GLATT?? NOT!!

Professor Shapiro’s article on Glatt is well researched and clearly hits the mark. We actually can not quibble over his major points. In fact, it is only on some minor points that we disagree.

For example, the Professor wrote that non Glatt meat has been “relegated to Conservative Jews and others who don’t take kashrut as seriously as the Orthodox.”

We do not intend to comment on the standards of the Conservative movement, but in our experience, there are Conservative Jews who are no less concerned with kashruth than are the Orthodox. And, for that matter, this Jew- whose Orthodox comittment to Kashruth is well known and well documented- also sees no need, frankly, for Glatt.(We buy Glatt because we have no choice- that is all they sell.) We never bought the specious argument that if you bought Glatt you knew you were getting kosher. It always seemed to us that the very agencies who claimed that, were derelect in their duties, therefore, when they did non Glatt. And make no mistake about it, they did non Glatt before they did Glatt.

When we are in Israel, we eat Rabbanut meat. The meat in Israel is usually bad enough without adding even lower quality Glatt meat to the mix. And here in this country, what has going Glatt done for us? Mostly it has made buying kosher meat an economic hardship for many, and given the rest of us low quality meat. When we were growing up and eating regular kosher, the meat we got was more often than not prime. Since going Glatt, we never even get close to prime. Prime would be way too expensive.

The Professor’s claim that Glatt meat here in the USA is not really very Glatt at all is totally accurate. Glatt means smooth. Hah! When agencies allow up to five adhesions on a lung and still call it Glatt, what we get is fakery. We are paying a premium for meat that years ago would never have been accepted as Glatt.

At the end of his article, the Professor wrote: “A great deal has been written about how the Orthodox have in recent years adopted new religious standards. The turn to glatt, however, is in its own category, because here the Orthodox have indeed adopted a new standard, but it is not what most people think it is. If they knew the facts, they might not be so attached to the glatt-only culture of contemporary Orthodoxy … .”

How true! Is it any different when we are told every year at Passover that Jewish Law REQUIRES that we cover our counters? (not true) Or when one agency states that it is not possible to kasher glass for Passover (not true according to almost every other textual source)? Or that we may only take kosher certified vitamins (not true from a kashruth point of view)?

Institutional kashruth today reflects a point of view that is no longer grounded in the Shulchan Aruch or the glosses of the REM”A. Instead, we have standards that sound as if they are halachic, but often are extra halachic. Kind of like when the Queens Vaad states in their contracts: “All Jewish individuals who will be handling food will be encouraged to wash Nagel Vasser each morning.” Nothing wrong with that, but let’s be honest: it ain’t in the Torah! Then again, heck, who wants to chance eating food that had contact with Shaydim and Ruchot (demons and spirits)?