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.”
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