TWO MORE SCANDALS

The following story was reported in Kosher Today on Monday, February 14, 2005. Our commentary follows the article.

Community rabbis and certification agencies are planning to meet soon to adopt measures to protect consumers from the type of fraud in glatt kosher meats that rocked the kosher community last week. A major Flatbush retailer was forced to close after it was discovered that “kosher” flanken was repackaged and mislabeled as “glatt kosher.” Sources say that glatt kosher flanken were in extremely short supply of late. In ads and flyers distributed throughout the Brooklyn communities of Crown Heights, Boro Park, and Flatbush, the Kehilah Kashrus agency of Flatbush, advised consumers of a “recall” of kosher meats purchased at the kosher takeout store prior to February 1 st. Sources told Kosher Today that the mislabeled meats were also distributed by the Flatbush retailer to at least three other stores in the heavily populated Orthodox Jewish communities of Brooklyn. The meat was traced to AgriProcessors of Postville, Iowa who sold the meat to a New York distributor who in turn sold the “kosher” (non-glatt kosher) meat to the Brooklyn store. There is a market, albeit shrinking, for the “kosher” meat, which is substantially less costly than the glatt variety. Animals that are examined after slaughter and are found to have adhesions on the lungs are sold as kosher and not glatt kosher (smooth – no adhesions). … Although urged not to use the meats, glatt kosher consumers were also told by most rabbis (with some notable exceptions) that they would not have to kosher pots, dishes, and flatware because the mislabeled products were kosher in any event.
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So wait a minute! The meat was kosher, but not glatt kosher. And rabbis are telling people not to eat it? Isn’t there something wrong with that? Second of all, truly glatt meat today almost does not exist. Unless you buy Beit Yosef glatt, the meat you buy as glatt may have had two, three, or four adhesions on the lung. The agencies have, apparently, dumbed down the notion of just what smooth means in order to keep meat affordable. But, hey that’s ok. Just call it glatt and the rabbis of Brooklyn and Queens are happy. Call it just kosher and suddenly it is no good. But wait again- the rabbis admit that the meat was kosher in the first place!
The way we see it, there were two scandals: what the store did in repackaging kosher as glatt kosher and the reaction of those rabbis who said not to eat the meat. Hmm, maybe it is time to stop eating any meat that comes out of Postville’s schitah house? After all, how much scandal has to come out of one place before we all say dayeinu?

Cuiouser and curiouser said Alice!