Author wished to remain anonymous:
How many electricians does it take to screw in a light bulb? That’s an old joke, yet when we think of the kashrus industry, it has certain parallels. Let’s examine the kashrus hashgocha industry in some areas.
The town of Monsey, NY – has a total population of about 19,000 (2010 census estimate). If even half this number are Jews, why do we find no less than 36 hashgochos (see Kashrus Magazine)? Or Lakewood, NJ with some 93,000 people (2010 census) and 21 hashgachos?
The *real* kings of the kashrus world must be found in NY. In Brooklyn, which has a total population of 2,500,00 (2010 census), we find no less than 123 hashgachos. Manhattan, you ask? How about 19 agencies? Queens? 17 of ‘em, around half of which appear to be in Flushing. Add Staten Island and Long Island for another 21. Do you begin to see a pattern here?
Nor is the U.S. unique in this situation. Without even touching on Israel (trust me, you DON’T want to know how many kashrus mashgichim operate out of just Yerushalaim!), England has 21; France some 24 and even Germany (!) has 15. A nice little country, Belgium, total Jewish population of 30,000, has some 13 hashgachos, more than half in Antwerp alone. And let’s not forget our neighbors to the north. Canada’s 375,000 Jews have 27 hashgocha organizations, yet the major province of Ontario is served by 8, the largest (and arguably the most powerful) being COR, which guards its territory like a fiefdom
Kind of makes you wonder: where is the achdus?
Here might be a clue: go to Google, type in the phrase “some poskim hold” and see how many hits you get. Then wait a month and do it again!
I need to think about this.
The premise is that if we had enough achdus, we would all agree on mutually acceptable standards for everything.
I’m not sure I agree with that. Does achdus really mean no machlokes? Do I think that beis hillel and beis shammai didn’t have achdus? The gemara says they did, and used to marry each other’s families. But they still didn’t sacrifice their standards- the gemara says they would tell each other which families were bastrds according to the other’s opinion.
Yeah I don’t agree with this. Kashrus is a business, not tzedakah. Today it’s a multibillion dollar business. You think one organization should have a monopoly?
That’s the problem. Kashrut is supposed to be a service by the kehilla to ensure that the food we eat is kosher. Making it a business makes it inherently less reliable.
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The hechshers from the Rabbinate, which is a government organization, are usually seen as being less reliable than hechshers from the private sector. Competition usually tends to increase standards among these certification processes.
Mark, some have argued that the problem with the current system is that Kashrus organizations are paid by the corporations they are supposed to be watch, which inherently presents the issue of companies trying to use money as a tool to manipulate the system. As it stands now, yes you are right, it is a business while it really should be a service to the community. However, in a perfect world, we the consumers should be paying Kashrus organizations directly to oversee our product manufacturing.
Even so, it would still be a capitalistic business merely because of the amount of money involved. However you slice it, it’s a big job and potential very lucrative and I doubt it is a job we could get people to do purely out of the goodness of their heart.
When that happens the point ceases to be ensuring food is kosher. It becomes a matter of extracting the maximum amount of money per item of kosher food.
How so? Doesn’t an “open market” ensure you get the best bang for your buck? I agree with you premise that Kashrus is a service, but turning a profit doesn’t mean it’s not a service. Triple-A provides a service as well, for a fee. If we weren’t paying Hasgachos, what guarantee would there be that they are completing the job properly?
i think in some areas the OU needs some competition— their standards aren’t high enough. how can rubushkin’s be glatt kosher— forget the corruption, but just the way that animals are treated?
also, have any of you heard about the conditions in which they store grain in silos— insects and stuff get in there— in virtually all silos, and i got an e-mail back from the OU saying they don’t even check the grain for insects!!
What does corruption and the way animals are treated have to do with kosher?
nothing, its just that shechitah even though its killing an animal is supposed to be the least painful way to kill an animal, so that would seem to say that the animals should not be mistreated otherwise even if they will be shecthted.
Perhaps, but mistreating animals does not make them unkosher according to any opinion.
i don’t see how you can say that. one of the laws in the noachide code is not tearing part of an animal off while it’s alive. there have been instances of stuff like that in animal farms across the US. whether the OU approves it or not, animal cruelty is clearly forbidden.
It’s “supposed to be the least painful way”, but it isn’t.
Sorry.
That’s why several countries are trying to require stunning and why the Orthodox who are fighting it tooth and nail are telling lies to that effect.
No, the reason that several countries are trying to require stunning is because they don’t want Jews living there. The exact reason that Switzerland banned shechita was as an attempt to limit Jewish immigration there over a century ago. Sweden and Norway banned it in the 1930’s as an attempt to appease the Nazis.
All the studies that have been done on shechita that have been properly carried out, either by the German government, or by Colorado State University, or by whoever else, have shown the shechita is the least painful method of slaughter.
You know, it’s not all about you. The same countries also fine Jews for ignoring building codes and throw them in jail for tax evasion and fraud. Building codes, taxes and laws against fraud are not anti-Semitic. Neither are basic laws against animal cruelty.
The laws against shechita don’t have anything to do with animal cruelty and never did. That’s like the people in San Fransisco saying that they’re trying to ban brit milah because of human rights or some nonsense like that. These laws are being advocated by groups like the British National Party who would like Jews to leave Britain. Some of these laws are probably also being supported as a result of anti-Islamic sentiment, but they have nothing to do with animal rights or human rights.
The comparison to tax laws and building codes has nothing to do with this issue.
Why would they check? If you buy flour, that’s your job to sift the flour before you bake. If you buy bread products, they’ve either already sifted the flour or you can assume the insects got torn to shreds in the baking process and you can assume they’re nullified.
Clearly you have demonstrated why we have so many hashgachos. People simply don’t know halacha, get paranoid, and insist on nonsense so something like the OU suddenly isn’t good enough..
how is it nullified if insects get into the grain, they don’t check for insects, and they grind up the bugs along with the grains to make flour? unless you’re talking about the 1/60th rule, and doesn’t that only apply to a person cooking at home?
There’s no reason the 1/60th rule stops working in a business versus the home kitchen. Although many hashgachas do have a completely different standard between what happens at the corporate level than what happens at home, the corporate environment is usually much more lenient as they’re trying to get something to be kosher as easily as possible.
In general, you shouldn’t rely on 1/60th to go and just add stuff that is otherwise a problem, but it’s a great after-the-fact patch in kashrus, especially if it’s unavoidable like here. It’s most utilized right now anywhere that sells strawberry anything (since they say they’re all buggy now, most kashrus organizations recommend blending strawberries).
South Africa only has one hashgacha – a division of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues – and it seems to work well.
The Vaad out of Johannesburg is great. So many products you would never expect to find in the US are kosher there and flow over into neighboring countries, which makes safaris somewhat easier.
Panama also has three Orthodox shuls, two kosher supermarkets, but one hashgacha.
Indeed. Panama is another great place for kosher Jews. You’d never expect so many kosher restaurants for such a relatively small community.
Duh. The more hechsherim a product has, the more kosher it is. I only purchase products with a minimum of four hechsherim on it, unlike you kofrim who purchase products with as few as two separate hechsherim.
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There Was A Time Not Long Ago That There Weren’t Nearly As Many Certifying Agencies. The Amount Of Problems That Were Existent Then Vindicates The Opening Of New Agencies. The Influx Of New Certifyers Lifted The Standard Of All Agencies Even Existing Ones
It would be one thing if of those 130+ hashgachos only 1 would appear on any given product. But usually, especially with the Jewish brands there can be 4 or more hashgachos on one package.
This is something I always wondered about. If a package of lukshin has a seal from the stinka ruv, the prusta rebba, and the badatz fun bais shechi, why is there also an OU on the package? The chassidim don’t care about the OU anyways on a heimeshe package with chassidishe hechsherim, and the normal people that just look for any frum looking hechsher will eat lukshin anyways even if there’s no OU if they see 3 other hechsherim. So where does the OU fit on heimeshe products?
I’ve only heard of the multiple hechshers on one product situation happening in neighborhoods with many different Chasidic groups. Part of the “your rebbe eats treif” phenomenon.
But to answer your question, I think the reason might be that many people who aren’t Jewish might not recognize what the other symbols are, but pretty much everyone has heard of the OU. So people who don’t necessarily keep kosher, but look for the OU’s hechsher because they know the food meets their own dietary standards (like Muslims, 7th Day Adventists, Vegetarians, Lactose intolerant people, people allergic to shellfish, etc) would be more likely to buy those products.
I guess this is not correct. I wish we would have even one…
Baltimore has 1 – the Star K.
Then there are a few rabbis who offer for chalv stam establishments.
The Achdus here is incredible. I have lived many places, and nothing is remotely like Baltimore for the acceptance of others, the willingness for a whole city to accept one Beis Din, and the complete avoidance of public machlokes.
There is bad that comes with this, of course, but I think the avoidance of sinas chinam and chumras that only serve to separate people is a truly wonderful thing.
Monsey is more like 95% Jewish.
Having one kashrus would likely cause even greater corruption in the kashrus industry.
It would be ideal to have several agencies with the same standard thus allowing for competition in the marketplace and allowing everyone to enjoy food certified by each hechsher.
The issue of achdus arises because the agencies refuse to acknowledge that other certifications might actually be kosher.
The real problem isn’t the number of Kashurus agencies as there’s chance for corruption if there was only one (too much power concentrated in too few hands). The real problem is not recognizing other that other certifications are kosher.
I really don’t understand the issue. No one is forcing anyone to accept any particular hashgocha, so where is the achdus issue? People have diffident customs and stringencies and what not. If one chooses to be more demanding and not eat a certain product or brand, that is their personally choice; similar to why people have brand aversions. Would you say that because people aren’t drinking the same “cola” we are lacking achdus?! I would hope not! 🙂
Nonetheless, as stated by OfftheDwannaB above, Kashrus is major business, one that is quite lucrative. And I sincerely believe that competition is a great thing for the industry! Furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised if in cities with multiple Kashrus organizations the cost of supervision for food retailers as well as the cost for certified fish, meat, and poultry is cheaper than their monopolistic counterparts. Besides, just knowing that a customer can switch Kashrus providers to an equally accepted alternative is bound to prevent corruption and price gouging.
I think the problem here is that due to the competition of these kashrut “agencies”, food that would previously be deemed kosher are no longer kosher. These agencies also ask for a preposterous about of money to be able to give these businesses a hashgacha, which in turn essentially means businesses are selling their souls, so to speak, to these agencies. Due to this, what is kosher is no longer kosher. It is kosher only if you give these “agencies” an arm and a leg.
That, my friends is not kashrut. That is exploitation and borderline enslavement.
this is true…
You’re right about kashrus ironically actually being a source for division among Jews rather than separation from non-Jews. But the point is skewed by the fact that kashrus also serves as a type of klei “kodesh” employment, so it’s just not surprising that so many get into the game.
The truth is that the only way there can be agreement and unity in kashrus is everyone acquiesces to stricter and narrower standards. Who needs that?
The truth is that the only way there can be agreement and unity in kashrus is everyone acquiesces to stricter and narrower standards. Who needs that? – How true, it’s the same problem that afflicts geirus now, achdus requires following only the most machmir standard regardless of reason (or the lack of it more often than not). With both Kashurus and Geirus the only standard that should be required is the one set in halacha.
But even within Halacha there are different opinions on what is considered to be permissible. For example what type of meat is allowed after shechita: non-Glatt, Glatt, or Beit Yosef Glatt (Chalak). Even as to what animals are considered permissible there’s dispute, like swordfish. So it’s not just an issue of chumras, it’s also an issue of different opinions as to what is halachically permissible.
We’ve turned all our Jewish organizations, whether schools, charities, or kashrut agencies into employment agencies … for the marginally skilled (and sometimes even unskilled) yet connected. Everyone knows it’s true, but anyone with any communal power has a vested interest in keeping it that way (after all, [some of] their kids will eventually require such jobs).
I think it’s good to have many kashruses. This way the scum of the community have a lot more trouble blaming the one kashrus for everything that they don’t like about kosher (like keeping it). I live out of town and the way people treat the hard-working underpaid Rabbis and the mashgichim makes me sick. Mark, you are dead wrong about kashrus organizations, or at least the one in my city. The Rabbis bend over backwards to make people happy while trying to keep the highest standard of kashrus and it never works.
Haven’t commented on here for a long, long time, but felt that I had to correct what I hope is just poor info rather than made up info. There aren’t 21 hashgachos in England. I can name all of the hashgachos:
Manchester has 3 – Beis Din, MH and Dayan Westheim (Iggud).
Gateshead has 1 – GKA
London has 4 – KLBD, Kedassia, SKA and Federation.
There is one hechsher in London that is purely for wines (mostly French) – Rav Padwa and he’s the main man of Kedassia anyway.
All the provincial cities use KLBD.
I’m not sure about you, to with my maths, that ain’t 21.
Figures according to kashrus magazine, but they include Scotland as well as the entire UK.
Your comment shows your lack of information about the UK; no-one here would seriously have said that. There is one kehillah in Scotland that seriously bothers with kashrus (Glasgow) and they don’t have their own hashgocho their. As for the rest of Scotland’s Jews, and there aren’t many at all, actually, scrap that, they’re negligable – about 10 alter fakaktes in Edinburgh and a smattering of “och, I’m Joo-ish, dontcha-noo”s hanging around the rest of the place – kosher is just a word in the dictionary to them. And the rest of the UK, by which I presume you mean Wales and Northern Ireland (the Republic of Ireland isn’t part of the UK and hasn’t been since 1911), well there aren’t really any Jews there who would even think to bother with kashrus. Can you please find out for me who the rest of these supposed hashgochos are? I’m intrigued.
Okeydokey, just had a look at your source and they have 10, the extra 2 being Leeds BD, a hashgoch that exists for the sole purpose of giving a hechsher to rakusen’s matzos and biscuits, and which is really just a subsidiary of Manchester Beis Din hashgocho (the mashgichim are all from there [I know them personally]), and Rav Scheenbalg, London, which is an ofshoot of MH Manchester (run by Dayan Schneebalg, father of aforementioned) and currently only gives 4 products a hechsher (and there was quite a bit of controversy about it too..). Still, nowhere near 21.
Granted the figures are less than what I had read in a previous issue, but the fact remains that the number of “generals” in proportion to the “soldiers” remains far higher than needed…Could there be perhaps a financial interest in hashgachoa? Nah, chas ve-chalila. It’s only done le-shem shomayim…right?
I vote that we should settle this the New Square way – last hashgacha to have their owners’ house burnt down wins and gets to be the monopoly for that city.
atlanta only has one and it’s reliable. buy AKC!