Kosher, no certificate

Restaurants are increasingly choosing to appeal to religious clients while foregoing the Rabbinate’s seal of approval.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Kosher? (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Kosher?
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Two years ago Billy Lezien, a caterer specializing in Tunisian cuisine, was almost in tears. The usually jovial middle-aged man for whom running a catering business in Jerusalem is a dream fulfilled, couldn’t believe his ears when the inspector from the Chief Rabbinate told him that he would not be receiving a kashrut certificate for Passover.
Lezien, in an impassioned last-ditch attempt to convince the man, naively told him that in preparing both kosher-for-Passover and regular food over the same period. but separately, he was just doing as his mother had always done. “My mother was a saint.
She was very strict on kashrut issues, and I do the same. I would never deceive my clients in that regard,” he insisted.
But Lezien was unable to change the inspector’s mind and had to throw out all the food he had already prepared, cancel all his clients’ orders and close down his business for the festival instead of making the substantial income he had been counting on for months.
But Lezien never dared, even after that incident, to stop using the services of the rabbinate’s inspectors for the simple reason that most of his clients request the certificates they grant.
But his argument, which was not convincing enough for the inspector, was very interesting, given that today quite a few restaurant owners in Jerusalem have decided to forgo the kashrut certificate issued by the rabbinate. They continue to observe the laws of kashrut, but they refuse to bend to what they call the “dictatorship” of the kashrut department at the rabbinate. In most cases, it is primarily a matter of money. According to Lezien, kashrut certification cost him thousands of shekels a year.
But it appears that some restaurant owners have another reason for not seeking certification.
In an interview on local community TV, the owner and chef of Adon Cohen, a restaurant in Talpiot, said she didn’t need kashrut certification, arguing that she herself was much stricter on kashrut conditions than any of the rabbinate’s inspectors.
Some of these restaurants serve vegetarian meals, some serve meat, some are open on Shabbat and some are closed on Shabbat, but they all use strictly kosher ingredients and argue that they simply do what they would do in their own (kosher) homes.
“I think it is a very good thing,” says Conservative rabbi Uri Ayalon, director of the Yerushalmim movement and founder of the Yotzer Or community in Talpiot. “Because this way, we all bring the issue of kashrut back to being our own responsibility.
As a matter of fact, through this trend, trust – a basic requirement for healthy relationships in a society – is renewed as the foundation of our community life here.” Ayalon says that restaurants choosing to be open on Shabbat is a different matter. “People want to eat kosher, and that is provided by chefs and restaurant owners who are strictly reliable on kashrut.
Whether or not they are open on Shabbat is another issue, and every customer is free to choose where to draw the line. After all, what do people who want to eat kosher do when they are abroad? It’s the same here.”
The trend – and it is certainly a trend, with about 10 places now claiming to serve kosher meals without certification from the rabbinate – is growing fast.
Topolino near the Mahaneh Yehuda market, which was apparently the first to risk this daring new approach, is closed on Shabbat. The restaurant does not serve meat, which makes things slightly less complicated, but customers – including quite a few wearing kippot – have complete confidence in the kashrut of the establishment, despite the fact that the owner and chef is quick to inform them that there is no official kashrut certification. Patrons eat there because all the ingredients are kosher, even though the rabbinate has not granted them a kashrut certificate.
Not far from Topolino, the Casino de Paris bar and restaurant, owned by local rock singer Shaanan Street and Merchants’ Association member Eli Mizrahi, serve strictly kosher dishes without kashrut certification. However, Mizrahi has a certificate at his coffee shop, Hakol La’ofeh, which was the first cafe to open in Mahaneh Yehuda.
Another venue, the Fifth of May restaurant, which recently opened in the market, is not certified, although most of its customers are religious. Not far from there, in Nahlaot, the Salon Shabazi community coffee shop and restaurant does not have a kashrut certificate, although it serves kosher (dairy) food, and the customers are kashrut observers. And in Rehavia, the uncertified Carousela restaurant serves many kashrutobservant patrons.
“It’s a matter of trust,” explains Ilana, a Rehavia resident who says she often eats at Carousela. “The certificate says nothing – it’s just a piece of paper. But I feel confident here. I trust them that they won’t serve me anything I wouldn’t want to eat. It’s so simple.”
Ayalon says that the greatest achievement in his eyes, as a representative of a community that is concerned with Jewish issues but feels alienated by the ultra-Orthodox establishment, is to see how kashrut has become a means to reestablish trust between different segments of Israeli society. As such, he is at the forefront of the efforts being made to enlarge the circles of local residents to break the haredi hegemony without breaking any Jewish ties.
“It’s a completely opposite attitude than that of the kashrut supervision of the rabbinate,” adds Ayalon. “They tell you, ‘Don’t trust the restaurant where you eat – that’s why you need our certificate.’ And I say that a restaurant that doesn’t have that certificate but serves you kosher food is saying, ‘Trust me, I won’t deceive you.’ And that’s much, much more important in order to reestablish a healthy Jewish society.”