| Hechsher of Kosher Australia | |
|---|---|
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| Certifying agency | Kosher Australia |
| Founded | 1968 |
| Headquarters | 81 Balaclava Rd, Caulfield North VIC 3161, Australia |
| Key People |
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| Website | kosher |
Kosher Australia is the largest Australian based kosher certification agency. As of 2018 they had certified over 500 companies both in Australia and abroad. [1] It was initially called Mizrachi Kashrut, followed by Melbourne Kashrut before becoming Kosher Australia in 2004. [2]
Kosher Australia began in 1968 when Rabbi Baruch Abaranok, the then rabbi of the Mizrachi organisation in Melbourne, started providing supervision to local community caterers. A team of volunteer community members investigated companies for kosher compliance and by 1976, annual kosher guides were made available to the kosher community. [3] Over the years it has expanded to employ a number of staff [4] and is recognised internationally by other kosher authorities. [5] The rabbi responsible for the organisation's policies is Mordechai Gutnick, who also sits on the Melbourne Beth Din.
Kosher food in Australia has come under attack as a part of the alt-right's attack on halal food, led by MP Pauline Hanson. It has been part of investigations in Parliament, although there have been no ramifications for the kosher industry yet. [6] There have also been a number of attacks on kosher slaughter, and the community has stood up to defend itself. [7] [8]
Kashrut is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the term that in Sephardi or Modern Hebrew is pronounced kashér, meaning "fit". Food that may not be consumed, however, is deemed treif, also spelled treyf. In case of objects the opposite of kosher is pasúl
Halal is an Arabic word that translates to 'permissible' in English. In the Quran, the term halal is contrasted with the term haram. It is used to refer to actions, behaviors, or items that are allowed under the teachings of Islam. Halal applies not only to food but also to various aspects of life, including finance, clothing, and behavior. Its opposite is haram, which means "forbidden" or "unlawful". The concept of halal is central to Islamic practices and is derived from the Quran and the Sunnah. The guidelines for what is considered halal or haram are laid out in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), and scholars interpret these guidelines to ensure compliance with Islamic principles.
A hechsher or hekhsher is a rabbinical product certification, qualifying items that conform to the requirements of Jewish religious law.
A mashgiach or mashgicha is a Jew who supervises the kashrut status of a kosher establishment. Mashgichim may supervise any type of food service establishment, including slaughterhouses, food manufacturers, hotels, caterers, nursing homes, restaurants, butchers, groceries, or cooperatives. Mashgichim usually work as on-site supervisors and inspectors, representing a kosher certification agency or a local rabbi, who actually makes the policy decisions for what is or is not acceptably kosher. Sometimes certifying rabbis act as their own mashgichim; such is the case in many small communities.
In Judaism, shechita is ritual slaughtering of certain mammals and birds for food according to kashrut. One who practices this, a kosher butcher is called a shochet.
Kosher foods are foods that conform to the Jewish dietary regulations of kashrut. The laws of kashrut apply to food derived from living creatures and kosher foods are restricted to certain types of mammals, birds and fish meeting specific criteria; the flesh of any animals that do not meet these criteria is forbidden by the dietary laws. Furthermore, kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a process known as shechita and their blood may never be consumed and must be removed from the meat by a process of salting and soaking in water for the meat to be permissible for use. All plant-based products, including fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs and spices, are intrinsically kosher, although certain produce grown in the Land of Israel is subjected to other requirements, such as tithing, before it may be consumed.
The Orthodox Union is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for the disabled, localized religious study programs, and international units with locations in Israel and formerly in Ukraine. The OU maintains a kosher certification service, whose circled-U hechsher symbol, U+24CAⓊCIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U, is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.
In kashrut, the dietary laws of Judaism, pareve or parve is a classification of food that contain neither dairy nor meat ingredients. Food in this category includes all items that grow from the ground, fish, eggs, and non-biological edible items.
OK Kosher Certification is a major kosher certification agency based out of Brooklyn, NY. It is one of the "Big Five," the five largest kosher certifying agencies in the United States. OK also has a large kosher presence in Asia.
Magen Tzedek, originally known as Hekhsher Tzedek, is a complementary certification for kosher food produced in the United States in a way that meets Jewish Halakhic (legal) standards for workers, consumers, animals, and the environment, as understood by Conservative Judaism. Magen Tzedek certification is not a kashrut certification which certifies that food is kosher in that it meets certain requirements regarding ingredients of food and technical methods of animal slaughter, but an ethical certification complementary to conventional kosher certification.
Star-K Kosher Certification, also known as the Vaad Hakashrut of Baltimore, is a kosher certification agency based in Baltimore, Maryland, under the administration of Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, with the involvement of many other rabbis. It is one of the largest Jewish dietary certification agencies in North America. It is trusted by many Orthodox Jews worldwide for dedication to preserving Kashrut. The organization supervises tens of thousands of commercial food products and food establishments around the world.
Animal Liberation Victoria Inc. (ALV) are an independent not-for-profit animal rights organisation incorporated in the state of Victoria, Australia, and are a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNA). ALV were founded in 1978 by Patty Mark, with the mission of saving lives and ending animal exploitation. Their mission is to abolish the property status of animals, change speciesist attitudes and practices, educate the public about animal rights and veganism, and embrace the principles of non-violence and compassion. ALV is managed by an elected committee in accordance with the Victorian Incorporated Associations Act.
Rabbi Mordechai Zev Gutnick is a prominent Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Australia. Gutnick has served as a member of rabbinical courts in Melbourne and Sydney and various Australian rabbinical associations. He is associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement; he is the eldest son of the late Rabbi Chaim Gutnick.
Tza'ar ba'alei chayim, literally "suffering of living creatures", is a Jewish commandment which bans causing animals unnecessary suffering. This concept is not clearly enunciated in the written Torah, but was accepted by the Talmud as being a biblical mandate. It is linked in the Talmud from the biblical law requiring people to assist in unloading burdens from animals.
Moshe D. Gutnick is an Australian Orthodox rabbi, and a member of the ultra Orthodox Chabad Hasidic movement. Rabbi Gutnick is a senior member of the Beth Din in Sydney, Australia. Gutnick is currently President of the Rabbinical Council of Australia and New Zealand. Gutnick is the head of the NSW Kashrut Authority. He formerly served as the rabbi of the Bondi Mizrachi Synagogue in Sydney.
Halal literally means "permissible" in Arabic and refers to food items that are permissible to consume under Sharia law, whereas haram refers to any substance not permitted to consume. According to the Australian Food and Grocery Council, halal foods must be "free from any substance taken or extracted from a haram animal or ingredient ; [be] made, processed, manufactured and/or stored by using utensils, equipment and/or machinery that has been cleaned according to Islamic law ; and [be] free from contact with, or being close to, a haram substance during preparation, manufacture, processing and storage ."
A kosher certification agency is an organization or certifying authority that grants a hechsher to ingredients, packaged foods, beverages, and certain materials, as well as food-service providers and facilities in which kosher food is prepared or served. This certification verifies that the ingredients, production process including all machinery, and/or food-service process complies with the standards of kashrut as stipulated in the Shulchan Arukh, the benchmark of religious Jewish law. The certification agency employs mashgichim to make periodic site visits and oversee the food-production or food-service process in order to verify ongoing compliance. Each agency has its own trademarked symbol that it allows manufacturers and food-service providers to display on their products or in-store certificates; use of this symbol can be revoked for non-compliance. Each agency typically has a "certifying rabbi" who determines the exact kashrut standards to be applied and oversees their implementation.
Hashgacha Pratit (השגחה-פרטית) is an independent, Israel-based organization with both female and male clergy that self-describes as providing an alternative form of Orthodox Rabbinical authority and social activism group dedicated to challenging the monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel over religious ceremonies and practices, through the provision of private religious ceremonies. Founded in 2012 by Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz in Jerusalem, Israel, it offers alternative halachic services in life-cycle events, rabbinical training, and other courses in religious education. It has provided private kashrut supervision for restaurants, worked on raising public awareness and finding loopholes in the laws to circumvent the Chief Rabbinate's monopoly, first regarding Kashrut, by leading the movement to open the kosher food market to competition, and today regarding Orthodox wedding ceremonies.
Yossi Feldman is an Australian rabbi. He has been a Rabbi in the Yeshiva Centre and Chabad NSW for the past 32 years. He was the President of the RCNSW for 3 years from 2009-2012 and Rabbi of Southern Sydney Synagogue from 1993-2015
Criticism of kashrut is criticism of or opposition to the laws of kashrut and/or dislike of kosher foods. Criticism of kashrut can either come from non-Jews or it can come from Jews who don't keep kosher, and it may or may not be motivated by antisemitism. In some European countries, kosher slaughter is either banned or restricted by law, often because nationalists or animal rights activists object to the practice. Certain aspects of kashrut have been alleged to promote sectarianism or racism, a claim that is rejected by Jews who keep kosher. Right-wing extremists sometimes criticize kashrut due to their belief in antisemitic canards and antisemitic conspiracy theories. In Classical Reform Judaism, the keeping of kosher has been discouraged, based on its belief that the keeping of Kosher is an unhelpful vestige of the past. In the Soviet Union, the keeping of Kosher was discouraged, due to the anti-religious and antisemitic policies of the Soviet government, and the anti-religious views of secular Jewish Communists.
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