'Hadassah must update its kashrut supervision'

The Chief Rabbinate maintained on Tuesday that the Hadassah Medical Organization’s two medical centers – the university medical center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood and the other on Mount Scopus – “have not yet made kashrut arrangements” with the Jerusalem Rabbinate following the passing of the organization’s longtime institutional rabbi, Yaakov Mann Rakovski, last January.

The Chief Rabbinate and its National Unit for Enforcement of the Law Against Kashrut Fraud stated that the rabbinate in Jerusalem “cannot take responsibility for kashrut in the two major institutions, even though management was warned to make arrangements of kashrut supervision on Shabbat for the requisite number of hours.”

It added that “certificates posted at the site that are signed by kashrut supervisors cannot serve as a replacement for the kashrut certificate [demanded by the law]. The public must know and beware.”

But Hadassah spokeswoman Eti Dvir commented that half a century ago, Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank, who was chief rabbi of Jerusalem for many years before he died in 1960, had given Hadassah institutions blanket approval of its kashrut as an independent institution.

“Hadassah has never held a kashrut certificate of the Jerusalem chief rabbinate, because its kashrut was supervised by Rabbi Rakovski,” who was in charge of the kitchens with his team of kashrut supervisors. This team, she said, “continues to work without any change.”

The organization said that contacts were under way to transfer its hospitals’ kashrut to the Jerusalem Rabbinate, adding that “Hadassah continues to serve the kashrutobservant public as has been done for decades before.”

In January, Hadassah described the late rabbi, who served the organization for 50 years, as a “native of Jerusalem from a family of rabbis whose forefathers were among the first immigrants to Israel, [and who was known for his] knowledge of Torah and Jewish laws, outgoing personality, wisdom, kindness and openness.”