Cross-border kosher contention
NEW South Wales Kashrut Authority (KA) administrator Rabbi Moshe Gutnick has moved to diffuse tension between Melbourne and Sydney rabbis.
NEW South Wales Kashrut Authority (KA) administrator Rabbi Moshe Gutnick has moved to diffuse tension between Melbourne and Sydney rabbis.
But he was adamant he does not regret distributing a letter, signed by 10 rabbis and the organisation’s director, in response to rumours that Sydney’s Adass Israel community would not accept the kosher status of meat prepared in the Harbour City and plans to establish a breakaway authority.
Tensions flared after, for the second time in recent months, an ultra-Orthodox Sydney family employed a Melbourne caterer under the supervision of the Melbourne-based Adass Israel Rabbi Avrohom Zvi Beck.
An Adass representative told The AJN that the family did so because catering was cheaper than Sydney kosher catering.
He added that Sydney Adass Rabbi Shalom Silberberg had agreed to oversee the food once it arrived in Sydney, although it was to be prepared in Melbourne using Melbourne kosher meat.
This sparked a cross-border war of words, with the KA responding to unconfirmed claims that the Adass family had gone with a Melbourne caterer because it did not accept the kosher status of Sydney meat.
In addition, there was talk that Rabbi Silberberg was establishing another kosher authority.
However, the Adass rabbi refused to confirm whether that was the case, saying only that his work is in “its infant stages at the moment”.
“I really don’t want to comment,” he said. “I don’t know what is going on and I don’t want to embarrass anyone.”
Melbourne Adass Israel member Benjamin Koppel said he too was unaware if Sydney was establishing its own kosher authority.
“We only know what is in the public domain,” he said, adding that while the communities carry the same name in both states, they are autonomous.
However, this did not stop the KA examining in explicit detail the different shechitah (ritual slaughter) practices used in Sydney and in Melbourne in its letter. They quoted a review prepared by an American rabbi into a Melbourne’s kosher meat practices.
“The OU [Orthodox Union] shechts at a maximum of 750 birds an hour per shochet, some require as low as 600 birds an hour. In Melbourne, the rabbi found the amount being shechted was 1000 per hour!”
It said the rabbi also found chickens in Melbourne are being soaked in water at the wrong temperature.
But Koppel, who saw the rabbi’s report, said “he was very satisfied with all he saw”.
“He suggested a small number of enhancements and cost-saving measures.”
While Eric Silver from Melbourne’s Solomons Kosher Butchers — the only producer of kosher chickens in Victoria — did not return The AJN’s calls, other rabbis said the KA letter misquoted the report.
Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, the head of the Organisation of Rabbis in Australasia kashrut subcommittee, said he found the situation “most disturbing and extremely disappointing”.
But Rabbi Gutnick said the KA’s letter had been taken completely out of context. “There should be absolutely no tension between Melbourne and Sydney,” he said. “The letter was crystal clear that we hold the Melbourne rabbinate in the utmost respect. On behalf of the rabbinate of the KA, we eat the Melbourne shechitah when in Melbourne.
“The sole purpose of the letter was to point out that those who are trying to suggest that the Sydney chickens are inferior are simply incorrect.”
He called those who have misinterpreted the KA’s letter “mischievous and misrepresenting our position”.
“Perhaps those whose agenda it is to try and say that our shechitah is not good are trying to deflect from the essential issue by fomenting discord between Melbourne and Sydney.”
NAOMI LEVIN
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