By Ben Lynfield, The Jewish Chronicle
As the festival of Chanukah approaches, Israelis are being warned to watch out for a particular seasonal hazard: fake olive oil.
Leading kashrut expert Rabbi Yosef Zaritsky told shoppers on the Charedi website Bchadrei Charedim that those buying oil for Chanukah, which starts on Friday night, should “be on guard for counterfeit oil.”
Officials from the Chief Rabbinate are also engaged in a campaign against brands that emerge during the holiday season selling cheap olive oil that is of questionable content.
“Fraudulent kosher seals and fraudulent olive oil often go together,” says Rabbi Rafi Yochai, the chief kashrut enforcer for the Chief Rabbinate.
“Oil fraud has been carried out on a vast scale in the past but we are fighting the phenomenon and raising public awareness of it.”
Zaritsky said that the market has been infiltrated by merchants engaging in “foilishtik,” or foolishness, by mixing in flavouring and smell additives. In some cases they mix soya oil with the olive oil.
He said there were also cases of merchants adding colouring to soya oil to make it look like olive oil.
He recommends spreading oil on one’s hand to test whether it is pure olive oil.
“If after five minutes, the smell remains, then it isn’t olive oil. The smell of olive oil dissipates.”
it sais in kitzur shulchan aruch that evry oil is kosher for the minorah (קיצור שולחן ארוך סימן קלט סעיף ד’י)
Pomace oil is the 3rd pressing of the olives after extra virgin and pure olive oil is made. Pomace oil is made by soaking the olive oil pits and scraps in chemical solvents to extract the small amount of remaining oil. This is the cheapest form of oil there is and it does not have any formal olive taste or aroma.
some of the best olives grow in europe: italy, spain, greece
somehow i donnt think its sheman zayis zach so how can it say for chanukah use and have a hechsher it’s genaivos daas because people assume if they r using oil and it says for chanukah with a hechsher it must be the best!
If you read the label on most bottles of “olive oil” sold for Chanukah, they don’t say pure or virgin olive oil. Who knows what it is anyway? Extra virgin olive oil is the closest thing to shemen zayis zach. All of this “Chanukah oil” is the cheapest type of olive oil, sold for a lot less money than the real thing. Is it even worth bothering with? And what about the “Jelled” Chanukah oil sets. I asked and was told that they are about 85% olive oil and 15% vegetable oil. So much for trying to keep the minhagim… Read more »
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, thats all you need
No Hebrew writing
Hello!? Anybody home on the halacha ranch?
Where does it say you need olive oil bichlal. It’s a nice minhag which was probably not possible in most of Europe where olives don’t grow.
Gevald. When wil manhigim stop sensatioalizing such thing. Just don’t cook with it unless it is kosher. But Licht?