Rabbi Rafi Yochai, who heads the Chief Rabbinate of Israel Kashrut Enforcement Division, is working to place a Rabbanut-certified mashgiach in the kitchen of yeshivas around the country.
After receiving complaints from parents regarding the poor kashrus standard in a number of yeshivas, Yochai began taking action. It appears that many yeshivos are serving dozens to hundreds of meals daily, without any supervision.
YWN-ISRAEL recently visited a number of yeshiva kitchens as well as a catering company that supplies meals for close to 20 yeshivos and institutions daily. Suffice it to say that conditions were deplorable. Not all the members of the kitchen staff were Jewish, not all the Jews were religious, and not all the religious Jews have a clue what they are doing regarding kashrus.
In one yeshiva, no one sifts the flour or checks legumes for insect infestation, both basic requirements in Eretz Yisrael.
In the catering facility, the kitchen operates 24/6, and a mashgiach is present for a limited number of hours daily, during the morning hours. The cooks are not Orthodox, and it was unclear if all the staff is Jewish. In short, there are many problems and cause for concern at best. This particular commissary has a hashgacha from a local rabbinate, regular, non-mehadrin.
When asked how the facility operates so many hours a day without a mashgiach, making between 1,700-2,000 portions daily, YWN-ISRAEL was told that there is a camera and the rabbonim observe from the office. The single camera installed in that facility pointed outside to the delivery bay, without and view of anything to do with cooking.
Yochai feels that at times, a yeshiva will say that the rosh yeshiva or a rav is responsible for kashrus, but he points out the position is a full time one and none of the rabbonim has sufficient free time to undertake this responsibility. Regarding the question of added expense, Rabbi Yochai explains that this issue is simply too important and the funds must be found.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Maybe the parents should confront the yeshivas not the rabbanut stepping in. If there is a problem, that is how it should be dealt with. I know in my yeshiva, the Posek of the Yeshiva went into the kitchen multiple times a day, the head cook and his wife who also worked in the kitchen lived on campus, and every precaution was taken. Even though some of the workers were not per se orthodox. The head cook and the posek ran a tight ship. That’s what matters. The yeshivas need to make sure the guy in charge is a yarei shamayim and runs a tight ship and the posek and rosh yeshiva do their due diligence at checking out what is going on in the kitchen. If they can’t then the parents should ask that either they do or they get a new cook/posek/rosh yeshiva.
If the Rabbanim of these Yeshivas are not concerned with what goes in their Talmidims mouths can we assume they are concern with what goes out and also what they hear? If I found out that the Hanhala of my son’s Yeshivah was not concerned for the kashrus, I’d pull my son out immediately!
I’ll never forget the cook in the very yeshish high school I went to saying “I come in some mornings and the guys who break in at night leave the milk utensils all over the meat kitchen…..
I have beeged the hanahala for hashgacho but tgey are not worried”
I’ll never forget the cook in the very yeshish high school I went to saying “I come in some mornings and the guys who break in at night leave the milk utensils all over the meat kitchen…..
I have begged the hanahala for hashgacho but they are not worried”