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September 3, 2004/Elul 17 5763, Vol. 55, No. 50
Organization has beef over kashrut
JOEL N. SHURKIN
Baltimore Jewish Times
BALTIMORE - A dispute between a Kansas City, Mo., meat company and a New York kashrut certification organization has caught Baltimore's Star-K in the middle.
The issues between the company and Debrecin/Vaad Mishmeres L'Mishmeres of Brooklyn, N.Y., wound up in the mailboxes of many in the Baltimore Orthodox com-munity.
In July, almost every Orthodox family in Baltimore listed in the "Eruv List" - a directory for local Orthodox families and busi-nesses - received a 41-page pamphlet from a group called the Committee for the Elevation of Kashrut Stan-dards in New York City, attacking the kosher stan-dards of Star-K, a kosher supervisory organization, and the ethics of its rabbinic administrator, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann. The attack, which apparently continued in the New York area, is believed to have cost Star-K thousands of dollars in business.
The pamphlet originated from the same Brooklyn address as an affiliate of International Glatt Kosher (IGK), one of the largest kosher meat purveyors in North America, and the same address as Mishmeres.
"This has become all-con-suming, aggravating," said Avrom Pollak, president of Star-K. "More than anything else, as a close colleague of Rabbi Heinemann, to see what he has been through is quite distressing."
Rabbi Heinemann, spiri-tual leader of Agudath Israel of Baltimore in Upper Park Heights, said, "I'm not happy about it, but I can live with it. I believe most of the people in the local community know me. I've been here 38 years, and most people trust me."
Star-K has held meetings throughout the Orthodox community to explain the situation and has posted relevant documents on its www.Star-K.com Web site. Pollak also appeared on the Aug. 8 "Torah Talk" show on "Shalom USA," a local Jewish radio program.
An official of IGK - who agreed to be interviewed only if his name was not used - denied having anything to do with the pamphlet, although he defended its contents.
IGK is owned by the second generation of the Chaimowitz family in New York.
The slaughterhouse at the center of the dispute is owned by a firm called PM Beef Group of Kansas City in Windom, in southwestern Minnesota. PM Beef is owned by PM Holdings, a privately owned corporation in Richmond, Va. PM is owned by non-Jews, one of the issues in the dispute.
PM sells both kosher and non-kosher beef. The kosher portion was sold only through IGK.
The Orthodox Union and Mishmeres/Debrecin, owned by the Debreciner Rav, Rabbi Shlomo Stern, performed kosher supervision under Rabbi Eliezar Yacob (Lazar Jacob). The Debreciners are Hasidim who originated in Hungary.
The certifiers supplied a team of schochtim, or slaughterers, and mashgi-chim, the men who do the inspection to make the meat glatt kosher and certify the process.
Under the typical arrange-ment at an abattoir, meat that cannot be certified as kosher - cut from the vast majority of the cows slaughtered at the plant - is sold as non-kosher to regular markets.
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