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Anyone know how long the RCV has had a policy that “Kashrut authorities be accountable to the community”?
ReplyDeleteWasn’t it only a few short years ago that a number of RCV members – and even leaders - including the late Rabbis Rudzki, and Chaim Gutnick as well as Rabbis M Gutnick and Barber (as well as ‘Melb BD Kashrut’ – operated by Rabbi Shalom Gutnick) were all competing with the then Mizrachi and later Melbourne Kashrut? At the time they were the only genuine authority ‘accountable to the community’ – at least the Mizrachi community.
Does anyone doubt that if Rabbis Barber and Gutnick had not been lured over to KA along with their establishments, that they would still be operating exactly as Kosher veYosher?
Doesn’t all this make the statement “the RCV…………will not endorse Kashrut authority in which a rav hamachshir receives fees directly from clients…”, sound hollow and hypocritical?
while gamliel makes a point, the RCV has these days no choice but to make such a statement. They have to back KA whose rabbis are all members of the RCV.
ReplyDeleteI sure hope though that all this is being done leshem shomayim and to promote better kashrus - and not a nasty turf battle over kavod and money.
I wonder what Rabbi Zaichyk's comment is on the RCV statement.
ReplyDeleteAfter all he was the one made to look bad when he removed the MK supervsion from Glicks and heard that it was replaced almost immediately by one of today's RCV's stalwarts and KA experts.
Rabbi Zaichyk established a Eruv which was accountable to noone and when examined by an overseas expert was deemed to have never been Kosher.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Zaichyk was a renegade individual who never wanted to tell the other Rabbonim what he was doing.
I agree that there were many doubts and doubters on Rabbi Zaichyk's eruv. But the question is how much of the achrayus for that failed eruv belongs to the rest of Melb's rabbinate who point blank totally refused to cooperate with him and even knocked back his offers to show them the eruv. Had they accepted, they would have seen the faults and either remedied them or publicly stated its illegality. Ignoring RZ and his eruv was a terrible mistake.
ReplyDeleteHowever in matters of kashrut, Melb owes RZ much appreciation. Prior to his arrival here, there was generally no kashrut supervsion - except for butchers and caterers. RZ was the one who told his community not to purchase from unsupervisied shops. That is what did the trick and MK and Adass kashrut took off (in addition to RM Gutnick and a few other rabbis)
(RZ is also credited with having introduced a far more serious attitude towards taharat hamishpach in Mizrachi. And for that he deserves kudos.)
RZ did indeed impose the plague of hechsherim on Melbourne, by denying the clear halacha that a Jew known in the community as observant does not need a hechsher for his shop any more than he needs one for his home. Anyone who would eat at Chaim Ber's house had no problem eating at Nasheray, and that is why he never needed a hechsher. Similarly, if you trust Mr Glick's kashrus at home, you can trust him when he tells you everything in his shops is kosher, and that is better than any rav's hechsher.
ReplyDeleteI don't know all that RZ said about taharas hamishpacha in Mizrachi, but I know he openly lied about the kashrus of one of the most mehudar designs ever invented, and falsely claimed R Moshe had passeled it. In this way he demeaned hundreds of thousands of Jews and called them boalei niddos, ch"v.
His intemperate attack on those who follow the well-established halacha of holding funerals on the second day of yomtov, and his public display of ignorance of hilchos aveilus with regard to someone who dies during yomtov, did nothing to improve his reputation.
And what if Chaim Ber only worked afternoons and let goyim run the shop in the mornings? And if he had a milchig shop next to a fleishig shop that was connected? Like some of our caterers? Etc. You are dreaming.
ReplyDeleteMilhouse should open his Shulchan Aruch, YD 119 and Aruch HaShulchan ad loc. He will see that although I may be entitled to rely on Yankel's kashrus in his home, the story is different once he starts selling food.
ReplyDelete