The following article was written by Richard Greenberg, the Associate Editor of the Washington Jewish Week:
The JCC Cafe, a kosher dining fixture in the District for more than a decade, has been shut down due to a “very blatant” violation of kashrut standards that employees had tried to cover up, according to a spokesperson for the Vaad Harabanim Rabbinical Council of Greater Washington, which supervised the establishment.
“There was an active attempt to deceive,” said Rabbi Binyamin Sanders, noting that the violation was particularly egregious because it involved nonkosher meat being purposely and clandestinely brought into the establishment. “The deceitfulness has really made this painful.”
It is not clear how long the cafe will remain shuttered, Sanders said Monday, although he would not rule out permanent closure. Sanders said the investigation into the incident is continuing, and the full Vaad is expected to meet soon to consider the matter. A date for that meeting had not been set as of Monday evening.
Cafe owner James Edwards was out of town this week for his daughter’s wedding, and said his co-owner, Manuel Gonzalez, had left the restaurant early Sunday, feeling ill. The incident occurred Sunday evening.
Although the cafe is housed in the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, it operates independently of the center and uses its own employees.
Arna Meyer Mickelson, chief executive of the center, said a willful infraction involving kashrut laws at the cafe should result in closure of the establishment.
“We don’t disagree with the Vaad at all,” she added. “This is absolutely the Vaad’s call.”
Acknowledging that center employees were not involved in the incident, Mickelson said, “still, we’re invested in providing kosher food” for the center’s patrons.
According to Sanders, the incident occurred when the cafe was running low on steak. A tray of about five nonkosher sirloin steaks that had been purchased from a nearby Safeway supermarket were then brought into the cafe, apparently to make up for the shortage.
When the Vaad’s on-site mashgiach, or kashrut supervisor, briefly glimpsed an employee carrying a Safeway bag, he suspected that something was wrong.
At one point, according to Sanders, some cafe employees attempted to shield the mashgiach’s view or otherwise create a “diversion” that was intended to draw attention away from the unkosher meat.
The mashgiach, who could not be reached for comment, quickly doubled back to the room the meat had been brought to. “Apparently, they didn’t suspect that he’d come back so quickly,” Sanders said.
The steaks were found buried deep in the refrigerator, recently encased in plastic wrap. Their original wrapping had been removed and stashed under a nearby counter. Sanders was notified and he then alerted his supervisors at the Vaad, who ordered the restaurant closed. A few diners had just taken their seats when they were informed of the immediate shutdown.
Sanders said five employees were working in the cafe at the time of the incident, and at least three were involved in the snafu.
Edwards said Tuesday that he has spoken with one of the two employees who went to Safeway Sunday evening. She thought “she was doing something right,” he said. “We send out employees to the store all the time to get produce, pasta,” he added, noting that employees are taught that the mashgiach must check all purchases before they are brought into the kitchen.
Sanders said there is no compelling evidence that nonkosher meat had been used before, but he added that it was impossible to tell for sure.
Although no decision has been made on the employment status of the worker who made the purchase, if her dismissal becomes a Vaad condition for reopening the cafe, “then certainly, she’ll have to go,” Edwards said, praising the mashgiach and Vaad for doing their jobs.
(Source: Washington Jewish Week)
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14 Responses
i wonder if a busload of zelots will come down there and burn the place down
Kudos to the eagle-eyed mashgiach and the fast-acting va’ad.
Take it easy, yosse. The result here was the right one.
Good outcome to an unfortunate situation.
One odd thing: When I think of a ‘Cafe’, my first thought is a place to go for a cup of coffee. In my view, that would be best served in a place that could also serve milk/cream.
Who opens a fleishig ‘Cafe’?
As a kashrus professional, I have to stand up and tip my yarmulka to this mashgiach as HE possibly stands to lose if the place loses hashocha. This was a tremendous nisayon for this mashgiach & he deserves a tremendous MAZAL TOV for passing this nisayon.
I have been in his shoes before where it involved myself as well as parnossa for another mashgiach & I also BORUCH HASHEM did the right thing. In that case we saw Yad Hashem within days.
Cafe is short for cafeteria
“Snafu”??? I don’t think so!
Good job by the mashgiach.
Why the JCC runs a restaurant (with waiters) when there is a somewhat better one (in menu and decor, at least) only a few blocks away is a different question?
I cannot believe that a website geared toward the yeshivishe reader will post an article, even if they only copied and pasted it from another source, that contains such nivel peh and uses the word “snafu.” Eventhough half of the yeshivishe velt doesn’t even know what it stands for, I expect better from a Torahdik organization.
11, zult dich shaymin for knowing it AND for having it on your mind like that!
While I VERY seldom agree with Mark Levin, this is one time I am happy to be in total agreement.
BTW, why are goyim running a restaurant in a JCC? Aren’t there any Jewish resstauranteurs who wold like this opportunity?
@ 11. FestGeshmakster
what’s wrong with “snafu”? it’s a military acronym: situation normal, all fouled up. and what difference does it make whether the “yeshiva world” knows what it may or may not stand for? it’s an acronym that means “messed up”.
you expect better from a “toradik organization”?
so every time there’s a part of a news story you don’t like, should this organization change the story to make you happy?
Torah lo ba’shamayim….. We are in this world just like some things we don’t like about the world. Get used to it.
WOW!! Respect to that mashgiach!! hope he got some sort of raise along with a new job. Agree with festgeshmakster, this yeshivish website is no place for words like snafu….
#10 Your Rav may have Washington’s position on checking for bugs confused with Baltimore’s. Washington’s is one of the strictest standards and refuses to accept the hazakah method of checking employed by many other councils. My wife was a long-time mashgicha for the Washington Vaad and more than 20 years ago she showed them that you cannot find three consecutive pieces of anything in a box of wholesale vegetables that are bug clean. So the attitude in Washington is that “if you didn’t find a bug in three consecutive heads of lettuce (for example) you weren’t looking hard enough.” My son-in-law worked for the council a couple of years ago, including at the JCC Cafe, and has told me that they are still strict on vegetables.
I know that I’ve been to an NK establishment (a Pesach hotel) where heads of iceberg lettuce were put on the table quartered and not checked leaf by leaf. We showed the mashgiach that there was even dirt still on the lettuce, meaning that even under the most lenient methods, it wasn’t really checked.
Where people might quibble with Washington is that they do not hold by a cholov Yisrael only policy. However, they encourage restaurants to adopt the policy as their own so as not to discourage more discriminating customers. Store owners, however, can sell non-cholov Yisrael.
Anyway, from my experience, the Washington Vaad is one of the best and most expert in the country. They even make a point to go to shecting houses to personally pass on problems they’ve seen that were missed by national kashrut organizations but caught by local mashgichim (e.g. hearts and livers still attached to chickens that were already soaked and salted).