Major Beer Distributor Once Again Sells Chametz

By COLlive reporter

For the eighth year in a row, Manhattan Beer Distributors, the largest single-market beer distributor in the country providing beer to hundreds of kosher stores and restaurants in the metropolitan area, has sold its Chometz ahead of Pesach.

Manhattan Beer sold its chometz for the first time in 2018 after Rabbi Don Yoel Levy OBM, the late head of OK Kosher and Rov of Bais Eliezer Yitzchok in Crown Heights, urged Jewish consumers to avoid purchasing brands they distributed for a period after Pesach.

Hearing the speech compelled R’ Nosson Sternberg, a Lubavitcher businessman from Crown Heights, and Rabbi Kalman Weinfeld, to take action. After much effort, they succeeded in convincing Mr. Simon Bergson, the CEO of the company, to sell the Chometz according to Halacha.

After that first sale, each year ahead of Pesach, the company’s Chometz is sold, facilitated by Rabbi Kalman Weinfeld, and Rabbi Yaakov Teichman from the OK Kosher, and R’ Nosson Sternberg. As of last year, the sale is even more significant, following Bergson’s expansion to companies in other states including Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Today, the delegation met with Mr. Simon Bergson and his sons, Alex Bergson and Mordechai Bergson, and officiated the sale of the chometz, to company employee Bill Deluca. The sale was certified also by Rabbi Menachem Weissmandel of Nitra.

During the warm meeting at the Manhattan Beer offices, Rabbi Kalman Weinfeld presented Mr. Bergson with a homemade Kokosh cake, made with his mother’s special recipe.

After officiating the sale of Chometz, Rabbi Weinfeld, who is the official Rabbi of the Manhattan Beer Company, assisted Mr. Bergson and his sons in donning Tefillin.