And they expected an airline caterer to have hired a rabbi they personally know? Sheesh.
Aside: i was out of town during the Crown Heights riots, so i gave my apartment keys to the lubuvitcher, telling him his family could move in while we were away. But, i said, if you do that, please don’t kosher any of my dishes. Because some of them need to be heated and/or transported, and i was afraid they might damage them.
They definitely did not, hence the rice crackers, but you are right, why even bother requesting a meal? And I wonder what one might do if one wanted to go on a trip, especially to a place where Judaism is not common.
I imagine that someone who keeps kosher at that level probably has a mental list of many rabbis he considers acceptable based on the word of his own rabbi, but doesn’t know personally. So it’s not quite as absurd as it might seem to think that an airline caterer might possibly work with one of those rabbis. What I find somewhat surprising is that the airline actually had a “backup” kosher option available.
A lot of common staples like bread and produce are assumed to be kosher without needing rabbinic certification, so you can get by anywhere in the world if you need to. And in almost any sizable city in the world there will at least be a Chabad rabbi who can set you up with kosher meat if that’s your thing. A strictly kosher person won’t be able to eat in restaurants, but they generally can’t do that at home, either.
Unfortunately, I do not recall the details of the alternative meal they were offered. Perhaps it was a vegetarian/kosher vegetarian option?
Once I wanted to go out to a restaurant with some people, including vegetarians, to a nice restaurant, but one was a strict Jain which… proved to be a problem. That is a digression, but now I wonder… could halal meat be considered kosher by some/under some circumstances, for example?
My understanding is that kosher meat by definition qualifies as halal, but not necessarily the other way around. No idea why that is; I guess the Muslim laws of humane slaughter are similar to but slightly less stringent than the Jewish ones.
What I’ve heard is that no, kosher is not automatically halal, but is an acceptable substitute if halal is not available.
In Judaism if kosher food is truly unavailable AND going without would be a true hazard to health and/or life then the food rules are suspended because preserving life takes precedence over kashrut. But you’d have to skip more than just one meal, or even an entire day of eating, to get to that point (unless you had some sort of medical issue), and you’re only allowed to break the rules to the extent necessary to preserve life until kosher food is available again.
I believe that the Muslims have a similar rule - IF there is a true threat to life and/or health the rules can be broken, but only to the extent necessary to preserve life.
I would imagine it’s the “under rabbinical supervision” part. While the butchery may be identical or virtually so, an imam doesn’t count.
I suppose the soup could have had imitation chicken flavoring or the chocolate could have used plant milk, but if they did, I couldn’t tell the difference.
I believe Muslims are allowed to eat kosher food if halal is not available. They don’t need to be starving.
I once worked with a guy who had been a kosher butcher for a while, at a place that slaughtered chickens. Back then, halal meat wasn’t available in NYC, and one of the services they offered was that a Muslim could buy a live chicken from them and use their knives and other equipment. Because the process was the same, and the difference between kosher and halal slaughter of the chicken was the religion of the guy holding the knife.
The process was the same from the standpoint of killing the chicken, yes, but the ritual part of the process - what blessing/prayer is recited, which direction you’re facing, etc. - does differ.
Kosher slaughter must be performed by a Jew
Halal slaughter is almost always performed by a Muslim but in theory could be performed by a Jew or Christian as they are “People of the Book”. That might be a major part of why Muslims are more willing to eat kosher meat than vice versa.
I hereby certify that this fish was not boiled in the milk of their mother …
Sincere regards,
John C. Lease
I’d question that …
Early in my career I worked at a frozen food company and we did have a few specially certified kosher products.
One prerequesite, IIRC (30+ years ago) … that no woman menstruating was allowed to “process” the food (vegetable mixes). The other was: not processed on a saturday (not sure how far back this would go, e.g. were the peas planted/tended to/watered/fertilized/harvested on a saturday, many moons ago?)
So they can’t have lox and cream cheese on a bagel. Pity.
Well, yeah, frozen or otherwise processed food is a whole other can of potentially non-kosher worms.
And worms are definitely NOT kosher!
Giraffes are, though!
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4655607/jewish/Is-Giraffe-Kosher.htm