Too little, too late describes the OU's support of the Jews of Gush Katif. They were proudly neutral before Disengagement, but then decided to fund-raise for the poor refugees, the Jewish DP's forced out of their homes for one reason and one reason only, their Jewish religion. Nu, was that really so surprising before it happened? I'm not the only person who predicted the present situation.
Opposing Disengagement would have meant that the OU valued Jewish settlement of Eretz Yisrael over pc policies.
Now, the OU was embarrassed in the states, because it never really inspected the meat slaughtering houses under its auspices and approval. So now they're trying to flex their muscles and threatening to rescind their hechsher.
Kosher food is more than a myopic look at the knife, count the salt and time the soaking.
My guess is that more multi-tasking women should be hired to supervise kashrut and run the large Jewish organizations. We can't do any worse...
7 comments:
Shalom!
After Shabbat I'll look for links, bli neder. The OU was not neutral about the expulsion from Gush Katif and the northern Shomron. They supported it. They were not very vocal about it, but the support was definite. Not that this excuses their support, but it was a matter of not wanting to advocate an opinion contrary to that of the Israeli government rather than actually believing that we had no right to the Gaza Strip.
In other words, in the opinion of the OU the secular State of Israel is superior to the Tora. And you wonder why their kashrut supervision is weak?
The OU probably is fund-raising for us to get all of the good PR it brings. Everyone loves a Jewish "refugee"; it's the defiant, settler types that have PR trouble.
Hadassa
From what I understand the OU, being a large organization, had various opinions and tried to stay on the fence, calling it an "internal Israeli affair." But the results were that they didn't help anyone. Now they fund-raise for the poor DP's. Young Israel seems to have done the same.
Well, the OU won't let women on its training course for industrial kashrut supervisors. It feels it would be inappropriate. Because, you know, heaven forbid women should supervise kashrut.
Shalom!
Likes kashrut, in addition to the problems of modesty... well, based on what a very knowledgeable rabbi says the mashgichim are faced with, keeping women out of supervision jobs could have more to do with their safety than anything else. Managers do not like anyone poking into their kashrut.
Hadassa
lk, I think there are some kashrut agencies, I forget where which have started allowing women.
hadassa, there's no reason for the blanket refusal.
Shalom!
I should have made a qualification to my statement. The OU's reasoning for not training women is almost certainly problematic, i.e. they probably think that women aren't capable of doing the work properly, which isn't true. For thousands of years men have trusted women in the kitchen, including keeping milk and meat totally separate, salting and otherwise kashering meat, separately the various tithes and checking grains and leafy vegetables for insects, but no, no a factory is just beyond our grasp. Yeah right.
Currently, with the situation in factories and restaurants being what it is, we women should invest our brainpower where we can make immediate use of it.
I do wonder what would happen if a group of women approached the OU and said, "We're starting a food business. For reasons of modesty we'd like to keep the staff all female and we'd like to know how to keep our factory kosher." If the OU refused to assist them, I'd oppose the OU's refusal.
Hadassa
hadassa, interesting idea
I wonder if anyone will take you up on it. I'd love to hear what happens.
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