schnapps

And what should we make lechaim on? Laundry bleach?

As for that ban – I’ll save my boycott for the CONservative “Magen Tzedek,” thank you.

Those scotches are now owned by multinationals that go out of their way to get hechsherim on their products so that we can enjoy them without getting mixed up in the endless kashrus debate about mashke. The locals will not be hurt by the boycott at all. Some Jewish distributors and retailers may be hurt.

If I can find a bottle of Auchentoshan (the only one on the list I like that is 100% kosher) over here, I will davka buy it for Shabbos even though I prefer vodka.

Yes I know you are just regurgitating. But you failed to mention a certain detail regarding the Federation of Jewish Mens Clubs. This is not a secular Jewish site or a Zionist site and we don’t care at all what those clubs do.

I am making it clear that those of us who follow Torah and know what hakoros hatov is should not follow the erev rav.

The boycott was started by a very strange extreme Zionist blogger and was picked up by a group of misguided Jews and insincere, improper converts whose values are inimical to Torah. The boycott, unlike some of the whiskys, is not kosher and doesn’t send any message to anyone. Jewish liquor consumption is a drop in the bucket (or cask), but nevertheless these distilleries want and deserve our business.

For those of us who care about kashrus, a hechsher on whisky is very important. That hechsher is far more important than the foolishness of a ragtag group of Jews who think they can somehow influence huge companies that happen to have operations in some remote part of Scotland where some idiotic local council decided to boycott the state of Israel.

I laugh at the idiocy of some basically frei Jewish mens clubs boycotting Chivas, which even Rav Landa says is kosher and therefore will always be found at real Jewish simchas and Shabbos tables. If any whisky from Dumbbelton or whatever that place is called finds its way into Chivas, it is meaningless anyway because Chivas is a blend.

I also continue to eat Turkish halva because if a firm in a Muslim country is willing to get hashgocho, they want and deserve Jewish customers regardless of their country’s government’s views on the state of Israel.

And I’ll make a special lechaim and sing “utzu etzo vesufar dabru dovor veloi yakum” in honor of the Mens’ Clubs and the Magen Tzedek and every other plan that movement, in which I was mis-educated, belches out before it runs out of steam.

I know that the boycott has nothing to do with kashrus. It is started by people who hardly care about kashrus or any real Jewish values.

It also has NO impact on the state of Israel or anything else. It is a foolish idea started by people who do not have Torah values.

And you are 100% right. I have nothing but anger at those movements that mislead people into believing that they are practicing Judaism. They are the reason there are fewer and fewer Jews in America every year. Instead of taking advantage of the freedom of the US to live as Jews, they took advantage of the lack of state religion in the US to make up new Judaic religions of no value and no authenticity.

People like me come to this site because we don’t care to hear from the peanut gallery of Judaism. If I need to know how to respond to a heretic in his own words, there are other sites I can go to for the secular “Jewish” opinion.

Sure, they let an occasional post through, but from the name of this site I think you should know who it caters to.

So we hate the Zionists so much that we support anti-Semites instead, all because we are so addicted to alcohol that we can’t give up a shot of whiskey?

I couldn’t agree with 600kilobear more. Well said Kilo.

Is there any issue in banging glasses when drinking l’chaim?

I stand behind what I said.

To boycott firms that go out of their way to accommodate us is just beyond the pale.

Those multinationals will make up for the piddling lost sales with one or two events like the royal wedding. We need their willingness to accept hechsherim if we want to enjoy scotch. As you see from the letter from Pernod Ricard (which has a whole host of kosher products, including the flagship Pernod anise mashke that went kosher within the last 10 years as well), these whiskys have little connection with the West Dumbbelton nonsense.

You do not support anti-Semites by buying Scotch distilled by multinationals. You support firms that produce kosher certified products that otherwise would be hard to purchase because of all the issues involved. If Rav Landa approves Chivas as I believe he does, he knows that it is as kosher as water from the deepest spring.

The highly skilled employees who deal with scotch are craftsmen who don’t know or care where Israel is on a map, because scotch making, like wine making in France, is an obsession that is handed down from generation to generation. If anything some are evangelical notzrim who support us.

And I cannot call a Zionist blogger who hides behind a silly Arabic name (meaning handsome/righteous IIRC LOL) anything but strange.

The real religious Zionists, like Moshe Feiglin and Baruch Marzel, and Rav Dov Lior, fear nothing and don’t hide. I don’t agree with their basic premise but who can help but respect them. I can’t even read the silly Muqata blog; it is in my filter and has been for as long as I’ve had a filter.

If I were “Jameel Rasheed”, I would worry more about answering in the world to come for causing trouble for innocent businessmen and not even having the guts to use my real name than for my children’s shidduchim. And I have never seen such a dumb threat; a nameless blogger taking someone to beis din LOLOLOLOL over another nameless commentor’s comments LOLOLOLOLOL.

This is how the minhag startd. In the late 1400’s there was a shift in the Gulfstream that caused a mini-Ice Age across Northern Europe. No icebergs but significantly colder weather that lasted nearly three hundred years. It killed off all the vineyards in England and Northern Europe, promptimg the locals to distill whatever was at hand, Russia and poland turned potatos into vodka, Germans became beer drinkers and the English ,Scots and the Irish drank whiskey.

Wine became so expensive that the Rabbanim paskined that only kiddush erev Shabbos , not the morning, required wine. The Mishna Brura discusses it.

The reason why the US has never , until recently been a big wine consumer is becuse all the early colonists and immigrants came from Northern Europe

Scotch warms the cockles of my heart.

So does Bourbon, Tennessee mash, Rye, Vodka, Irish whisky, and best of all, shlivovitz! (AKA all types of paint thinner).

Other drinks just don’t do it. They just don’t reach the cockles.

LOL

I know almost nothing about schnapps. I don’t drink hard liquor and have never been drunk in my life (and never intend to be).

The Wolf

Sorry, but anyone who would boycott these companies that make it possible for us to enjoy kosher products does not have Jewish values. Many of the frum right-wing Zionists are basically followers of the very anti-Torah Jabotinsky who happen to wear kippot srugot and are shomer Shabbos. Meir Kahane HYD was just that, and so is Moshe Feiglin. You can’t mix lye with sugar and make a cake, and you can’t mix zionism with Torah. When you do, you get ill-advised boycotts, fake conversions and a lot worse.

And the main boycotters are not the guy who started it (who probably can’t even afford scotch in EY at the crazy prices there), but clubs that belong to a kefira movement and that raise money to spread their kefira to small communities where real Torah organizations also work.

Sometimes, you need to call a spade a spade.

Fortunately, this is one of the few boards out there that has not fallen for the left-wing political correctness that is seeping into the frum world as well.

This is what I wrote to Morrison Bowmore. I wrote a similar letter to Pernod Ricard.

BS”D

I am writing to express my support of your products, and my thanks for the large number of kosher certified and approved alcoholic beverages that Morrison Bowmore produces. Unfortunately, Auchentoshan is temporarily or permanently unavailable in my area, but I understand it is certified or approved by a reliable British kosher supervision authority, and as the issues regarding kosher status of whisky are very complex, we kosher consumers truly appreciate this certification.

Unfortunately, a misguided group of Jews who are guided mostly by a desire for publicity, are boycotting your products because of some remote connection to a region in Scotland where the local government is boycotting Israel. We understand full well that Morrison Bowmore and its distilleries have no connection to this boycott of Israel and we know better than to counter-boycott innocent businesses, especially those that produce products we can enjoy according to our dietary laws. We also understand that your employees in that region may or may not support the boycott or even know what their local council has done regarding Israel.

The original proponent of the boycott is an anonymous blogger. The group that has followed his folly is one that belongs to a Judaic movement that is considered excommunicated by those who truly believe in and practice Judaism, and the majority of kosher consumers treats this group with extreme disdain.

They do not speak for the worldwide observant Jewish community, and at the end of each thrice-daily prayer service, we say of such people: “They will say something, and it will not come to pass.”

I am truly ashamed at the actions of these misguided fellow Jews, and knowing how small a market we are in any case, I hope that their absurd boycott does not cause Morrison Bowmore any financial loss or moral damage. I am sure that the boycott will be over soon when those individuals and groups behind it find a new cause celebre so that they can get attention.

Sincerely,

(my real name)

And yes, I do follow something close to the Satmar shitta, (or original Reb Amram Bloy NK which is NOT the Ku Klutz Kartel of today) but not based on the three oaths. The difference between me and Satmar is that I would have liked to have seen Rav Kook’s vision work out, but we know it was a pipe dream (if we even know what he really held and who he really was) and we now have to focus on saving the land and people of Israel from the tuma that the state has wrought.

I am quite sure that the secretaries at both Morrison Bowmore and Pernod Ricard that will open your letters (and with any luck at all, these letters will not get past the secretarial pool) will now really wonder about Jews and their “crazy” practices. What do you know about Catholics? Isn’t a Catholic a Catholic? Or a Baptist a Baptist? Or a Sikh a Sikh? Well, what most of us know about Christianity (or Buddhism or Sikhism, etc) is what they know about Jews. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew. Your letter will have little impact on them and, if this should happen to reach some manager, their thoughts will be the same. Speaking poorly of other Jews by calling them “misguided” in one sentence and in the next calling them “fellow Jews”, does nothing to enhance an outsider’s view of Judaism – or to enhance your own reputation, as you stated that you signed your real name. Pity.

I boycott hard liquor in general.

The Wolf