The following story was revealed by Ziv Maor, spokesman for the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
A kosher Eilat hotel sent guests to restaurants in the southern port city. For reasons that are not disclosed, the hotel decided not to serve dinner it its dining room, preferring to give guests vouchers for local eateries.
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel received a number of complaints after a number of the Shomer Shabbos guests realized that some of the restaurants on the list accepting the vouchers are not kosher. In addition, the list did not indicate which of the restaurants are kosher and not kosher. A hotel clerk told one of the guests that based on his intuition; a specific restaurant did appear kosher.
In light of the event, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel warns visitors to hotels of similar occurrences and advises patrons not to rely on any voucher but to verify the presence of a valid acceptable teudat hechsher before being seated in any restaurant.
The Chief Rabbinate is also going to instruct stores that use vouchers to indicate a business’ kosher status on a voucher.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
I would think that anyone who was concerned about kashruth would check the hashgacha of ANY restaurant irrespective of whether the concierge of the hotel gave them a voucher listing that restaurant. Even for established restaurants, we know to check frequently since a teudat hechsher can be withdrawn suddenly for reasons we might not know. While its generally safer to rely upon a restaurant with chassideshe hashgacha, illicitly serving treifus is not exclusively a problem with Litvasehe mashgichim.
Always check the date and name on the teudah.