Re: Only 1/3 the restaurants are kosher


"Joel Shurkin" <jshurkin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1170169787.995664.53820@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


On Jan 30, 8:10 am, "J J Levin" <jjle...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Joel Shurkin" <jshur...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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On Jan 29, 8:46 pm, "Fiona Abrahami"
<f...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"J J Levin" <jjle...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

"Eliyahu" <lro...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
"Fiona Abrahami" wrote:
"chsw" <c...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
bac...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Less than 2 weeks ago, I pointed out the large number
of nonkosher restaurants in Jerusalem. Naturally, I was
attacked by Abe and even Giora. In today's YEDIOT newspaper
(page 12) there was an article showing how only 1/3 the
restaurants in Israel were now kosher. Most of the change
can be explained by the influx of a million Russians
(400,000 of whom aren't Jewish; 99% of the rest have
very poor Jewish background).

CITY # KOSHER # NONKOSHER
Tel Aviv 506 1093
Jerusalem 294 143
Haifa 55 239
Ashdod 111 177
Tiberius 46 153
Netanya 48 91
Ashkelon 50 75
Beer Sheva 51 44

====================================================

Thirty years ago, there were very few nonkosher restaurants
in Israel, probably under 100.

We can "thank" the Jewish Agency who spent billions of
dollars raised by the American Jewish community to bring
this Erev Rav (junk) to Israel and de-Judaize it.

Josh

No, you can thank us for giving you the opportunity to
reintroduce so many Jews to Judaism, a great mitzvah, and
perhaps
to persuade the others to adopt it, also a mitzvah.

Also, are these restaurants not kosher because they are open on
Shabbat or because they serve inherently unkosher meat and/or
combine milk and meat?

Who cares, non-kosher is non-kosher, it doesn't matter how they
got
to
be
treif, it's enough that they are!

I'd suspect that the important difference is that in the case of a
restaurant where the only failing lies in being open on Shabbat,
it's
possible to remedy the problem without having to replace tens of
thousands of dollars worth of equipment and fixtures. Nu?

Eliyahu

Israel and the US have different rules. In the US, the local rabbis
determine. So we have a restaurant near where I work (Northern NJ) ,
operated by non-Jews, which is open on shabbat and which has a
kashrut
certificate in the window. They're Chinese, and vegetarians. and the
ingredients are all kosher. but they still open on shabbat, and I
have
seen
people with kippot eat there.

A friend of mine (Orthodox) likes it. I asked him about it being
open
on
shabbat. His reply: "They're not Jews, what do I care? The food is
kosher
and good."

In Israel, the rabbanut has a monopoly. If a restaurant is open on
shabbat,
its kashrut cert will be voided.If the owners are Jewish. Food
cooked
on shabbat by non-Jews is not treif
for Jews on hol unless it was specifically cooked an individual Jew to
eat
on shabbat. IIRC food cooked by Jews on shabbat is treif even if all
the
ingredients are kosher, unless it was cooked for pichuah nefesh, and
then
it
would only be kosher for the individual(s) it was made for until such
times
as more could be made motzei shabbat.

Innocent question. So if I owned a kosher restaurant and it was open
on shabbos but none of the employees--includng the chef--were Jewish,
it would remain kosher? I didn't know that.

jIn Northern NJ, where the RCBC rules, you would be kosher.
Certificate
right in the window.

BS"D

I would very much doubt that. What would the Jew do with the profits from
the Shabbos sales? Giving a hechsher to a Jew to take profits from Shabbos
would be placing a stumbling block before the blind, and I don't think the
Bergen County vaad would do that. I'm not saying that a partially
Jewish-owned restaurant couldn't do it under certain circumstances, because
it's certainly within halacha, but I just don't think you're correct about
the purely Jewish-owned setup.


In Israel, you might be considered kosher by some, but unlike NJ, there
would be no kashrut cert on your wall.


Live and learn. Obviously, having restaurant that was closed Friday
nights and Saturday nights much of the time would make being kosher
very, very expensive. That would be one way around it.

Used to be that most businesses were closed at least 1 day per week. Most
nonkosher restaurants were closed on Mondays,because people tended to blow
their wads on the weekend. Jews, on the other hand, don't need to blow
their wads on the weekend, and people concerned about kashrus (typically all
orthodox Jews and some of the more conservative conservative) tend to be
family oriented people who don't typically blow their wads in any case,
except perhaps for a simcha, which does not typically happen on Shabbos, as
least. So being closed on Shabbos (typically Friday night and half the year
on Saturday night as well), if targeting the Jewish market, really shouldn't
have much of an impact on prices. It's the cost of kosher meat and cheese
which really impacts the prices.

Craig Winchell

j
Jay


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