Editorial (October 2, 2009)

Kosher questions

WE are hoping our cover story will spark discussions around your Succot dinner table in the coming week. Kashrut is a fraught topic, but one The AJN is not afraid to discuss.

We run a fortnightly “It’s Kosher” column, publish Kosher Living -— the only Australian magazine of its kind -— and support kosher catering through our Wedding and Bar Mitzvah supplements.

We also do not shy away from the curly questions. In recent times we have questioned the price differences for kosher consumers in Melbourne and Sydney and investigated kosher catering in Sydney.

This week, we were pleased to report that Australia’s major kosher organisations held a teleconference -— the first meeting of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia’s subcommittee on kashrut.

The aim of the subcommittee is to discuss shared kashrut challenges, starting with talks on shechitah (ritual slaughter).

By all accounts, the meeting was a success and will be repeated many times in the coming months and years.

While it was not an agenda item, the national meeting surely raises questions as to whether Australia’s kosher consumers would be better served by a national kashrut authority. It is a question The AJN cannot answer yet, but we invite the community to the discussion.

Could a national authority reduce the cost of kosher meat if shechitah were performed on a larger scale? Would a national kosher authority lead to the certification of a wider range of Australian goods?

Or, on the other hand, would federalising kashrut cause more problems than it is worth?

Does it run the risk of damaging close relationships between food manufacturers or caterers and their mashgiach? Does Perth have the same kashrut issues as Sydney? Could the Adass Israel community accept the same standards of kashrut as the Mizrachi community?

These questions cannot be answered overnight, but for the sake of the kosher consumer, the kosher authorities should put their heads together and start thinking about them.

Iran isn’t fooling anyone

THE revelation last week of a secret, fortified Iranian nuclear development site appears to have served as a much-needed wake-up call for major western powers to begin to act against Iran’s dangerous quest for nuclear weapons.

True, the site has not been inspected and does not prove that Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction, but the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

After all, what reasonable excuse would Iran have had for hiding this centrifuge site from the International Atomic Energy Agency, if its nuclear aims were for peaceful purposes?

At the same time, Iran’s Shahad-3 missile test on Monday, together with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fiery speech at the United Nations last week, show that Teheran’s belligerent attitude has been consistent.

To continue to play along with Ahmadinejad’s fanciful charade does not appear wise. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that all countries are now aware of the reality -— that Iran is hiding behind the rights of nations to develop nuclear power in order to conceal its drive to build a nuclear arsenal, complete with ballistic missiles that can deliver their lethal payload to Israel and other targets.

The question now is: what is the world going to do about it? US President Barack Obama said on Sunday that his “offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve [the nuclear] issue remains open” with Iran.

Indeed, Iranian representatives are scheduled to meet with representatives of the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, to discuss its nuclear program today (Thursday).

Should Iran continue to obfuscate its aims, or otherwise stall for time in this opening negotiation session, then Obama would be wise to publicly rescind the offer for dialogue and begin putting a plan of sanctions into action.

It is crucial that Iran be made to understand that talk will only go so far and that only by ending its nuclear program will it be able to avoid the world’s wrath.

To complicate matters, Russia and China have resisted backing sanctions. Hopefully, they will come around, but the world must be ready in case they don’t.

If the world can’t settle this peacefully, Israel will have no choice but to confront the threat militarily — an outcome that everyone would prefer to avoid.