Kosher tax conspiracy theory

Last updated

The "Kosher tax" (or "Jewish tax") is the idea that food companies and unwitting consumers are forced to pay money to support Judaism or Zionist causes and Israel through the costs of kosher certification. The claim is generally considered a conspiracy theory, antisemitic canard, or urban legend.

Contents

Common refutations include that consumers who prefer kosher foods include not only Jews but also Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, and others, food companies actively seek kosher certification to increase market share and profitability; the fees collected support the certifying organizations themselves and that extra business generated by the voluntary certification process more than makes up for the cost of supervision and so the certification does not necessarily increase the price of products and may, in fact, result in per item cost savings.

Claims

The kosher tax conspiracy theory claims that the kosher certification of products (typically food) is an extra tax collected from unwitting consumers for the benefit of Jewish organizations. It is mainly spread by antisemitic, white supremacist, and other extremist organizations, and is considered a canard or urban legend. [1] [2] [3] [4] Similar claims are made that this "Kosher tax" (or "Jewish tax") is "extorted" from food companies wishing to avoid a boycott, [4] [5] and used to support Zionist causes or the state of Israel. [6]

University of Pittsburgh professor of sociology Kathleen M. Blee reported that some racist groups encourage consumers to avoid this "Jewish tax" by boycotting kosher products. [7]

Canada

The 2000 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents by the B'nai Brith Canada reported citizens being encouraged to request a refund from the government on their income taxes. [8]

In 1997 the Canada Revenue Agency issued a news release noting the existence of flyers recommending that consumers claim a deduction on their taxes "because they supposedly contributed to a Jewish religious organization when they purchased these groceries." In it Jane Stewart, then Minister of National Revenue stated, "The intent and message in this literature is deeply offensive to the Jewish community and, indeed, to all Canadians. The so-called 'deduction' described in these flyers does not exist and I urge all taxpayers to ignore this misleading advice". [9]

During the 2014 Quebec provincial election campaign, Parti Québécois (PQ) candidate and academic Louise Mailloux defended the PQ government's proposed Quebec Charter of Values by asserting that kosher and halal certification was a religious tax used to fund religious wars and enrich religious leaders. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs called on the PQ to debunk the “urban legend of the kosher tax” but PQ leader and Premier of Quebec Pauline Marois defended her candidate's comments saying of Mailloux, "Her writings are eloquent, I respect her point of view.” [10]

Refutation

This Orthodox Union kosher certification mark denotes Kosher pareve. Kosher certification is a voluntary process. OUKosher.JPG
This Orthodox Union kosher certification mark denotes Kosher pareve. Kosher certification is a voluntary process.

Although companies may apply for kosher certification, the cost of the certification is typically minuscule, [6] [11] [12] and is more than offset by the advantages of being certified. [11] In 1975 the cost per item for obtaining kosher certification was reported by The New York Times to be 6.5 millionths of a cent ($0.000000065) for a General Foods frozen-food item. [13]

Certification leads to increased revenues by opening up additional markets to Jews who keep kosher, Muslims who keep halal, Seventh-day Adventists, vegetarians, and the lactose intolerant who wish to avoid dairy products (products that are reliably certified as pareve meet this criterion). [14] [15] [16]

Quebec's Bouchard-Taylor Commission on Reasonable Accommodation refuted what it described as "[t]he most fanciful information is circulating among Quebeckers” [10] about the so-called kosher tax in its 2008 report and stated that there was no evidence of price inflation as a result of kosher certification and that rabbis made little money from granting certification. [10]

According to Berel Wein, "The cost of kashrut certification is always viewed as an advertising expense and not as a manufacturing expense." [12] Dispellers of the "kosher tax" legend argue that if it were not profitable to obtain such certification, then food producers would not engage in the certification process, and that the increased sales resulting from kosher certification actually lower the overall cost per item. [17] [18] Avi Shafran adds that "[i]f the kosher item in fact proves more expensive, [the consumer] can simply opt for one that hasn’t been supervised by a rabbi..." [18]

Obtaining certification that an item is kosher is a voluntary business decision made by companies desiring additional sales from consumers (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who look for kosher certification when shopping. [15] According to Snopes, the fees charged for kosher certification are used to support the operation of the certifying bodies themselves, and not "some special Jewish fund used to advance Zionist causes". [6]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lungen, Paul (February 20, 2003). "Jewish, Muslim groups join forces join to protect ritual slaughter". Internet edition. Canadian Jewish News. Archived from the original on May 6, 2005. Retrieved November 3, 2011. Anti-Semites have advanced 'the libel of the kosher tax' to claim consumers are paying an extra tax on products that carry kosher certification.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. ↑ Kaplan, Jeffery; Leonard Weinberg (February 1999). The emergence of a Euro-American radical right. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. p. 163. ISBN   0-8135-2563-2. LCCN   98023536.
  3. ↑ Levenson, Barry M. (2001). Habeas Codfish: Reflections on Food and the Law. University of Wisconsin Press. p.  188. ISBN   0-299-17510-3. The dark side of this rather uneventful marketing fact is that some anti-Jewish hate groups have developed a bizarre and baseless theory that there is a 'kosher tax' levied on food, a kind of Jewish conspiracy to extort money from the population at large.
  4. 1 2 Tuchman, Aryeh. "Dietary Laws", in Levy, Richard S. Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, ABC-CLIO, 2005, p. 178. "Antisemites have decried this certification as a 'kosher tax' that powerful Jews have enlisted governments to collect on their behalf; others have alleged that greedy rabbis threaten businesses with a Jewish boycott unless they accept their fee-based kosher certification."
  5. ↑ "Anti-Semitism: Patriot publications taking on anti-Semitic edge". Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Winter 2002. Retrieved April 25, 2007. Media Bypass, for one, offered a story about a 'Kosher Nostra scam,' in which 'major food companies throughout America actually pay a Jewish Tax amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars per year in order to receive protection' against Jewish boycotts. These 'elaborate extortion schemes' are coordinated, alleges writer Ernesto Cienfuegos, by 'Rabbinical Councils that are set up, not just in the U.S. but in other western countries as well.'
  6. 1 2 3 Mikkelson, Barbara (May 24, 2002). "The Kosher Nostra". Snopes . Retrieved October 23, 2006.
  7. ↑ Blee, Kathleen M. (2002). "The Place of Women". Inside organized racism: women in the hate movement. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 129. ISBN   0-520-22174-5. LCCN   2001041449. Some [racist groups] urge their members to boycott products certified as kosher.
    See also footnote 70: "For example, see 'Kosher Racket Revealed: Secret Jewish Tax on Gentiles' (pamphlet distributed by an anonymous racist group, ca. 1991)," p. 232.
  8. ↑ "Antisemitism in Canada — Regional Climates: Ontario: Toronto". 2000 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. B'nai Brith Canada. 2001. Archived from the original on June 2, 2007. Retrieved April 25, 2007. Some antisemitic myths continued to proliferate through the year 2000. The Kosher Tax myth claims that the purchase of foods with a kosher symbol on it means that a portion of that money constitutes a tax which benefits the Jewish people. Individuals are advised to go to their cupboards and estimate the worth of all the foods which have those "hidden" symbols on them and claim the money back from the government in their tax returns. Many of the alerts that our offices received about the distribution of the "Kosher Tax" advisories were from accountants who received them as a mailing or were given them along with instructions from their clients to include the material in their taxes. According to these accountants, the people who wanted the refund were not antisemites per se but had received the letters and were ignorant to the meaning of the symbols on the groceries. However, it could be said that those fooled were all too ready to believe the message of the advisories that Jews are sneakily trying to extort money from an unsuspecting public.
  9. ↑ "Revenue Minister concerned by tax deduction misinformation" Archived 2013-08-09 at the Wayback Machine , Canada Revenue Agency news release, March 10, 1997.
  10. 1 2 3 "Marois defends PQ candidate accused of anti-Semitic beliefs". Globe and Mail. March 14, 2014. Retrieved March 18, 2014.
  11. 1 2 Brunvand, Jan Harold (November 2002) [2001]. "The Jewish Secret Tax". Encyclopedia of urban legends (Reprint ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. pp.  222–223. ISBN   0-393-32358-7. LCCN   2001000883.
  12. 1 2 Wein, Berel (December 27, 2002). "The problem with Shinui". Jerusalem Post. pp. 8B. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved October 24, 2006. …due to the volume of goods produced, the cost of certification per unit is so small that it really does not figure in the cost of the product. Alt URL
  13. ↑ Leonard Sloane (May 18, 1975). "Calling It Kosher: How to and Why". The New York Times.
  14. ↑ "The "Kosher Tax" Hoax: Anti-Semitic Recipe for Hate". Anti-Defamation League. January 1991. Archived from the original on October 23, 2006. Retrieved October 23, 2006.
  15. 1 2 Luban, Yaakov (July 18, 2004). "The "Kosher Tax" Fraud". Orthodox Union . Retrieved October 23, 2006.
  16. ↑ Levenson, Barry M. (2001). Habeas Codfish: Reflections on Food and the Law. University of Wisconsin Press. p.  188. ISBN   0-299-17510-3. Adherents to other faiths, including Moslems and Seventh-Day Adventists, look to kosher certification for a variety of reasons (including making sure the product is pork free).
  17. ↑ Sullum, Jacob (July 1993). "Kosher Cops". The Freeman . 43 (7). Retrieved November 3, 2013. …anti-Semitic propaganda has for years railed against what hate groups call "the kosher tax." This is the alleged increase in price that results when a food company pays for private kashrut supervision, so that its products can display a mark of certification… For those who don't buy Jewish-conspiracy theories, a more plausible explanation is that the companies have calculated that the extra business generated by kashrut certification more than makes up for the cost of supervision. (Hence no price increase is necessary.)
  18. 1 2 Shafran, Avi. "Yes Bubba, It's a Jewish Plot", Cross-Currents, January 19, 2007.

Related Research Articles

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 Sephardic or Modern Hebrew is pronounced kashér, meaning "fit".

Kosher is food that may be consumed according to kashrut, or Jewish dietary laws.

Jew Watch was an antisemitic website promoting Holocaust denial and negative claims about Jews. The claims included allegations of a conspiracy that Jews control the media and banking, as well as accusations of Jewish involvement in terrorist groups. The site contained propaganda, according to Sam Varghese of The Age, similar to that used in Nazi Germany. It was widely considered a hate site. Jew Watch received support from Stormfront, a white nationalist and neo-Nazi site. The site described itself as a "not-for-profit library for private study, scholarship, or research [that keeps] a close watch on Jewish Communities and organizations worldwide".

A hechsher is a rabbinical product certification, qualifying items that conform to the requirements of Jewish religious law.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orthodox Union</span> Orthodox Jewish organization in the US

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Ⓤ, is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hebrew National</span> Packaged hot dog and sausage brand

Hebrew National is a brand of kosher hot dogs and sausages made by ConAgra Foods. In 1982, Hebrew National opened a non-kosher division under the name National Deli; it was sold off in 2001, and is now based in Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OK Kosher Certification</span> Food-products certification agency

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosher style</span>

Kosher style refers to foods commonly associated with Jewish cuisine but which may or may not actually be kosher. It is a stylistic designation rather than one based on the laws of kashrut. Generally, kosher-style food does not include meat from forbidden animals, such as pigs and shellfish, and does not contain both meat and milk in the same dish; however if such dish includes meat, it might not be kosher slaughtered. In some U.S. states, the use of this term in advertising is illegal as a misleading term under consumer protection laws.

The Islamic dietary laws (halal) and the Jewish dietary laws are both quite detailed, and contain both points of similarity and discord. Both are the dietary laws and described in distinct religious texts: an explanation of the Islamic code of law found in the Quran and Sunnah and the Jewish code of laws found in the Torah, Talmud and Shulchan Aruch.

Antisemitic tropes or antisemitic canards are "sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since the Middle Ages, such reports have been a recurring motif of broader antisemitic conspiracy theories.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosher restaurant</span> Restaurant serving food permissible in Jewish dietary law

A kosher restaurant or kosher deli is an establishment that serves food that complies with Jewish dietary laws (kashrut). These businesses, which also include diners, cafés, pizzerias, fast food, and cafeterias, and are frequently in listings together with kosher bakeries, butchers, caterers, and other similar places, differ from kosher-style businesses in that they operate under rabbinical supervision, which requires that the laws of kashrut, as well as certain other Jewish laws, including the separation of meat and dairy must be observed.

Civil laws regarding kashrut are found in several countries. Advertising standards laws in many jurisdictions prohibit the use of the phrase "kosher" in a product's labelling, unless it can be shown that the product conforms to Jewish dietary laws; however, the legal qualifications for conforming to Jewish dietary laws are often defined differently in different jurisdictions.

Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hostility, prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group. This form of racism has affected Jews since Canada's Jewish community was established in the 18th century.

Anti-Jewish boycotts are organized boycotts directed against Jewish people to exclude them economical, political or cultural life. Antisemitic boycotts are often regarded as a manifestation of popular antisemitism.

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.

The Jewish-American patronage of Chinese restaurants became prominent in the 20th century, especially among Jewish New Yorkers. It has received attention as a paradoxical form of assimilation by embracing an unfamiliar cuisine that eased the consumption of non-kosher foods.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Halal conspiracy theories</span> Conspiracy theories about halal certification

Halal conspiracy theories revolve around a series of Islamophobic conspiracy theories and hoaxes regarding halal certification in products such as food, beverages and cosmetics. The claims usually made include that the sale of halal-certified goods in stores is a precursor to the Islamization or institution of Sharia law in a non-Muslim country, that the fees paid by companies for halal certification fund Islamic terrorism, that halal slaughter for meat is cruel, unhygienic or constitutes as animal sacrifice, among others. The spread of these claims has resulted in boycotts and harassment campaigns against businesses who sell halal-certified products, most notably in Australia and India, although anti-halal boycott movements also exist in Denmark, France, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.