Update on the Stan & Pete kashrut saga

NICOLA MILTZ

This week, the non-executive board of the UOS, as well as the Beth Din and Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein, announced that plans were afoot to address the many concerns raised following the discovery, three weeks ago, of treif chickens in the kitchen of one of the country’s foremost catering companies.

The board is made up of 13 respected and community-focused people. They include Lawrence Brick, Adrian Chiger, Tony Ellis, Steven Isaacson, Daniel Kirsh, Jonathan Levitt, Harold Novick, Benjy Porter, Kenny Rabson, Saul Sackstein, Bradley Sifris, Gary Stein and Rabbi Justin Treger. They met this week.

In a statement in response to questions from the SA Jewish Report, the UOS said it was busy “doing what it needed to do” to get two large-scale independent investigations underway.

The first investigation will be a forensic one into the Stan & Pete incident and the second will probe all kashrut supervision systems.

The UOS is in the process of formulating the terms of reference for each of them.

“It is imperative that the community understands that the UOS is taking all matters very seriously and that truth and transparency is the ultimate goal at the end of the day, as are the highest standards of kashrut. It is imperative that the urgency of this is well understood,” said Goldstein.

The investigations are complicated, but it is crucial that they be independent, thorough and effective.

The UOS non-executive board is made up of 13 volunteers, who’ve been democratically elected by the community. This communal board will oversee the process and address each and every aspect of the crisis going forward.

The communal board and the Chief Rabbi met again this week and held talks for several hours, addressing a range of pressing issues.

They are putting in place a comprehensive process to fully investigate how kashrut systems were breached in the first place, and how to make sure that this type of incident will never happen again. The intention is to ensure that the entire kashrut system is fully foolproof, to find out exactly what happened and how it could have happened, and to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

The UOS has requested that two independent kashrut experts help with its investigation. It is still waiting for the US-based Association of Kashrus Organisations (AKO) – the international governing and accreditation body of kashrut organisations – to decide who to send.

The UOS has held discussions with Rabbi Sholem Fishbane of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, who is also head of the AKO, about who will come to South Africa to lead the second investigation and how soon they can do so. This is still to be finalised.

The AKO is aware of the sensitive nature of the investigations and of the community’s insistence that things be addressed speedily and without too much delay.

Dayanim and the Beth Din are working flat out behind the scenes to resolve the current problems. Things do not happen overnight and the UOS board’s mission is to make sure that the investigations are done properly and effectively.

Harold Novick, chairman of the UOS board, said in a statement: “The investigations will be overseen by the UOS non-executive board to ensure accountability.

“The urgency of the matter is fully understood, but the urgency must be balanced with due process because of the severity of the issues at hand.

“We are committed to communicating regularly and openly with the community. In this spirit we will be releasing a series of public communications over the course of the next few weeks to keep the community fully updated.”