The reaction to the discovery that a prominent glatt kosher butcher had fraudulently sold non-kosher (�treif�) poultry to unsuspecting consumers left the community in shock, but it also prompted calls for change by retailers from a number of leading rabbis. While rabbis were sorting out how this could have possibly happened, several repeated a call that was made after an episode of fraud in Flatbush, Brooklyn that called for on-site mashgichim (rabbinical supervisors) even in stores that are owned by Orthodox Jews. �With kosher grocers getting bigger all the time, the management can�t possibly police the preparation of all foods, particularly meats,� one Flatbush rabbi told KosherToday. The rabbi said that after a Flatbush takeout store was found to have sold kosher meat that was not glatt kosher as glatt, several stores and restaurants took the step of hiring mashgichim despite the added expense. �What happened in Monsey,� said the rabbi, �is so much worse than the story with the takeout store in Flatbush.� The Monsey case revolved around Shevach Meats, the butcher? who rents space from? the Hatzlocho kosher supermarket. Sources told KosherToday that Hatzlocho�s owners were in fact involved in uncovering the non-kosher poultry which had ostensibly come from Kiryas Joel, the Upstate New York Satmar community. The butcher was said to have bought poultry from Kiryas Joel in the past but subsequently ran up a huge outstanding debt, which sources say was probably why he �bought the treif meat off a truck.�
The discovery of the fraud created havoc in the community. Hundreds of families were forced to eat dairy on Shabbat, waiting to learn how to kosher their kitchens. In shuls throughout Monsey, rabbis directed congregants on procedures for koshering their kitchens. Rabbi Shulem Nosson Spiegel of Congregation Tefillah L�Moshe organized a public koshering of pots and silverware in his shul. Electronic calls were made to Monsey residents in what some rabbis called �the worst kashrus scandal in their memories,� although several of the older rabbis recalled incidents of horsemeat being passed off as kosher and of non-kosher meat being served on a kosher cruise.
The Monsey scandal is expected to have far-reaching implications on consumers who will no doubt seek additional assurances that such fraud will not be perpetrated in the future. A number of rabbinic groups are planning meetings to deal with reviewing standards for stores that package glatt kosher meats. One woman who was a frequent customer of Shevach said, �I had complained that the chickens were not as salty, which is what I am used to. At least now I know that the chickens were never kosher.� Salting and soaking is a requirement for kosher.
Source: KT
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
One Response
In my town of Montreal, the MK (the local orthodox Kashrut organization) has required that there be a mashgiach at every place that sells kosher food, even where the owner is a frum Jew with beard and payos. The owner of Shevach Meats claimed the non-Jewish truck driver told him it was kosher. Didn’t he know the well-known halacha of basar sheh’nisalem min ha’ayin, meat that is not under constant supervision? The law states that it is forbidden to use it. This person will ultimately give a din v’chesbon, but the message to us is to be more vigilant. In most businesses, the one writing the check is never the one who signs it, and often, two signatures are required. So too, in Kashrus, we can’t judge a person’s yirash shamayim from the length of his beard. There must be an independent mashgiach who is not payed directly by the owner of the business. What a shande far’n Yidden!