BySHIRA SILKOFF

Kashrut authorities are being called on to remove their kosher certification from all Ben & Jerry's ice cream products after their decision to boycott West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.

In response to the announcement made earlier this week, Jews in countries across the world have announced their intentions to boycott the product, with some going as far as to launch campaigns aimed at Kashrut certification organizations.

The Australian Kashrut Authority (KA) announced on Wednesday via their Facebook page that they would be removing Ben & Jerry's ice cream from their list of kosher approved products, and said that while the brand would still be certified kosher under the US based Kof-K certification, they themselves would be ending their long standing decision to list the ice-cream in their kosher product list.

In their statement, the KA stated that the decision was made "in support of those who proudly reside in Yehuda ve Shomron (Judea & Samaria)." 

 

Despite the KA's reassurance that the American Kof-K certification would continue to certify the product, many US based Jews are campaigning for this to change.

Nachman Mostofsky, executive director of Amariah, a religious Jewish organization that claims to promote "the communal values of traditional Torah-true Judaism," tweeted a statement on Tuesday, saying that he had spoken to Kof-K, encouraging them to remove their certification from the product.

He encouraged others to do the same, and said that he had not been the only person to phone them that morning.

A similar statement was shared on the Amariah Twitter account, in which they said that as well as Kof-K, "the [OU Kosher] and [cRc Kosher] and any other certification should refuse them as well."
While some approved of this idea, others were less certain and questioned the choice of the KA, and the campaign against Kof-K, from a halachic point of view. As Kashrut refers only to how food must be prepared according to Jewish Law, the removal of a kashrut certificate due to political decisions could lead to misinformation.
Twitter user @AvrahamAdler replied to the Amariah announcement: "bottom line, people must know whether or not it is kosher. If [Ben & Jerry's] change their formulation and stop being kosher, that’s a real problem. People can choose on their own to stop supporting B&J #Antisemitism, but not at expense of Halacha. Halacha transcends emotions."