I sent out the message below about Nosh
Express last week. I received the response in blue below from one of the people
on my list who is knowledgeable about kashrus.
Nosh Express is now under supervision of Kehilla Kashrus.
Kehilla has not terminated its hashgacha, and as
far as Kehilla is concerned, the establishment and its owner are and have always
been in good standing.
You may be interested in speaking to the owner for his
version of the events leading up to the termination of the Vaads hashgacha; he
has an interesting tale to tell.
I did call Nosh Express and spoke with someone who
identified himself as "Sharon." I asked him, "Whose Hashgocha are you under?" He
replied, "We are and have been under Kehilla Kashrus for more than 5 years."
Without pause he then added, " We decided to drop the Vaad Harabbonim of
Flatbush in September. Now the Vaad for some reason has decided to publicize
that we no longer have their supervision. There were no kashrus violations. If
there were, we would not still have Kehillah. It is all politics. We are taking
the Vaad to a Beit Din."
Sharon then volunteered to give me the numbers
of the Kehilla Office as well as of a Rabbi Adler, whom he said was the person
who personally supervises his store. They are: Kehilla 718-951-0481, Rabbi
Adler 646-739-2464.
I then called Rabbi Meir Goldberg, the Kashrus
Administrator of the Vaad of Flatbush (347-203-0289). He told me the
following.
There are 3 stores that are "related" - Nosh Express, Pizza
Nosh, and Mr. Nosh. Someone named Amos owns Pizza Nosh and Mr. Nosh and is a
partner in Nosh Express. Sharon is the other partner in Nosh Express.
In
June the Vaad raised its fees for supervision of establishments. Sharon did not
want to pay a higher fee for Nosh Express. The Vaad attempted to work out a
reduced increase for all three stores. Amos was willing to go along with this,
but Sharon refused to pay any increase. In fact, Nosh Express has not paid the
Vaad for its supervision in months. (Rabbi Goldberg was surprised that Sharon
had told me that Nosh Express had dropped the Vaad in September. Indeed, he said
all ads for Nosh Express featured the Vaad symbol until this past week.
Furthermore, the Vaad has never received either written or verbal notification
that Nosh Express no longer wanted Vaad certification.)
Despite the fact
that Nosh Express had not paid the Vaad in months, the Vaad continued to send in
a mashgiach regularly. However, it did not issue Nosh Express a Certificate of
Kashrus, because its fee was not being paid.
A couple of months ago the
Vaad mashgiach came in and saw a gentile lighting a burner from a burning piece
of paper. Vaad policies require that all food be Bishul Yisroel. They insist
that as a back up, all stoves have working gas pilots. These pilots are to be
lit only by a Shomer Shabbos Jew. The pilots are kept on, so that in the event
that a burner goes off and a gentile relights it from the pilot, then food
cooked on this burner is, according to the RAMA, not Bishul Akum.
When
the mashgiach saw a gentile had lite a burner in Nosh Express, he immediately
turned it off and lit it himself. He also checked the pilots of all of the
burners in Nosh Express, They were not lit and were not working. They were
clogged with dirt and grease and could not be lit. The mashgiach informed Sharon
that the pilots had to be repaired so that they were in working order. However,
they were not in working order the next time the mashgiach visited the
establishment. Indeed, after two months of visits, the pilots were still not
operational. The Vaad then decided that it could no longer certify Nosh Express.
The notification was then issued.
Rabbi Goldberg assured me that the
decision to issue this notice had nothing to do with the fact that Nosh Express
was not paying any fees for Vaad certification. It was a result of the owner not
having the pilots put in working order.
Dr. Yitzchok
Levine
Investigative Kashrus Reporter
Orthodox Zeides Kashrus
Organization
