A Supreme Effort for Kashrus
I doubt if any of the 3000 plus attendees at the 2012 Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly (GA) had as great an appreciation as I, of the efforts made to ensure the food they ate met the fod service industry’s highest kosher standards.
It’s a busy Friday afternoon, with just a couple of hours left until Shabbos. Not the best time, perhaps, for your husband to be unsure about the kashrus status of the chicken you are about to cook! You try contacting your Rav, but to your great dismay, he is unavailable.
Bob Vosburgh, Jeff Wells and Alyssa Haak
It’s tough enough getting certified on a single attribute, much less three. But Hain-Celestial Group’s WestSoy product line was able to gain organic, kosher and non-GMO certification in record time thanks to the emergence of multiple audit programs that streamline the verification process.
By Caroline Scott-Thomas
Star-K Kosher Certification has begun providing triple inspections to certify plants and products as non-GMO, organic and kosher, which it says can save companies time and money on individually conducted inspections.
STAR-K Certification’s heartfelt condolences extend to those who have lost loved ones in the recent horrific tragedy of the capsized cruise ship, Costa Concordia. Rescue operations continue to search for those who remain unaccounted for among the 4200 passengers onboard the liner when it hit the rocks off the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy.
STAR-K Kosher Certification, Inc. made history, last month, when its Director of Development Steve Sichel, conducted the first non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) organic kosher inspection – allowing for triple certification for the ordinarily individually conducted, time-consuming inspections within a normal working day. The comprehensive audit was performed for the Hain-Celestial Group’s WestSoy product line, in Boulder, Colorado.
Published Winter 2012
On Wednesday, September 7, at 8 p.m. EST, STAR-K made history by hosting the world’s first Eruv-inar. The inaugural long distance interactive presentation allowed participants from around the globe to experience a live workshop highlighting eruv shaylos through the use of pictures of eruvim, which were submitted. STAR-K’s Rabbinic Administrator, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, shlit”a, has always been on the cutting edge of the juxtaposition of advanced technology and halacha; the Eruv-inar featured Rav Heinemann discussing hilchos eruv.
Twenty-five years ago, Rabbi Moshe Fuller, z”l, a young Mexican student at Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, filled a tremendous void in the world of Jewish outreach when he founded Or HaNer. Recruiting teenagers primarily from Central and South America, Rabbi Fuller provided them with the opportunity to come to the States and experience Torah-true Judaism during their summer and winter school breaks.
If you are an eruv checker or rav hamachshir in one of the dozens of cities across the United States, Israel, Europe and Australia that has an eruv, you can now review hilchos eruv and pose your eruv shaylos, gratis, with no strings attached!
Published Winter 2010
For those of you who think that all colleges are “treif”, STAR-K Certification knows that is not the case. STAR-K certifies eight kosher restaurants, take-outs, and concession stands on seven college campuses on the northeast coast.
Washington Jewish Week, July 2009
“The kosher consumer has an influence in the marketplace that goes way beyond actual numbers,” said Dr. Avrom Pollak, president of STAR-K, which certifies as kosher everything from major appliance to food, alcohol and some prescriptions.
When Rabbi Chaim Glazer, an eleventh grade rebbi at Yeshiva Toras Chaim, in North Miami Beach, Florida, was teaching his class about Kelai Elanos (the issur of grafting two trees of different species together), his lesson plan research led him to a STAR-K Kashrus Kurrents article on hydroponics–the cultivation of plants in a nutrient solution rather than in soil. Always seeking to give his students “beyond book learning experiences”, Rabbi Glazer contacted the author of the article, STAR-K Kashrus Administrator, Rabbi Zvi Goldberg. Rabbi Goldberg suggested that he and the bochurim learn about the halachic implications of hydroponics, face-to-face–despite the fact that they were about 950 miles apart–using a video camera.
STAR-K Certification has long enjoyed a successful and harmonious relationship with Turkey for over 25 years, providing Kosher certification for scores of Turkish companies. The STAR-K symbol appears on everything from Turkish-produced beans to candy, condiments, fruits, vegetables, juices, jams, honey, oils, nuts, pasta, pickled products, rice, sauces, teas, and vinegars.
Jenna Fogel’s grandparents keep kosher and she has eaten kosher foods, but she admits she never really understood the meaning behind them. “I always thought a rabbi said a prayer and put a kosher stamp on the box and then it was considered kosher,” says Jenna, a Chemical Engineering major. Such kashrus misconceptions were clarified for Jenna and nineteen of her fellow Johns Hopkins University students when STAR-K Kashrus Administrator, Rabbi Zvi Goldberg, led them on a recent tour of Baltimore’s Seven Mile Market.
New Program Expedites Kosher/Organic Certification
BALTIMORE, Md. and SAN DIEGO, Calif. —STAR-K Certification, Inc., today announced a new joint kosher and organic auditing program with Quality Assurance International (QAI), effective January 1, 2009.
Twenty-two years ago, a young Mexican bachur who was learning at Yeshivas Ner Yisrael in Baltimore, filled a tremendous void in the world of kiruv when he founded Or HaNer. Recruiting teenagers primarily from Central and South America, Rabbi Moshe Fuller, z”l, provided them with the opportunity to come to the States and experience Torah-true yiddishkeit, during their summer and winter school breaks. Although the young husband and father was recently niftar, his dream lives on through the thousands of students he was mekarev, many of whom subsequently attended yeshivos. Today, there are yeshivos and learning programs throughout Latin America, and a kollel in Panama, thanks to Rabbi Fuller’s impact.
An article that appeared in Euroscope Magazine – for BASF employees in Europe [No. 2/2007]. The essay discusses the STAR-K Kosher certification program at numerous BASF facilities worldwide.
Teshuva (Responsa) regarding Sabbath Mode ovens by HaGoan HaRav Moshe Heinemann Shlita, Rabbinic Administrator of the Star-K
Those who are clueless but curious about kosher, have the opportunity to access the
only formal, online, interactive introductory classes about kosher on the web. Star-K’s
Virtual Kosher University will allow the kosher novice to learn the basics from Star-K’s
expert Kashrus Administrators—whether they live in Calabasas, California, or Caracas,
Venezuela! Regardless of one’s schedule, the world of kosher is now open as never before,
at one’s own pace, in the comfort of one’s own home.
“All of us grew up believing that if we ate a reasonable diet, that would take care of our vitamin needs,” says Harvard University’s Dr. Robert Fletcher. That may be good enough to ward off such vitamin-deficiency disorders as scurvy, beriberi and pellagra, but the latest evidence, he notes, is that supplementing our diets with multi-vitamins may be able to prevent the usual diseases we deal with every day – heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and birth defects.
Star-K is proud to certify the new kosher consumer-friendly Connect Io™ Refrigerated, Internet-Controlled Electric Double Wall Oven, which includes separate Sabbath and Holiday modes, programmable prior to Shabbos and Yom Tov. Each of the two ovens may be programmed separately.
Rabbi Apisdorf, well-known author of the successful award-winning Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Survival Kit, has collaborated with STAR-K on the just released Kosher for the Clueless but Curious.
Please Note : Effective March 2011 this program has been discontinued.
Long before the news of the first official “Star-K engagement” circulated, Baltimore’s Star-K headquarters tasted success. The actual distribution of the $2,500 cash “gift” incentive, on top of the customary shadchanus for the successful matches made for Baltimore’s Orthodox women, was not the sole measure of accomplishment.
Star-K’s novel attempt at remedying the universal singles problem locally was made with the twin hope of inspiring the launching of similar programs by organizations and individuals in other “out-of-town” communities. As soon as the news hit the press, Star-K was flooded with telephone calls, letters and e-mails from around the world.
Only two shuls stand in Lviv, Ukraine today. The home to approximately 6,000 Jews once bustled with 98,000, before the Second World War. Miraculously, the observance of kashrus and other mitzvos have undergone a recent revival; the collapse of the Soviet Union no longer forces Torah observance underground. Considering that just ten years ago, there were virtually no kosher products being produced in the Ukraine, Star-K’s annual Kashrus Seminar had an even greater zechus of hosting Rabbi Mordechai Bald of Lviv.
The Star-K has initiated a new lecture series designed to clarify issues and dispel kashrus misconceptions. These seminars feature a comprehensive analysis of pertinent kashrus and halachic issues.
KOSHER TODAY
Wolf Appliance Company, a leading manufacturer of luxury cooking instruments and corporate companion of Sub-Zero Freezer Company announced that the majority of its products are now certified as Sabbath – and holiday – compliant by Star-K Kosher Certification. All of the models of Wolf’s gas range top, gas cooktop, pro-range, dual fuel range, electric cooktop, and built-in electric single and double oven are approved for use in acordance with the rules spcified by Star-K. “We have worked hard to receive this certification,” said Jim Bakke, president and chief executive officer for Sub-Zero/Wolf. “We strive for product design that is aesthetically innovative and ergonomic, as well as beneficial to the specific needs of the Jewish faith.”
By: Staff Reporter
KOSHER TODAY
…Remarkably, the Star-K strives to maintain a healthy balance between its role as a local kashrus service agency and as a national symbol. This past summer, some 2000 Jewish athletes saw the local hospitality side of the Star-K. Baltimore was the host city for the North American Maccabi Games. As a result of the Star-K’s supervision, the athletes, housed at the state university in suburban Towson, were able to eat kosher throughout the 4 days of the competition. The big hit for the athletes, who came from 20 cities and several foreign countries, were the tens of dozens of kosher-certified Krispy Kreme donuts made available to them during breaks in the games.
By: Dan Mayfield
adapted from SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Three years ago, Eagle Ranch Pistachios of Alamogordo, N.M., got a request from one of its best customers. “We were requested to get a kosher certification from a customer we have a real good relationship with, a diamond broker in New York,” Eagle Ranch co-owner Marianne Schweers said. “We do a lot of corporate gifts through the company. It’s home-based in Israel and decided it wasn’t going to do business with anyone that wasn’t kosher. So we said we’ll give it a shot.”
The following article discussing STAR-K’s Sabbath Mode appliances was penned by Annie Groer and appeared in the Washington Post on April 16, 2001:
In the beginning, strict biblical edicts governed cooking during the Jewish Sabbath and holy days.
These days, appliance-makers are adding features to help Jews cook yet comply with bans on work during the day of rest and starting fires on holidays. Dacor (since 1989), KitchenAid (since 1996) and General Electric (beginning this week) offer ovens and stoves equipped with what all call a “Sabbath Mode.”
STAR-D
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