Jewish News

Lapid to U.S. Conservative Rabbis: You are the Gatekeepers of Jewish Identity

“The Jewish identity is in danger and you are the gatekeepers,” political newcomer Yair Lapid told audience members Tuesday at the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement in Atlanta. “Judaism shouldn’t be the jailhouse of ideas but a liberator of ideas; not a disintegrator of people but what brings people together,” he added.Speaking on the same day that Prime Minister ...

Lack of Support Leaves Lithuanian Synagogues in State of Ruin

Lithuania’s wooden synagogues, the vestiges of a Jewish presence that was wiped out in the Holocaust, are falling into ruin from a lack of funding and support.Hidden behind a row of houses, the wooden synagogue in the eastern town of Alanta “looks more like a barn than a former house of worship,” according to a description provided by the AFP news agency.This ...

Labeling Products Will Encourage Sales, Says Winemaker

The director of the Psagot Winery in Binyamin, Yaakov Berg, said on Wednesday that recent decision to mark products made in Judea and Samaria (Yehuda and Shomron) as being “made in the settlements” will actually help the sales of such products.On Tuesday, Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain announced that it will tell its customers if products have come from Jewish communities ...

L.A. Meat Market Loses Kosher Certification on Day before Passover

An undercover video captured the owner of a Los Angeles kosher meat market bringing unsealed boxes of chicken into his store, leading to the revocation of his store’s kosher certification.Mike Engelman, the owner of Doheny Glatt Kosher Meats, was videotaped on March 12 directing his employees to unload boxes of meat from his car while the store’s kosher supervisor was ...

Kristallnacht memorial stolen from Jewish cemetery in Germany

A 750-kilogram monument commemorating Kristallnacht has been stolen from the Jewish cemetery in Cologne, less than a week after a memorial event marked 72 years since the German pogrom.The thieves broken open the backdoor of the cemetery on Sunday night, German police officers told the local Express newspaper. Police believe the perpetrators detached the monument from its pedestal, loaded it ...

Kosher’s New Opponent: Costco

It was perhaps a sign of the times when a Long Island kosher store advertised prices that are 10% – 20% lower than Costco.Kosher stores used to compete only against other kosher stores, but of late they are looking over their shoulder at stores like Costco, Target, Trader Joe’s and even Wal-Mart.The discount and club stores are actively courting kosher ...

Kosher Supervisors Certified in Poland for First Time since Holocaust

For the first time since the Holocaust, 17 Polish Jews were officially certified as Kosher supervisors last week, after successfully completing a three-day training seminar in Krakow.The course, run by the Jerusalem-based organization, Shavei Israel, taught forty participants the specifics of preparing food according to the laws of kashrut.The course was conducted by Rabbi Dov Landau, a leading Gerrer Hasid ...

Kosher Pork in Sunnyside – Pork Spare Ribs “Sh’Chita K’shera Beit Yosef,” Sold in Sunnyside

Rabbis saw to it long ago that it’s against the law to have a pig farm on Jewish-owned land in Israel, so Jewish pig-farmers there (perhaps after consulting a legal-loophole-minded rabbi of their own) built their sties on platforms above the land—taking the practice of raising pigs to a whole new level.But if you want actual Kosher pork—pork spare ribs, ...

Kosher Milk War Heats Up in Orthodox Community

A milk price war has broken out in kosher shops in London and Manchester after the arrival of a new supplier.Until now, milk for the strictly Orthodox community has been produced by Charedi Dairies and Edgware Dairies under licence from Kedassia, the kashrut division of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, and the London Beth Din. It has been typically ...

Kosher Grocery Stores In Short Supply Of Baby Formula

Kosher grocery stores are facing depleted stocks of an imported Israeli baby formula popular among Hasidic Jewish families.Materna, the manufacturer, is no longer able to make shipments to the U.S., leading to shortages of one of the few dairy-based formulas that conforms to the religious laws followed by Hasidic Jews.“I’m getting at least ten calls a day asking if it’s ...

Kosher food goes mainstream at Berlin supermarket

When shoppers in New York, London or Paris come across kosher food in their neighborhood supermarkets, it’s just one specialty product among many. When the same thing happens in Berlin, it’s a statement.Berlin’s Jewish community, decimated by the Holocaust, has been steadily growing since Germany reunited in 1990. Thousands of Jews have moved in, synagogues, schools and shops have opened ...

Kosher Consumers Can Sue

Consumers who buy a product as a result of misleading advertising can sue the manufacturer even if the product was not defective, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday.The 5-2 decision resolved a long battle between consumers and business over the scope of Proposition 64, the 2004 ballot measure intended to end so-called “shakedown” lawsuits against business.The initiative said a person ...