Australia’s kosher authorities look to the future

NAOMI LEVIN

A MEETING of representatives from Australia’s kosher authorities has been called “historic”, but moves towards a national kosher organisation were played down.

Last week, rabbis and lay people from all the major kosher authorities held a teleconference organised by the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA).

ORA vice-president Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant said the inaugural meeting of the ORA subcommittee on kashrut was “all too easy to organise”, with authorities willing participants.

He said that initial discussions mainly revolved around issues of shechitah (ritual slaughter).

“The meetings are for discussing and reflecting on matters of common interest,” Rabbi Kluwgant said. “It was a timely meeting and ORA was best placed to make it happen.”

Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, head of NSW’s Kashrut Authority, also welcomed the meeting.

“We had every kashrut organisation in Australia ‘sitting around the table’, trying to brainstorm issues that are important to kashrut in general,” Rabbi Gutnick said. “Nothing divides us, it is just that we have different territories.”

However, Rabbi Gutnick dismissed the idea of a national kosher authority.

Even in the United States, where the Orthodox Union certifies products across the country, supervision for kosher restaurants and caterers remains localised to smaller kashrut authorities.

“I can’t see kashrut working on a federal level,” he said of Australia’s market, citing variations in the local markets and differences in the way kashrut is funded in different states.

However, Rabbi Gutnick was hopeful that kashrut organisations would continue working together, adding that “the aim of this exercise was to find those areas where we can work together”.

As well as the Kashrut Authority in NSW and Kosher Australia in Victoria, Western Australia has a small kosher authority and the Adass Israel community runs a separate body.