Israel Matzav

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

It's come to this....

Seen on the streets of Jerusalem today....

That ad sure won't make me buy it.

Labels: Donald Trump, Jerusalem, Kosher certification, US presidential campaign 2016

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Prime Minister Netanyahu has a veal chop with Sheldon Adelson

The New York Post reports that after his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, Prime Minister Netanyahu had lunch with Sheldon Adelson (Hat Tip: Kikar Shabbat (link in Hebrew)).

Spies tell us that Bibi arrived at the small lunch hosted by Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson for five people, for which “every single customer at the restaurant had to go through a metal detector,” as the leader was flanked by Israeli and American guards.

“The entire block was closed,” the spy said, adding, “There were even Secret Service men on the roof.”

We hear that Netanyahu opted for a veal chop as he held court.

The restaurant at which they ate was not a pricey midtown Manhattan Kosher restaurant. It's called Fresco by Scotto and it's on East 52nd Street. Here's a link to the lunch menu. You will note that it includes items like Meat and Cheese Antipasto, Fresco Crab Cake Gnudi and a couple of lobster dishes. The Meat and Cheese Antipasto includes something called capicola. I had to look that one up with Mr. Google, but Capicola, or coppa, is a traditional Neapolitan Italian cold cut (salume) made from pork shoulder or neck and dry-cured whole.

The average non-religious Israeli who might eat dairy products or fish (not those kinds of fish) in non-Kosher restaurants would likely not be caught dead in such a restaurant except with a sealed Kosher airline meal. Was Netanyahu's veal chop provided by El Al?

Non-religious Israelis in general are much less willing to abandon traditional Judaism than are their American counterparts.

I like Adelson's politics. I don't like his choice in restaurants. There are several Kosher restaurants in Manhattan (and in the midtown area) that are at least as upscale as this one. Here's one I've been to several times and here's another I'm still waiting to be treated to. The second one is four city blocks from where Netanyahu and Adelson ate.

Prime Ministers in Israel have fallen for less. Hmmm.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Kosher certification, Sheldon Adelson, treif

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Shimon Peres eats 'fish' out

During my first week at the office in Tel Aviv, a couple of weeks after I made aliya, my co-workers told me they were ordering in dinner and asked if I wanted to order with them. I declined. They told me that they were ordering basar lavan, but I said no thank you. They asked if I wasn't ordering with them because what they were ordering wasn't Kosher, and I said yes, I was sure it was not. But I thought they were ordering white meat chicken (basar lavan literally translates to 'white meat'). They weren't. They were ordering that other white meat....

Jews in other countries still envision Israeli Jews as being traditional at worst. After all, those who don't go to synagogue still insist that the synagogue they don't attend be Orthodox. But sadly, among the chattering classes - particularly of Tel Aviv and Haifa - they are far from traditional, and often have no idea about Jewish traditions. My non-Jewish co-workers in New York knew more about being Jewish than many of my Jewish co-workers in that office in Tel Aviv. And when my brother-in-law was an emissary to the US in the late '70's and early '80's, he had to take a course in basic Judaism (even though he had studied in yeshiva for many years), because it seems that a Jewish Agency emissary a couple of years earlier had been invited to sit on the dais at a fancy banquet and when they handed him the water with which to wash his hands after the meal, he drank it....

So I'm not too surprised by what Shimon Peres allegedly ate in Mexico, even if there is a famous story in the Talmud about someone who was fed the same thing because he didn't wash his hands before the meal....

Mati Tuchfeld of Israel Hayom reported that in the course of the visit, Peres and his entourage entered a restaurant called Au Pied de Cochon, in the hotel where he was staying, and ate a meal.

The name of the restaurant means “The Pig's Foot.” This is also the restaurant's prized dish. The restaurant's sign features two piglets staring at each other, and the menu is decorated with images of pigs, which observant Jews are strictly forbidden from eating.

Peres, who speaks French, certainly understood the meaning of the name.

According to the report, several members of the Jewish congregation in Mexico, which sponsored much of the presidential visit, felt great discomfort upon learning that Peres chse to dine at this particular restaurant with his entourage, but did not have the courage to say anything to the president.

Peres's bureau said in reaction to the report: “This is a restaurant that is located in the hotel where the president was staying. The meal was a private lunch, to which no additional guests were invited. The president and his bureau staff made sure to abide by the laws of kashrut and ordered only fish and salad. In all of the formal meals he attended, the food was kosher lemehadrin.”

Is this what the Zionist dream has come to... Kosher pigs?

Labels: Jewish law, Kosher certification, Shimon Peres

Monday, April 30, 2012

President's residence served treif meat on Independence Day?

Citing this report in Maariv (link in Hebrew), Israel Radio reported on Monday morning that the Rabbinic body that supervises the Kosher caterer at the President's residence has demanded that the certificate be returned - i.e. it is withdrawing the certificate - because the President's residence served non-Kosher meat from a butcher shop in the Arab village of Abu Ghosh to the 'outstanding soldiers' luncheon on Independence Day.

The caterer has admitted that the meat for the event was spoiled, but claims that it got the meat from its own storage area in a Kosher kitchen in Kibbutz Givat Chaim. But Maariv reports that an Arab butcher in Abu Ghosh claims to have sold the exact quantity of meat - 80 kilos - to the caterer on Thursday (Independence Day - when all the butchers in Jewish towns were required by law to be closed), and claims to have a receipt to prove it. An Arab restaurateur in Abu Ghosh who is a personal friend of President Peres claims that he was approached by the President's residence to cook the meat, but refused because 'I don't deal with chaperim' (a term that doesn't really translate well, but it means someone who does something quickly and in a careless way).

Israel Radio reported this morning that the Rabbinate of Emek Chefer, which supervises the caterer, Pri HaAretz, demanded the Kashruth certificate's return.

Labels: Kosher certification, Shimon Peres

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Did Romney deny Massachusetts seniors Kosher food?

Mitt Romney stands accused of forcing elderly Jews to eat non-Kosher food (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

It’s a great campaign line for the former speaker, and the addition about George Soros is a nice touch. The problem is, Romney never actually “eliminated serving kosher food” to Jewish residents at state nursing homes, especially not in the way Gingrich describes.

In 2002, cuts in both federal and state subsidies to assisted living facilities, combined with the rising costs of maintaining the facilities, caused a couple of Massachusetts nursing homes to consider closing their kosher kitchens. It was an unfortunate decision, but there was never actually a concern that kosher residents would be forced to eat non-kosher food – the facilities were weighing several options, including busing in the food from other nursing homes or hiring catering services. The Jewish Advocate reported in January 2003:
[Nursing home owner Genesis ElderCare] decided in November to discontinue operating the Coolidge House’s kosher kitchen due to rising costs and decreased state and federal reimbursements. Management said although the kitchen would close, Coolidge House would continue to provide kosher meals either by serving pre-packaged food, contracting with a caterer to prepare and deliver meals, or bringing food over from the Heritage House, GEC’s nursing home at Cleveland Circle. Coolidge House officials say the kitchen will remain open at least through Passover, which starts in mid-April.
The issue was the nursing home had to maintain the kosher kitchen for everyone living there, even though reportedly just a small percentage of its residents actually kept kosher:
For administrators at the Coolidge House, it comes down to the math: Only 30 percent of the 200 residents are Jewish, they say, and only 8 percent now keep kosher. By preparing meat and dairy foods in the same kitchen, administrators say, they would save about $200,000, or 14 percent of annual dining costs.

“We understand the community’s sensitivities, but this is what we have to do to stay in business,” said Larry Lencz, executive director of Coolidge House. “The bottom line comes down to simple economics and changing demographics.”
Some Jewish community groups opposed the plans to bus in food, and instead requested additional state government funding in 2003 to help the kitchens operate. At the time, Massachusetts was struggling with a budget crisis, and Romney was trying to rein in costs by blocking additional spending. The kosher food bill that he vetoed would have provided an additional $600,000 in funding to nursing homes. Whether you believe he was right or wrong to veto it, this was clearly a position that made Romney appear insensitive to the elderly and Jewish communities.

In the end, the veto was overridden by the Massachusetts state legislature, and the facilities kept their kosher kitchens after all. But Romney’s decision was not, as Gingrich claims, a choice to “eliminate kosher food for elderly Jewish residents under Medicare.”

Well, isn't this fascinating.... Unfortunately, the availability of Kosher food at nursing homes in Massachusetts is an issue about which I know too much, as some of you know from private conversations.

Coolidge House is a facility in the heart of the Jewish community in Brookline, which used to be Kosher and used to be owned by an Orthodox Jew whom I have known for over 50 years. My grandmother spent time there before she passed away in 1990, and both my parents were there in January 2003 when the incident Alana describes happened (Dad broke his hip; Mom could not be on her own by then). The last time I saw Mom conscious was in Coolidge House in 2004. She passed away in 2005; by the time I got there she was in a coma.

What's more interesting is that sometime in 2007 or 2008, Coolidge House not only went non-Kosher but banned Kosher patients from bringing in their own Kosher food. Not only is Coolidge House no longer Kosher, and not only do they not supply Kosher food for people who want it, you cannot bring your own food there. I was in Boston when this policy was announced and the rabbis in the community were horrified.

My Dad lived in an assisted living facility (not Coolidge House) in the center of the Jewish community in Boston from 2008 to 2010. That facility was Kosher when he got there, but six months before they decided they could no longer care for him (justifiably, by the way - he had physically declined too much to belong in assisted living), that place announced one night that it as going non-Kosher but would bring in Kosher food for those who wanted it (I won't get into all the technicalities of why, but I would not eat there anymore even if they gave me a Kosher meal, but I do go back to visit people there when I am in Boston so I do know what's going on). They gave six months of lead time for those who wanted to leave - how many of these people are capable of leaving?

When Dad left there, he went to a place that was not Kosher, and a month and a half later, I came in and arranged for Kosher food to be brought in privately. By then, Dad was becoming less aware (he has Alzheimers), and may not have realized what he was being fed. Today, he is in a Kosher facility and has been for nearly a year now.

Here's the key: In Massachusetts, you have no right to Kosher food (even today). In New York, for example, you have a right to Kosher food even if you're not in a Kosher facility. If what Romney vetoed (and it's not clear to me from the article) was a bill that would have granted a right to Kosher food, that's despicable. There are hundreds of elderly Jews in Massachusetts who are in Medicaid facilities (which means you had to spend them down to get them in) who cannot get Kosher food. That's just plain wrong. If, on the other hand, what he did was to allow facilities to close their Kosher kitchens, but still obligate them to supply Kosher food to those who wanted it, that's nowhere near as objectionable (although it's still not good).

Labels: Campaign 2012, Kosher certification, Mitt Romney

Friday, January 21, 2011

Introducing the McFalafel

Boy do we live in weird times. McDonald's is introducing the McFalafel.

“The McFalafel is another one of our products which has been adjusted to the Israeli taste, joining the Iraqi pita bread series which also include McKebab” said McDonald’s Israel CEO Omri Padan. The McFalafel is your basic falafel, fried in canola oil and topped with tahini and chopped salad. At just under 500 calories, it “meets the standards of wise nutrition which have been promoted by McDonald’s since 2003″, according to Padan.

“Israelis’ tastes lean toward healthier foods. In Israel, the preferred toppings on hamburgers are vegetables, whereas in other countries people choose cheese and bacon. The fat content in the meat sold in McDonald’s’ North American restaurants is 20-24%; here it will be 9%,” said Padan in an interview with the Jerusalem Post last May.

To give you an example of the difference between McDonald’s in Israel versus the United States, in Israel, a Big Mac has just 380 calories, about 30 percent less than in the States.

While not all McDonald’s in Israel are completely kosher, most adhere to “kosher style”. That said, while the meat is 100 percent kosher, it may be possible to finagle your way into obtaining a not-so-secret hidden menu item, the cheeseburger.

In terms of cost, three pieces of falafel with tahini will be NIS 10 (around $2.80) , and NIS 16.90 (around $4.80) for five pieces with tahini.

No, I don't plan to go there to try it. Aside from the fact that I am not aware of a McDonald's with a Kosher certification I would trust (in Jerusalem, they've been fighting with the rabbinate forever), NIS 10 for three falafel balls is outrageous.

But they're just in time for McFebruary.

Labels: falafel, healthy eating, Kosher certification, McDonald's