superlatives to describe this tour. It is simply the best of everything in a country which is itself a land of contrasting extremes - of beauty, passion and colour, unparalled happiness, religious intensity, great wealth & greater poverty, heat & cold, all rolled into an unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime experience.

As this is a Naomi tour, it will be unique: we will spend Shabbat with the Jews of Cochin, sleep in some of the world's finest hotels, eat strictly Kosher food in local (non-Kosher)restaurants (supervision - Rabbi Menahem Fogel, Efrat) and fly if there's a plane!! As a coup de grace, we offer an extension which includes Shabbat with Chabad in Kathmandu, Nepal and an air tour of Mount Everest.

Pushing the limits.

Wait!

Coming Soon

Japan 2012
Provence 2012
Andalucia 2012
Greece 2012
Tuscany 2012
Amalfi Coast 2012
Iberia 2012

And to think how I managed to get through four days in Moscow in November 1976.

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Keeping Biblically Kosher

Received:

Which species are permitted for consumption according to the Torah?

The ox, sheep and goat are easy to identify, but what were the "Aqqo", "Dishon" and "Zemer" that are listed with those animals defined as "clean" in Deuteronomy? A new archaeozoological study from the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University is exploring the answers.

...A new archaeozoological study has examined zoological findings at 133 biblical sites and is exploring the possible answers to these questions.

Deuteronomy 14 provides a list of ten ungulate species permitted for consumption: "These are the beasts which ye may eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat; the ayal, the zvi, and the yakhmur; and the aqqo, the dishon, the teo and the zemer."(Deuteronomy 14:4-5)

...the biblical yakhmur and teo were not necessarily the species as we know them today. For the most part, linguistic and cultural studies have provided the basis for identification of the "clean" animal species mentioned in Deuteronomy. The current research, led by Prof. Guy Bar-Oz of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Haifa and Prof. Zohar Amar of Bar-Ilan University, along with Ram Buchnik, also of the University of Haifa's Department of Archaeology, examined all the remains of animals uncovered at 133 sites around Israel dating back to the beginning of the biblical period, the late Bronze Age (12th century BCE) and up to the Persian Era (7th century BCE). The study was based on the hypothesis that animals described in the Bible existed at the time and place of its writing...

Based on the animal remains that were examined, the zvi mentioned in Deuteronomy includes the mountain gazelle and Dorcas gazelle. The ayal includes the red deer and Mesopotamian fallow deer, which is also a member of the deer family. According to the researchers, based on the sites and location where the remains of the fallow deer were found, it can be assumed that it was luxury fare for high society.

However, if the fallow deer belongs to the deer family, what was the yakhmur? According to the researchers, an analysis of the biblical text and the animal remains that they examined indicates that the Bible's yakhmur was in fact an antelope of the hartebeest species, a large African antelope that became extinct in Israel but is still found in eastern Africa.

The archaeozoological remains indicate that the aqqo can be identified with the ibex or what is still known as the wild goat. The biblical dishon has been given various identities over the years, including affiliation with the rhinoceros. Archaeological remains from the time of the Bible, however, do not show any hint of rhinoceros; the researchers explain that it is most likely to be an Arabian oryx. The teo mentioned in Deuteronomy is a species that over the years and due to the various translations of the name, has been identified as bison, even though such an animal has also not been found amongst the archaeological remains. The current study suggests that the teo be identified with buffalo, which was a commonly hunted animal in biblical times.

Finally, the zemer has also been given various identities in translation, including the giraffe. This is a highly unlikely identification of the zemer, seeing as here too, there is no hint of archaeological remains of giraffes in the biblical land of Israel. Based on their new analysis, the researchers propose that this species is a member of the ibex family.

"Our archaeozoological findings reinforce the assumption that there is some significance in the order of appearance of each species in the Bible's list of animals deemed clean for consumption. By arriving at a more precise identification of the animals, we can more confidently confirm that at first domesticated animals are named and following that the verse mentions the animals in order of their importance for human consumption in the biblical Land of Israel," the researchers conclude.

For more information:

Rachel Feldman
Division of Marketing and Media
University of Haifa

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My Special Passover Pleasure

Thanks to guests at our Shabbat Pesach table, we imbibed some Slivovitz today:

Notice:-

R. Jelinek Silver Slivovitz Plum Brandy Kosher For Passover Czech Republic

A high quality, three times distilled plum brandy made the same way for centuries, preserving R. Jelinek's long dated recipe. Kosher for Passover Silver Slivovitz, made of the best well matured plums, has smooth slightly almond taste.

Official site.

Thank you Rabbi Reuven Grodner and Chaya.  It was very good.

^

Defintely Not-Kosher

This week there is a "Festival of Flavors" taking place in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Development Authority and the Jerusalem municipality invited the public to partake of an unprecedented culinary tourism event with the Old City Flavors Festival. For the first time ever, the gates of the four quarters of the Old City were opened in the evening and at night to reveal a wealth of unique, authentic restaurants along with music events, ethnic food markets, and arts and crafts fairs and workshops. The festival began on Sunday, March 27 and runs through Thursday, March 31, every evening between 18:00 and 23:00.

But the religious and hareidi elements of the city's populace is very upset at what they see as official sponsorhsip of non-Kosher food.

The wall posters I snapped today (the thrid one is published by Jerusalem's Chief Rabbinate; the others represent various Hareidi groups, the first two anonymous and the last, the official Eidah Hareidit):

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Kosher Check

There's a Kashrus Alert: Sushiagogo out:

A company doing business via the internet in the Ramat Beit Shemesh area, under the name Sushiagogo (http://www.sushiagogo.com/
aboutus.html) markets its product under the hechsher of Badatz Agudat Yisrael. The company apparently takes email and telephone orders and delivers, as well as selling the product fresh in RBS Aleph.

I spoke with two officials in the badatz earlier this morning at the behest of a number of folks in RBS. The badatz’s Rabbi Gefner, a mifakeach (supervisor), and the badatz’s rav hamachshir, HaRav Binyomin Adler Shlita, confirmed that the company in question does not have a hechsher from Agudah.

They urged me to inform the public that the badatz is in no way responsible for the kashrus integrity of anything sold by the company.

Based on the company’s website and emails, it does not claim any other hechsher so it is entirely possible that the products sold to individuals were without any kashrus hechsher whatsoever. Anyone with halachic concerns is advised to contact their rav/posek.

Sushiagogo: located at 19/4 Nachal Lachish, Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Of course, as well, "it is entirely possible that the products sold to individuals were with a very good kashrus hechsher".

So, please check either way you want to go with the sushi.

__________

And two days later:

January 30, 2011

1. Update from Badatz Agudah Regarding Sushiagogo
After hours of phone calls before and after shabbos, Baruch Hashem, the issue regarding Sushiagogo (listed as a Ramat Beit Shemesh
business) has been clarified, thanks mostly due to cooperation of Rabbi Shimon Kroizer, a senior official and a Jerusalem mifakeach in Badatz Agudat Yisrael.

I must commend everyone dealing with the issue, since it was not until very close to shabbos that the actual picture became somewhat clear, and the persons representing Sushiagogo, Badatz Agudas Yisrael and Ramat Beit Shemesh all understood that the situation was due primarily to a lack of communication in the badatz organization, as well as a failure to update the Sushiagogo website, which still shows the business operating locally in RBS, which simply is not the case.

In short, JKN acted responsibly, confirming information with senior badatz officials, including the rav/posek who administratively runs
the organization, but the badatz’s internal sloppy procedural realities resulted in misinformation given to consumers and JKN. JKN fulfilled its mandate of informing the public, at the behest of an established kashrus certifying agency.

I would like to point out the following:
1. No names were mentioned, for this was unnecessary and the goal was to inform the public, not besmirch the name of the owner
2. The alert stated “there was no hechsher” and no accusations of non-kosher were intimated. This would have not been factual since there was no evidence of this
3. Only the minimum information required as per the badatz alert was relayed to the public. Suffice it to say that after hours of conversations and emails, much information is learned but halacha dictates boundaries of what needs to be shared with the general public.

For RBS customers’ familiar with Sushiagogo since its inception, you may or may not know that today, there is a new owner and there simply is no connection to the operation that existed in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Secondly, an agreement was reached a number of weeks ago between Rabbi Kroizer and Sushiagogo, which has been operating out of the Jerusalem-
based Maxim Restaurant [which is under the Badatz Agudah hechsher]. The Agudah was uninformed of this arrangement, and thus took and had no acharayus (responsibility) on the food, as told to us on Friday.

According to Rabbi Kroizer, this deal began a number of weeks ago but as of today, it has ended.

Rabbis Adler and Kroizer stressed to me in conversations this morning to inform the public that as of motzei shabbos, Sushiagogo no longer
has a hechsher.

For reasons that are not going to be shared with readers since they are not relevant, Rabbi Kroizer simply did not get around to informing Rabbi Binyomin Adler, the head of the badatz, and therefore, when calls were made on erev shabbos to Rabbi Gefner, a badatz official, and Rabbi Binyomin Adler Shlita, the rav/posek of the badatz, JKN was told that there was no hechsher, urging us to warn the public that the use of the badatz logo by Sushiagogo was unauthorized.

Rabbi Kroizer expressed his sincere apology for the mess that resulted from his failure to update the head of the badatz, and perhaps is now
increasingly aware of the need to enhance the badatz’s administrative procedures.

All of which justifies my suggestion.

^

Definitely Not Kosher

Found a question, not very kohser but with a good ending:-

Q. After two years of endless nagging, my kosher boyfriend has finally decided to come over to the dark side and, at least for one night, temporarily abandon his dietary restraint. Can you recommend a moderately priced place that serves such good pork and shellfish dishes that he’ll convert permanently?

Oh no.

Can any good come out of this?

Let's read the answer:

A. Great food can change minds and alter people’s lives for the better, it’s true. But so can faith, for those who have it. Helping you use food to persuade someone to abandon his religious principles cannot end well for me. (Nor for him, if his mother finds out.) The laws of kashrut are clear: No pork. No shellfish.

And so I cannot possibly recommend a visit to Momofuku Ssam Bar, where those two banned proteins often combine into Korean-inflected Continental deliciousness, and where a fellow might be introduced to the pleasures of cured hog’s jowl, served with Honeycrisp apple kimchi and a Lebanese yogurt cut with maple syrup.

Nor could I nod to the Spanish-style Casa Mono, where you can find a delicious chilled lobster with ham (a combination the great Calvin Trillin would call a double-trayf special). For you there can be no suckling pig at the Italian gem Maialino or pig’s trotter at the British pub the Breslin or barbecued oysters at the American bistro Marc Forgione in TriBeCa or clams in black bean sauce at the terrific Oriental Garden in Chinatown.

That said, if you want to skate close to the edge, where the ice is thin and crackly, Chinese is probably your best bet. As my hero Arthur Schwartz, formerly the restaurant critic for The Daily News and author of “Jewish Home Cooking,” put it: “The Chinese cut their food into small pieces before it is cooked, disguising the nonkosher foods. This last aspect seems silly, but it is a serious point. My late cousin Daniel, who kept kosher, along with many other otherwise observant people I have known, happily ate roast pork fried rice and egg foo yung. ‘What I can’t see won’t hurt me,’ was Danny’s attitude.”

But proceed with caution. The Torah calls Jews a holy people and prescribes for them a holy diet. If they choose to abandon it, so be it. But you ever argue with a rabbi? I’m not meshuga. Take this boy to the Prime Grill for a kosher steak and tell him you love him.

There's hope yet.

Wall Posters

Someone was spreading a rumour that Rabbi Weiss did not approve of the Kashrut of two slaughtering houses and he did not disapprove:

Two posters campaigning against the Chief Rabbinate's activity on behalf of conversions of soldiers:

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Factoid - Munch On It

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Kosher is the fastest-growing segment of the domestic food industry, with bigger sales than organic. One-third to one-half of the food in American supermarkets is kosher-certified, representing more than $200 billion of the country’s estimated $500 billion in annual food sales, up from $32 billion in 1993.

Given that Jews make up less than 2 percent of the population, and most of them don’t keep kosher, it’s clear that the people buying this food are mostly non-Jews.

Sue Fishkoff



P.S. But she goofs here:

The world of kosher meat took a big hit in 2008 when Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat packer, in Postville, Iowa, was raided by immigration officials. The company went bankrupt, the plant’s manager was sentenced to prison for financial fraud, and the kosher meat industry has been scrambling to restore its good name ever since.

The point was that there is nothing non-kosher about his food but that his employment methods were found illegal. That, in a kosher-food story, is a slip up.



- - -

Is Marijuana Kosher for Pessach?

You never know what is out there in the blogosphere:-

Marijuana

...R. Yitzhak Ya'akov Weiss (1902-1989), in Shu't Minhat Yitzhak (vol. 3 no. 138(b)), discusses cannabis on Passover. Specifically, he is dealing with two foods, cannabis and cotton-seed oil, but we will focus on cannabis. Prior to engaging in this discussion we should note that the cannabis plant produces three things: (1) hemp which is fibrous and can be used to make clothing, and was commonly used to make strong rope; (2) hemp seed, which is used in food and in some homeopathic remedies; and (3) as a narcotic referred to as marijuana. [See also Y. Felix, Marot ha-Mishna, Jerusalem: 1977, p. 131; and Z. Amar, "Hashish and the Hashishim in Eretz Yisrael and Syria During the Medieval Period," in Ariel 120 (1997), pp. 277-282.]

R. Weiss first notes that cannabis shouldn't be questionable at all for Passover as Rambam, in the laws of prohibited mixing of seeds, labels cannabis as a vegetable and not kitniyot. However, R. Weiss points out that there is an internal problem with the Rambam, one that many of commentaries on Rambam have dealt with, but not to R. Weiss's satisfaction.

It should be noted that one commentary, Radbaz (1479-1589 or 1463-1573), in his discussion of this issue makes it apparent that he is aware of cannabis's narcotic use. He explains that "in Egypt they eat [smoke?] cannabis and become high and those who do report that it makes them very happy . . . in other places they use cannabis to make clothing like linen."


Read more.

But Is It Kosher?

Chabad say yes.

The rest say no.

What are we talking about?






Bénédictine, a liqueur that I spotted in the NYTimes:

Bénédictine, which celebrates its 500th anniversary in 2010, has done both: It has lived well, having evolved from a bitter medicine formulated by French monks into a fancy-schmantzy after-dinner liqueur, and crammed two or three lives into its half-millennium history...comes from a blend of 27 herbs and spices that a monk named Dom Bernardo Vincelli distilled in 1510 at a Bénédictine monastery in Fécamp, France, in Normandy. Dom Vincelli’s Elixir, as it was called then, was a hit until the French Revolution, when the monastery was destroyed. In a Dan Brown-worthy plot twist, the recipe was lost until an art collector and wine merchant named Alexander Le Grand discovered it within a trove of old books he bought in 1863. After toying with the recipe, Le Grand began selling the elixir as Bénédictine — for pleasure, this time, rather than for medicinal reasons.

Chabad says

1. you may purchase and enjoy even such drinks that are produced by monasteries. A monastery is not a church, it's a dormitory.

2. I am told that in the immediate post-World War II period, when numerous Habad Hasidim settled in France, two rabbanim did check the Benedictine factory, which no linger belongs to the Benedictine monks, and found that i contains no wine...Rebbi Schneersohn sent a shalah manoth package to the Rebbi of Amsinev, and there was a bottle of Benedictine in it.

3. See in the Hosafos to Hemshech 5666 (don't have it right here to note the page), a Reshima from the Frierdiker Rebbe, describing how the Rebbe Rashab celebrated something with him by saying L'chaim on some Benedictine.

4. The liqueur Benedictine has officially been recognized as kosher. Rabbi Moshe Dovid Gutnick recently announced that Benedictine is kosher after checking into its ingredients. The Rebbe used to drink Benedictine at farbrengens until a certain individual claimed that there was a halachic question regarding its kashrus.

Everyone else

Star K - Not recommended;
London Beth Din - Dom is kosher;
NSW (Sydney) -- Not acceptable;
MK (Montreal) - Not acceptable;
OU - Not recommended.
Chicago - Not Kosher
JSOR - nope
Seattle - not recommended
France - NK


This.
This.

And try these.

Old and Kosher

The 1905 ad.

Kosher.

Really.

I Keep Kosher So I Don't Eat Pork

Just for your information:

[The late Tom Anderson, the family doctor in (Camden) this little farm town in northwestern Indiana]...He began seeing strange rashes on his patients, starting more than a year ago. They began as innocuous bumps — “pimples from hell,” he called them — and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and agonizing to touch...most common on the face, armpits, knees and buttocks. Dr. Anderson took cultures and sent them off to a lab, which reported that they were MRSA, or staph infections that are resistant to antibiotics.

MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) sometimes arouses terrifying headlines as a “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria.”... by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.

Dr. Anderson at first couldn’t figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?

The story here.

Looking for the Kosher Food Shelf?

Remember Amy Winehouse's previous kosher-shopping outing?

Here.

Well, could she be looking for the kosher food aisle or shelf again?





Source


Ah, you don't believe it's her?


Here:

Marathons Are For the Keepers-of-Kosher, Too

As this story tells it, you can run and keep kosher:-

...consider the plight of the kosher marathoner, who because of Jewish dietary laws may not replenish himself with sports drinks that lack kosher certification.

“The average runner can grab a cup of Gatorade anywhere along the race course, but we have to plan ahead, to have people meet us at certain points with kosher-certified drinks,” said Dovid Yehoshua Schachner, a former schoolteacher in Queens and an orthodox Jew who has run three marathons and is running on Sunday. According to Gatorade’s Web site, the drink lacks kosher certification.

...Zev Wineberg, a Hasidic rabbi who lives and runs a Jewish center on Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens...bought cases of Powerade, a sports drink that is kosher-certified, and said he will offer it to “anyone who wants it, but specifically to runners who are strictly observant.”

“We want to support their physical and spiritual well-being,” he said. Rabbi Wineberg estimated that there were perhaps “several hundred” runners in the marathon who observe kosher regulations. Many gather in groups at the starting line for morning prayer.

And Talking About Treif vs. Kosher

I just mentioned this matter in this previous post.

Rabbis to Form Task Force on Kosher Food

Responding to accusations of abuse of workers at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, an organization of Orthodox Jewish rabbis announced that it was forming a task force to devise Jewish principles and ethical guidelines on the kosher food industry and business in general. The group, the Rabbinical Council of America, said it would publish the results in a guide. Rabbi Asher Meir, an author and expert in Jewish business ethics, will lead the task force. The kosher industry has come under scrutiny since a May 12 raid at Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa, resulted in the arrest of nearly 400 illegal immigrants in one of the nation’s largest such cases. State officials say dozens of under-age workers were employed there in violation of child labor laws.