To the dismay of Israeli ice cream lovers, Haagen-Dazs may soon be disappearing from Israeli supermarket shelves following an announcement from the Chief Rabbinate banning the product. A notice issued last week by the kashrut, a rabbinical body that sets Jewish dietary law, states that because Haagen-Dazs ice cream is made with real milk it is not suitable for Jewish consumers.
According to Talmudic law, milk produced by non-Jews can only be consumed if it is produced under Jewish supervision to ensure it has not been contaminated with milk from non – kosher animals. There is thought to be less chance of contamination with powdered milk.
As long as Haagen Dazs continues to use real milk, it will be off the menu for Jewish consumers. Selling the ice cream in kosher stores and restaurants also constitutes “a severe infringement of kashrut procedures”…
Israel’s largest supermarket chain Shufersal has already pulled the product off the shelves in all 270 of its stores. On Sunday a Shufersal representative confirmed they would not be selling the ice cream for the foreseeable future.
The crap regulation of public life by theocrats is as foolish and backwards in Israel as India, America as Afghanistan.
Aren’t there non-Kosher supermarkets in Israel? Anyone know?
Yes, there are nonkosher food stores in Israel. I think there are both kosher and nonkosher McDonalds in Israel (not positive, but some McD’s do not carry what the other McD’s carry).
You CAN by pork/ham in nonkosher food stores in Israel.
Stop the presses! An Religion is being ignorant, and taking away choice.
Redstone sums it up definitively (except for the bad grammar).
Idiots
They’ll print “Not Kosher” on their cartons and the controversy will vanish, along with some, uh, charitable contributions.
This is a shakedown for some dough, plain and simple.
Cookie-dough, probably.
http://koshereye.com/koshereye-features/food-n-drink/470-haeagen-dazsr-ice-cream.html check it out, some rabbi says it is kosher in the US:
So is Ben and Jerrys, at least in New York.
For those folks in Israel there must be an alternative to Haagen Dazs. They need to get their heads together with their local rabbinical council. In any case, not everybody needs to eat kosher , it should be up to the consumer.
“The crap regulation of public life by theocrats is as foolish and backwards in Israel as India, America as Afghanistan.”
Since when is “God” ruling America, Eideard? Your just baiting aren’t you. I see what you did there.
I think this is the best demonstration in the history of the world for the need for separation of church and state.
Taking away some choices for strict religious peoples has been done for centuries. The list is too long to convey.
Religion is used for power over the populace. If your not a strict Jew, why care. BTW Jews are in the minorities of religions, below Spiritism in actual numbers.
The US government forbids the sale of real milk.
http://realmilk.com/
Good on ya.
Properly supervised, production of raw milk should be allowed. Most people today don’t even know what real milk tastes like. What are people doing when they drink a glass of skim milk??? Grey water! Does any remember how good coffee tasted with a spoonful of cream scooped off the top of the pitcher of milk? Milk that was in the cow a couple of hours ago? And, Bobbo, by “cow” I’m not referring to my ex-wife.
Don’t believe the story that pasteurization changes milk much. It barely is heated enough to kill bacteria much less change the milk. Only temperature stabilized milk tastes wierd, and thats the safest milk to drink.
Milk is “pooled”, which means you are drinking the milk of probably 1000 cows, which increases your chance greatly of exposure to pathogens.
A rabid Chief Rabbinate I assume….. (pun intended)
#10–JB==for the win. As a home cheese maker, I will give you an amen on that. My community won’t allow chickens or goats in my front yard either. Where is the humanity?
Say what you will the Jews are some of most ethnocentric people on the planet.
Is that sarcasm? Coz it sure ain’t based on any kind of reality I’ve ever seen.
Damnit, I re-read your comment and you’re spot on.
Wheres that damn edit button.
Religion/Non-Religion, it doesn’t matter. If a government doesn’t want you to have something, you aren’t going to get it unless they get paid off more than they’re getting now.
Or you take matters into your own hand . . .
Talmudic law says it must be produced by Jews or the work supervised by Jews. In other words, they have a very strong Union.
Godda problem wid dat?
Well there’s always Sorbet.
Yum. Who can turn down Mocha chocolate icecream made from a milk that God intended for baby calfs? I can’t !!
Btw, Jews are generally awesome people. I’m a big fan even if some of the religious fanatics are weird.
Does the world really need more cheerleaders for the Zionist cause?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z8LmMtScH3g
I too like Dallas are fond of my Jewish friends. Most of my childhood friends were progressive Jews and I didn’t know what a Jew was back then.
One day at my friends house a group of women were playing cards or something, the Mother of my friend said
“oh, that’s my sons gentile friend” to one of her friends.
Later after dinner I asked my Mom what is a “gentile?”.
My Mom explained that almost all your friends are Jewish. I asked what is Jewish and Mom replied,”The Jews killed Jesus”.
I’m joking about the last part of course.
Jewish dilemma – free ham.
This is a turf war. Rabbis want control so they can charge for certifying what is kosher. Chances are there is some Israeli ice cream company that is paying off the officials so they dominate the market. There are kosher bakeries in certain cities and in order for them to be classified as kosher a rabbi has to keep an eye on the baking process.
That would explain why all the Rabbis I’ve seen lean on the chubby side.
Guess I know now I will not live or visit Israel. I love Ice Cream!
Oh, but since it’s a religion, we just take it in stride and make jokes….
….in the year 2012. Really?
Yes, I know there are far worse things related to tolerance of religious absurdity, but zero tolerance for ANY blatantly absurd restrictions would be a good start.
And a good place to start is here!
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is world-renowned for such public health decisions as banning trans fat in food and proposing a special soda tax, but last week at the United Nations General Assembly, Bloomberg kicked it up a notch.
The chief of the Big Apple told the assembled governments at the U.N. that they are responsible for making sure everyone gets enough fruits and vegetables. In fact, he called it “government’s highest duty.”
http://tinyurl.com/3k9o3xc
Typical of the ultra-Orthodox in Israel, who have way too much power due to Israel’s convoluted political system.
I would think that Haagen-Dazs would just hire a few “supervisors” and keep everybody happy, but there may be more to this. These are the folks who like to toss rocks & such at busses passing through their neighborhoods on Saturday….
(I think it’s safe to say that most mainline religions have splinter groups to which “fanatical” could be easily attached. This bunch tend not to want to kill people, though.)
Some time back, the NYPD made an arrest in an Orthodox neighborhood, and they insisted that the arrestee ride the few blocks to the “station” on the Sabbath. The arrestee and his friends offered to just walk down, and welcomed the Officers to walk with them, or ride alongside the group, but the Officers declined. A riot resulted as they tried to get the guy into the car….
Most Jews, and most Israeli’s, take a more relaxed view of this sort of thing. Israeli’s (other than the ultra-Orthodox) tend to be downright heretical about it.
But, as in many things, there are always people who stay up all night worrying that somebody, somewhere, might be having fun….
Haggen Daz is not paying enough protection money. Lookup kosher food tax.
From the Kashrut: Jewish Dietary Laws
Separation of Meat and Dairy
On three separate occasions, the Torah tells us not to “boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” (Ex. 23:19; Ex. 34:26; Deut. 14:21). The Oral Torah explains that this passage prohibits eating meat and dairy together. The rabbis extended this prohibition to include not eating milk and poultry together. In addition, the Talmud prohibits cooking meat and fish together or serving them on the same plates, because it is considered to be unhealthy. It is, however, permissible to eat fish and dairy together, and it is quite common (lox and cream cheese, for example). It is also permissible to eat dairy and eggs together.
This separation includes not only the foods themselves, but the utensils, pots and pans with which they are cooked, the plates and flatware from which they are eaten, the dishwashers or dishpans in which they are cleaned, the sponges with which they are cleaned and the towels with which they are dried. A kosher household will have at least two sets of pots, pans and dishes: one for meat and one for dairy.
One must wait a significant amount of time between eating meat and dairy. Opinions differ, and vary from three to six hours after meat. This is because fatty residues and meat particles tend to cling to the mouth. From dairy to meat, however, one need only rinse one’s mouth and eat a neutral solid like bread, unless the dairy product in question is also of a type that tends to stick in the mouth.
The Yiddish words fleishik (meat), milchik (dairy) and pareve (neutral) are commonly used to describe food or utensils that fall into one of those categories.
Note that even the smallest quantity of dairy (or meat) in something renders it entirely dairy (or meat) for purposes of kashrut. For example, most margarines are dairy for kosher purposes, because they contain a small quantity of whey or other dairy products to give it a buttery taste. Animal fat is considered meat for purposes of kashrut. You should read the ingredients very carefully, even if the product is kosher-certified.
You must eat Kosher in Israel? Never been there, just curious.
WTF == Ethnocentrism
I’m not Jewish, but there is one thing I like (and maybe some NoAgenda listeners) about the the kosher thing. It is the kosher Coca-Cola (or other soft drinks). Since corn is apparently not kosher, soft drinks made with high fructose corn syrup is not kosher. If you want Coke made with real sugar, or at lease without HFCS. Look for “Kosher Coke”. It does taste different. I try to get a few bottles during Easter period, which is when “Kosher Coke” appears around on store shelves where I live.
It’s a food protection racket. I’m guessing that Haagen Dazs refuses to pay the Rabbinical extortion fee. So they pull this “milk made by non-Jews is not Kosher” degree, out of nowhere. I’m sure that 99% of Jews would still eat it. But the grocery monopoly in Israel, just refuses to sell it. The fix is in. And for pulling this kind of anti-capitalist bullcrap. The US gives them billions of dollar in foreign aide. According to Wikipedia, it’s a brand of ice cream, established by Jewish-Polish immigrants Reuben and Rose Mattus in the Bronx, New York, in 1961. But by 2001 it had changed hands a few times, and is now owned by Nestle-General Mills. So only NOW, Israel’s food clerics object to its owners? What a bunch of knuckleheads.
STOP sending money to Israel, PERIOD.
Religious dietary laws are crazy. Its pretty much like the child’s game of cooties. Since this milk wasn’t watched by a religious figure, then it is contaminated with non-kosher cooties and can’t be eaten by Jews.
When I was younger, I had hope that the world would rid itself of superstition and non-scientific practices. Hogwash such as Kosher and Halal would go away as it was superseded by scientifically-demonstrated clean food handling and preparation. Idiotic ideas in the Asian cultures that food products derived from rare and endangered species give magical powers to consumer would be a thing of the past.
Nope. Ain’t gonna happen. Idiots have already slaughtered some subspecies of Rhino to extinction so that brain-damaged Asians could eat the horn. Similar idiots are raiding taxidermy collections cutting off the horns of dead stuffed animals for the same purpose. Similarly, Tigers and Bears in Asia are being killed and eaten (Tiger bone soup and Bear gallbladder) for the same magical bullshit reasons.
Just remember that all this bullshit originated in times past when the explanation for all disease and sickness was “magical”, and so the cures were also “magical”. Dietary laws were the bronze-age response to food safety. Following these same laws is non-scientific, idiotic and quite frankly, insane.