Is It Kosher? Here is a four page letter from Rabbi Lopatin, which answers questions about dairy products, reliable hechers, fruits, and vegetables, and more!

---

Page 1 | Page 2 | page 3| Page 4

is Kolatin. Any product with an accepted Hechsher will have the right kind of gelatin. At Passover time, especially, beware of marshmallows or any chewy candies from Israel , which might have gelatin in them.

Why are there Triangle K's on products in CRC-approved stores?

Some products do not need any supervision; therefore, having any supervision label on it - even one that is unreliable - will not change the permissibility of the product. Some products, even when they are under a normally unreliable label, are known to be under good supervision. This may be because the individual rabbi who has gone out to the factory where the product is made is reliable, or because the product is approved by multiple supervisions, but is marked Triangle K. Also, as we will mention below, both Triangle K and Half Moon K are acceptable supervisions on all canned vegetables, so they, too, will appear in CRC approved stores. Note: Sunchips bearing a Triangle K are reliably kosher.

Half Moon K: fully acceptable: Items with the Half Moon K are all reliably kosher, under Rabbi Dovid Jenkins.

The Mexican “aleph aleph” kosher supervision is now acceptable! They changed management and dropped many questionable products and are fully up to community standards.

Cheese and dairy products Please remember that all cheeses and cheese-based products need reliable supervision, even cheese which is 100% vegetarian. On behalf of the kosher world, I apologize that most kosher cheese is usually so expensive and frequently inferior in quality; this is just starting to change. Cheeses available in Jewel and Dominick's with the Tablet K are not acceptable. Fresh creams, half-and-half and even milk and Lactaid, butter, cream cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, and yogurt, all need reliable supervision. If you want to be strict about the law of "Chalav Yisra'el" (milk watched by Jews), you need to buy milk which specifically says "Chalav Yisra'el".

Canned Vegetables
Canned vegetables, along with almost all other processed foods, need reliable kashruth supervision. However, for canned vegetables, Triangle K and Half Moon K are acceptable, except that the Triangle K is not good for canned beans, potatoes and tomatoes.

Grape products: If you’re having guests, make it Mevushal or have the host pour the wine!
Wine, grape juice and any product with grape juice or grape flavoring, including unspecified "fruit juices", need to be reliably certified as kosher. Fresh whole grapes are kosher. Even if a wine is certified kosher, it may not be appropriate for your dinner table - especially in our community. That is because, since our community is so open and diverse, frequently we will have around our Shabbat tables beloved people who are gentile, not yet fully converted to Judaism or who may have converted with non-halachic conversions. In such a case, only wine that is MEVUSHAL (flash heated or pasteurized) may be placed on the table for everyone to take. Otherwise, your guests may be drinking wine rendered as non-kosher as Gallo or Paul Masson. I would recommend, then, using only mevushal wine if you are having anything but the most intimate of meals, or making sure at the very least that the host – Jewish – pours for everyone, and no one else touches the bottle.

A four page letter from Rabbi Lopatin, contd.
Page 1 | Page 2 | page 3 | Page 4