Forums: Kosher Gift Baskets

Regulations that came into effect in New Zealand over the weekend forbid kosher ritual slaughter (shechita). According to the new regulations, animals must now be unconscious before being slaughtered, invalidating them for kosher slaughter.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama and fellow Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel discussed the need for a renewed Middle East peace process Tuesday during a private lunch at the White House. Speaking to reporters afterwards, Wiesel said the meeting was a "good kosher lunch" between friends. But he said the conversation did turn serious, as the two Nobel Peace Prize winners discussed the administration's attempts to break the deadlock in the Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

Yes, we Jews unfortunately have our criminals. Yes, we Orthodox Jews unfortunately have our felons. We’re human, too. At middle age I have come to accept my limitations. Although I like to have an opinion on almost everything, I am conscious of the fact that I am not a legal scholar and do not understand all the complexities of the criminal case against Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of America’s largest kosher meat plant, Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa. But I am not a stupid man either. And I and a heck of a lot of other fairly intelligent and educated people...

A growing number of supermarket shoppers are going kosher — not for religious reasons, but because they are convinced the foods are safer and better for health. the strict rules for producing and certifying kosher food products may result in closer scrutiny of food safety issues. For instance, independent organizations such as the Orthodox Union are paid by food companies to send trained personnel to factories to ensure that all of the restrictions of kosher laws are met. The extra monitoring typically means that kosher products are produced more slowly than other foods. In general, kosher food has to be...

Is your matzah kosher for Passover? Israel's Chief Rabbinate is warning Israeli citizens to be on the lookout for pirate matzah. Just a week before the start of the holiday of Passover, Israeli police raided a warehouse containing a 7-ton stockpile of matzah with fake kosher certificates. Matzah is flat, unleavened bread Jews eat during the weeklong holiday instead of regular bread. Israel's Chief Rabbinate published photos Wednesday of the matzah packages, warning shoppers not to buy them. The rabbinate suspects that non-kosher flour was used to make the matzah. "I can't believe that someone would do something like that,"...

The other day, deep in Rego Park, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, Stanley Moscowitz and Walter Israel sat down at a Formica table for lunch at Ben's Best Kosher Deli on Queens Boulevard. Moscowitz, who's 53 and grew up in nearby Forest Hills, ordered first: matzo ball, tip of the tongue, roast beef, rye, Russian, onions and Dr. Brown's diet cherry drink. Israel ordered pastrami on rye bread. His son Jason ordered pastrami on white. In his defense, Jason did not ask for mayonnaise, but the combination of pastrami and white bread enjoys a certain...

HOBBY’S DELICATESSEN & RESTAURANT in downtown Newark may have lost much of its more traditional clientele over the years, but it has held on to tradition. The corned beef and the tongue are cured for 14 days in stainless steel bins in the basement. The salamis hanging on the wall look as if they’ve been drying there, their flavor intensifying, since the Brummer family bought the place in 1962. Samuel Brummer and his sons, Michael and Marc, even make their own matzo ball soup and potato pancakes. But in Newark, as in so many cities, holding on has been tough...

Koogle is the name of a new Hebrew-language Internet search engine that allows surfing without getting drowned in sexually explicit and other offensive material. The brainchild of Yossi Altman, Koogle is a pun on the Jewish noodle pudding known as “kugel.” The new search engine maybe a boon to the hareidi religious community, whose rabbis often ban the use of the Internet because of the accessibility to pornography.

(IsraelNN.com) Despite the EU Parliament's vote Wednesday to legalize “shechita,” the Jewish method of humane animal slaughter is still very much in danger. It was reported on Thursday that the European Jewish Community “hailed” the European Parliament’s vote to legalize the traditional Jewish method of slaughter into European law. However, it was later clarified that in fact, the Parliament only has consultative status in this case, and that the European Union’s Council of Agricultural Ministers will have the final say when it convenes next month. SNIP... The anti-shechita campaign has been viewed as anti-Semitic by many Jews in Europe. When...