A Year in the Making: Behind the New Lamed-K Certification

By COLlive reporter

The roots of the new Lamed-K kashrus agency can be traced back to the Gala Banquet of the Kinus Hashluchim and one person who was watching it – online.

That person was Hershey Friedman, the Canadian Jewish billionaire businessman and philanthropist.

Watching the impressive gathering of over 5,000 Chabad Shluchim, he wondered: if each leads a community and institutions, where do they get their kosher meat from?

It certainly wasn’t from Agri Star Meat & Poultry LLC, the largest kosher meat plant in North America based in Postville, Iowa, which Friedman purchased in 2009 following the legal troubles of the Rubashkin family.

“When we took over Agri, the Shor Habor brand was tiny – almost like a forgotten child,” a ranking source in the factory told COLlive.com.

Shor Habor was the meat label considered “Lubavitch shechita” and certified by CHK – the kashrus agency of the Crown Heights Beis Din.

At first, Friedman tried to promote the brand. The source says: “We put the brand everywhere in the country – in places it never existed before. We put it on the map – even in California and Florida, where they didn’t care for specifically a Chabad hechsher.”

PRIORITY MEAT

In Chassidic communities, there has been a longstanding emphasis on being careful (mehader) with regard to eating habits, believing that what a person consumes affects their physical and spiritual qualities, as well as those of their children.

Stories were told of Chassidim and Misnagdim reaching an unwritten agreement in the shtetls and cities of Eastern Europe that the Rov could be a Misnaged or Litvak, so long as the shochet (ritual slaughterer) would be a Chossid.

The Rebbes of Chabad were stringent that the shochet should be an even more pious man than the Rov and that he learn Chassidus regularly and immerse himself in davening (avodas hatefillah).

In previous generations, each Chabad community had its own shochet, and Chassidim exclusively ate meat from their work. With industrialization and the ability to import meat from distant places, the need for local shochets diminished. This allowed for the purchase of high-quality kosher meat slaughtered elsewhere.

The quality of kashrut and the refinement of the meat now depended not only on the slaughterer but also on the supervision body overseeing it.

The Rebbe introduced the concept of “Lubavitch shechita,” or shechitas Lubavitch, emphasizing its importance publicly and privately to Chabad rabbis. According to the Rebbe’s guidelines, not only the shochatim, but also the bodkim and menakrim (those examining the lungs) must adhere to the same standards, as they also have a spiritual influence on the slaughtered meat.

After providing meat with these stringences, Friedman began to notice that while others were purchasing it, there were still many Lubavitchers who weren’t.

A PLEA TO LUBAVITCH

This led Friedman to question, as he was watching the International Kinus Hashluchim in New York, why the meat his company produced with this strict Lubavitcher shechita wasn’t being purchased by all Lubavitchers.

Over the years, Friedman and his staff have led the brand’s slow but steady growth, but saw there was room for even greater market penetration among Shluchim and their communities.

After discussions, he concluded that the CHK certification lacked ‘brand recognition,’ similar to the OU and Rabbi Menachem Meir Weissmandel, Rov of the Nitra community in Monsey, NY, who oversees the entire kashrus of AgriStar.

Friedman proceeded to reach out to Chabad officials, including members of Vaad Rabbonei Lubavitch (VRL), the central Beis Din of Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbis in the United States and Canada.

In a letter dated July 10, 2023, which COLlive has obtained, Friedman wrote:

“I would like to continue my efforts to facilitate more robust outreach to the wider Chabad Shluchim community throughout North America and the world.

“Agri Star has put tremendous resources towards growing the Shor Habor brand so that it can be readily available to the Chabad Kehilla and the wider kosher-eating consumer.

“We believe the VRL to be a key component in developing better communication and coordination with the Shliach network worldwide, to give them confidence in our company and the standards of Kashrus we provide.

“Therefore, we request that the VRL work with Agri Star to help communicate directly with community shluchim, and the wider Chabad community, regarding the high standards of Kashrus of the Shor Habor brand in line with those set forth by the Rabbonei Chabad.”

THE MAKING OF A KASHRUS AGENCY

Kashrus is one of the Mitzvah campaigns of the Rebbe, yet the Chabad movement does not operate any kosher certifying agency. Chabad rabbis do however, in their respective locations.

Therefore, Friedman’s plea was not something that Vaad Rabbonei Lubavitch would have been able to implement. It led a few others to take the lead.

Chief among them was Rabbi Shlomo Segal, a Dayan in Crown Heights who represented the CHK overseeing the Shor Habor process at AgriStar. Following a long-standing dispute in the Beis Din, Rabbi Segal was fired by the CHK.

Joining Rabbi Segal in this endeavor were Rabbi Aaron Lieberman, Shliach and Rov of the Lauderhill Chabad community and president of the ORB kashrus agency of Florida, and Gedalya Oberlander, formerly of Monsey, and today of Kingston, Pennsylvania.

Thus began months of groundwork to create a national certifying organization called Beis Din Meyuchad L’kashrus M’rabbonei Lubavitch. It would be commonly referred to as Lamed-K for Lubavitch Kosher.

COLlive has learned that AgriStar planned to transfer the Shor Habor brand to be certified by Lamed-K, and planned to create a new and smaller brand to be exclusively under CHK. Both brands would be Lubavitch shechita.

Overseeing the Shor Habor process will be Rabbi Yossi Deren, serving as the head of the shochatim of beef (gasos) and Rabbi Nissim Ben Atar as the head of the shochatim for poultry (ofos).

AND THE BREAKUP

Where this plan went sour was when Crown Heights Beis Din member Rabbi Yosef Braun visited the AgriStar plant in Iowa a few months ago, accompanied by Rabbi Avrohom Leib Greenberg, an experienced menaker.

According to a source, Rabbi Greenberg had set out a list of changes on the processing floor during the visit and instructed staff to implement them immediately.

Rabbi Weissmandel, under whom all kashrus operates at AgriStar, said it needed a better-planned orchestration. After all, all previous Chabad rabbis have never asked for these specific methods, the source said.

COLlive was told that some changes were indeed implemented while others were studied for possible implementation. AgriStar concluded that implementing all of them would lead to a significant hike in the prices of Shor Habor meats.

This past Wednesday, Rabbi Braun and his senior colleague Rabbi Avrohom Osdoba announced that they are terminating the CHK certification on Shor Habor, effective immediately. Products that are already on the market can still be eaten, they said (despite not being made with those additional changes).

In an email this past Friday, CHK Kashrus Director Rabbi Yosef Kirszenberg wrote in reference to Rabbi Weissmandel: “The CHK cannot in full conscience maintain our certification of a place when someone else decides what our kashrus standards should be, and we no longer have the ability to make kashrus decisions as we see fit.”

He added that “it is troubling that certain decisions seem to be contingent upon management approval. This undermines the integrity of the kashrus process and raises questions about the independence of the supervision.”

Rabbi Weissmandel has since responded: “After you decided to separate from your dayan who represented you (Rabbi Segal), and after you learned that he is organizing to establish a new kosher certification body, and the factory owners are considering adding another certification with its own certificate, you were angered and decided to withdraw your supervision from there – and that’s your right. But to say that there are or were insurmountable kashrus problems is far from the truth, as far as the east is from the west.”

As for Lamed-K, the same staff of Lubavitch shochtim, bodkim, and menakrim have resumed work at AgriStar – back under the supervision of Rabbi Segal, now together with his colleagues. COLlive was told the three rabbis of Lamed-K are currently on their way to Postville.

AgriStar plans to make a push to make Shor Habor available across the country. It remains to be seen how the CHK-certified food establishments will proceed with an expected shortage of meats that only AgriStar produces and which will now not have CHK certification.