Cheese it, it's the Kosher Kops!

Is this bread kosher or not? Only the rabbi can say.

by Ken

Sometimes I wonder what people outside the Jewish faith make of the truly nutty system of dietry prescriptions and (especially) proscriptions known as kashrut, or that which is "kosher."

Oh, there was indeed once a logic to advising caution with regard to animal products like pork and shellfish, but those were overcome with attention to sanitation, improved harvesting, and regulation -- all without recourse to anything resembling Divine Imperative. And where it all turns truly nutty is in the fanatical separation of milk and meat products (milk products including all dairy), which not only can't be eaten in the same meal but can't be allowed to touch the same dishes or utensils. It becomes nuttier still at Passover time, which calls for yet another set, or rather sets, of dishes.

It must be decades since I saw the Taxi episode where Latka (the late, loony Andy Kaufman) is charging Alex (Judd Hirsch) with premarital ritual obligations based on the orthodox religion of his mysteriously Eastern European homeland, so the quote is from memory, and one of these days I guess I'll have to get the DVDs if only to check it out. But I think I've got it pretty close, since it's stuck kind of vividly in my memory. In his religion, Latka explans, "we believe, and rightly, that what separates us from the animals is mindless superstition and pointless ritual."

My cousin R (his actual initial!) dealt with this problem ruthlessly but efficiently when he married a young woman who could be considered a peerless mate in all respects except for her stern intention "to keep a kosher home," as we say. R took every opportunity available to him to mix the dishes, requiring the lovely Mrs. R to devote more and more of her time to ritual purification -- this would be the mindless ritual in support of pointless superstition -- that in less time than you might think she threw up her hands in frustration.

There are few things in life more entertaining than listening to an "observant" Jew try to explain the life-or-death importance of the separation of "milk" and "meat." Naturally the responsible rabbis over the century have come up with all sorts of songs-and-dances, but when you hear a live human actually try to deliver one with a straight face, in deadly seriousness, well, until then you haven't really experienced comedy. The one thing you can say for certainty is that the rules make it almost impossible for truly observant Jews to eat -- to "break bread," as we say, describing one of the most fundamental acts of friendly social interaction -- with non-Jews.

Now I don't mean to single us Jews out for unique nuttiness. If you look at any religion, and especially the "purest" incarnations of them, you're likely to encounter a rich store of mindless superstition and pointless ritual. Somehow, though, we Jews seem to bring a special flair to it.

Which brings us to this week's news coming out of Israel: the planned introduction of Kosher Kops to crack down on what is described as "kosher piracy." Now this is likely to sound even more incomprehensible to non-Jews than it does to those of us who have grown up observing this nuttiness.

In my own neighborhood of Washington Heights in Manhattan, for example, we have what might be called "dueling rabbis" -- rival gangs of kashrut certifiers, leaving the faithful to decide for themselves whose certificates to honor. It must be an even bigger nightmare for food purveyors, who have to figure out which gang to grease. As best I can tell, many attempt to appease both sets of enforcers. (If you step back a little, you get a strong whiff of a suspicion that the whole kashrut business -- and believe me, it is a business -- is to provide a steady revenue stream to the kosher-blessing rabbis.)

From Haaretz:

Kosher cops || Israel's Chief Rabbinate seeks to fight piracy with uniformed 'kashrut police'

New effort by Deputy Minister Eli Ben Dahan seeks to stamp out establishments that call themselves kosher, but have no state-issued kashrut certificate.

By Yair Ettinger | Dec. 30, 2013 | 12:34 PM

Officials of Israel's Chief Rabbinate are seeking to establish a "kashrut police," in an effort to broaden the authority's power over businesses that present their merchandise as kosher but have no rabbinate-issued kashrut certificate.

In a memorandum of law distributed Sunday in the Knesset, Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben Dahan proposed that the rabbinate's kashrut inspectors be allowed to enter restaurants and businesses, take food samples, and oblige citizens to identify themselves and even be summoned to questioning.

Inspectors of the "kashrut police" - members of the Chief Rabbinate's Kashrut Fraud Division - would wear identification badges and even uniforms, according to the memorandum.

Officials of Ben Dahan's bureau say the measure is the first step in regulating the kashrut-supervision field in Israel, which is rife with irregularities and lacks transparency. In future stages, Ben Dahan, a certified rabbi and a member of the Habayit Hayehudi party, hopes to sever the dependent relationship between kashrut inspectors and those whom they inspect - the business owners, who currently pay the inspectors' salaries.

The main purpose of the "kashrut police" is to stamp out the incidence of establishments that call themselves kosher, but have no kashrut certificate. In recent years restaurants and cafes in Jerusalem, and, following in their lead, in other cities, began operating without the rabbinate's kashrut certificates.

The business owners said doing so was an act of protest and disgust over the unreasonable demands made by the rabbinate and its inspectors. Still, these restaurants and cafes remained kosher, sometimes maintaining an even stricter standard of Jewish dietary laws than the regulations require. The Kashrut Fraud Division slapped steep fines on some of the business owners, even those whose restaurants displayed no certificate on which the word "kosher" appeared, but legal proceedings against the owners stopped at a certain point.

Under Israeli law, business owners may not market their merchandise as kosher, or use the word "kosher" in any form to describe it, unless they have obtained a valid kashrut certificate from the Chief Rabbinate.

Still, the law is not enforced in neighborhoods such as Jerusalem's Mea She'arim, where businesses carry kashrut certificates issued by independent religious courts and private kashrut organizations.

On Sunday, Eli Ben Dahan told Haaretz in a telephone interview that the employees of the Kashrut Fraud Division do not currently have enough tools to enforce the law.

"They go to a place, but they cannot take anything from it or take photographs, and the business owner often throws the inspector out," he said. "We want to give them the power of inspectors from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, who, if they see a problem, have the right to take the findings with them and engage in preliminary questioning."

According to his memorandum, a kashrut inspector wearing a uniform and an identification badge would be permitted to "require any person to give his name and address and show an identification card or other official identifying document; to require any person involved in a case to provide any information or document that ensured he was abiding by the law... to take samples of products and materials and send them for examination... to enter a business or production facility, including places of storage and refrigeration on the premises or under the control of the one being inspected, including entering stationary vehicles, as long as he did not enter a place of residence except by court order." If the inspector's suspicions were aroused, he would be permitted to "question any person connected with the aforesaid violation, or who might have knowledge of the violation," and also to "seize any object connected with the violation."

This is Eli Ben Dahan's second move against those wishing to meet the requirements of Jewish law in various spheres without involving the rabbinate. His first move was to add a clause to the "Tzohar Law" mandating prison terms for Jewish couples who married in private wedding ceremonies without registering with the rabbinate, and those who officiated at such weddings.

In reply to a question about his ministry's policy, which advocates legislation that would make it difficult for people to abide by religious law without involving the rabbinate, Ben Dahan said, "As you know, I support the state of Israel as a Jewish state, and we need to work toward greater enforcement of the state's laws. In many spheres there is no law enforcement, and there are many examples of this, such as construction violations that nobody does anything about. But I, at least, in the small sphere that I deal with, will make sure to enforce the law by which the state is the one to issue kashrut certificates and register marriages, and those who do not obey should be punished."

I don't know, do you laugh or do you cry?

#