When Lessons Aren’t Learned

By COLlive reporter

Doheny Kosher Meats might be under new ownership, but the kashrus industry is still reeling over the smuggling of uncertified meats into the store in Los Angeles.

And at least one kashrus professional says the scandal could have been prevented.

Rabbi Don Yoel Levy, CEO of the OK Kosher Certification, says that innovative suggestions he made back in 2007 would have tightened the way food establishments are monitored.

“In an article I wrote in 2007, I advocated for much more than a mashgiach temidi,” he said in a recent interview with Ami Magazine, referring to a permanent kashrus supervisor.

“Obviously, you need a mashgiach who is reliable, and someone should be above the mashgiach, making sure he is doing his job. We have a mashgiach on the mashgiach, someone to whom he has to send reports and so on,” he said.

Another suggestion Rabbi Levy said he made was a ‘track and trace’ system used by distribution and package delivery companies to record the arrival or departure of items and recording their location and the status.

“If you order something in the mail, your package is tracked,” he says. “There’s no reason why the kashrus organization shouldn’t get together and utilize this technology to track meat. The certifying agency should know how much meat they will find and have a record of each piece and where it is going.”

The tracking concept can he used another way, he said. If a food establishment indeed has a mashgiach tamidi, that person can be in charge of tracking the meat. “A mashgiach shouldn’t just be sitting in his office, reading a sefer. He should be working,” he said.

“Every meat store has a barcode system. When you go into a hardware store, they know how many screws went off the shelf, how many hammers, and they know when they have to buy new ones. Every store has a cash register. Why shouldn’t the mashgiach be part of that system?”

“This was suggested in 2007. It is now 2013. Obviously, no one found it important enough. I said then that if we don’t do this, it will happen again. And till today, there are still meat establishments that don’t even have a mashgiach temidi.”

Rabbi Levy said that the key to its success must be its full implementation by all major kashrus agencies, noting that if only one introduces measures that seem expensive or complicated, establishments can simply opt for hechsherim with lower standards.

He cited a food operator in Florida who recently lost the OK certification by refusing to follow the rules. “The hashgacha that took over removed the mashgiach temidi we had there,” he said. “Remember, the case in Monsey and the case in Flatbush involved frum owners.”

The OK, for example, sends out rabbinic coordinators to pay random visits to stores to make sure the mashgiach is present. “There should also be a camera system. Why wasn’t there one in the store [of Doheny Meats]?” he wonders.

“Unfortunately, all the kosher consumer can do is demand that the supervisory agencies implement these improvements. Regrettably, it’s the kosher consumer who suffers. They are the ones being fed meat from dubious sources at best.”

Ami Magazine pointed out that the story of Doheny Kosher Meats is a sign that the lessons of past scandals have yet to be learned.