Trading Shellfish for Shabbat

Eldad Vezehu, the Jerusalem restaurant famous for French dishes including non-kosher seafood like clams and mussels and meat-and-cheese specialties has decided to change direction and open its doors to the kosher crowd.

Owners say they simply got tired of working on Shabbat, after 14 years of operating seven days a week. Once they decided to close for the Israeli weekend, the logical next step was to change the menu and apply for a kashrut certificate in order to appeal to kosher-keeping Jerusalemites.

The restaurant is located in Jerusalem`s Feingold Courtyard, just off Jaffa Road near Ben Yehuda Street walking mall and Zion Square. The courtyard is home to several of the city’s non-kosher restaurants and trendy bars.

New menu items include thigh and leg of goose hip in rosemary and garlic sauce, lamb with Jerusalem artichoke, Swiss chard salad with sweet potato, and much much more. The desserts will also remain, including homemade souffles and tarts prepared on order by the restaurant’s pastry chef.

Tel: (02) 625-4007

Hours: Sun-Thurs noon- late

Friday noon – One hour before Shabbat

Saturday – One hour after Shabbat - late

Kosher off the beaten track

In some American cities, kosher food could be considered almost run-of-the-mill to Jews and non-Jews alike. There are more kosher restaurants in the metro-New York area than anyplace outside Israel, and large Jewish communities such as Miami, Florida, London, England and Melbourne, Australia boast impressive lists of kosher establishments.

In recent years, however, kosher food has become something of a fad, even outside “traditional” Jewish quarters. Unlikely locales such as Newport, Rhode Island and Oahu, Hawaii recently celebrated openings for kosher restaurants, and the Orthodox Union recently called on U.S. airlines to offer kosher food for sale on domestic flights. Heck, some people are even getting their pets into the act.

And speaking of out-of-the-way kashrut stories, here is a decent review of Sophie Judah’s “Dropped from Heaven” (Schocken, 243 pages, $23), which deals with culture and kashrut issues for Bene Israel community in India.

Kosher wines

Like most American-born Jews born before 1980, I grew up associating kosher wine with sweet, Manischewitzkiddush wine. To me, Friday night still isn’t the same without it, but the kosher wine industry has taken huge leaps forward over the last two decades, and top quality table wines are available from just about every continent.

In Israel, most tourists are familiar with the Golan Heights Winery in Katzrin and Mizrachi Carmel Winery in Zichron Ya’akov, but dozens of boutique wineries have cropped up in Israel’s highland areas over the past decade, including more than a few kosher ones. Drive Israel features a self-guided driving tour of some of the finest ones in the northern region, and six out of the nine wineries are kosher. One place that didn’t make it onto the list, Dalton Winery just north of Tzfat, produces some of the finest kosher wine currently on the market.

In the Jerusalem area, the Gush Etzion Winery is located 15 minutes south of the capital, and features a classy dairy menu to boot (local tip: they also make one of the best cappuccinos in the area!). To the east, Hamasrek is located just off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, on Moshav Beit Meir in the lush
Jerusalem forest. Domaine du Castel (Ramat Raziel) Tzora Wines (Kibbutz Tzora) also provide high-quality wines in limited numbers. In both Jerusalem and the north, larger operations offer regularly-scheduled tours and wine tasting, but those wishing to visit smaller operations are advised to call first.

On the internet, several portals have made international kosher wines accessible and affordable. The Kosher Wine Review is exactly what the URL says it is: a comprehensive review of virtually every kosher wine in the world. In addition, Finest Wine has a magnificent selection of kosher Italian and French table wines, and Australia-based Kosher Wine features information about Beckett’s Flat and Teal
Lake, the country’s two kosher labels. Another useful portal is Israel Wines (site loads in Hebrew, but there is a link to the English-language content on the right side of the page).

For newcomers to the intricacies of kosher wines, the high holiday period brought on a flurry of “introduction to kosher wine” articles, including several from unlikely sources. Oddly enough, the Twin Cities (Minnesota) Daily Planet featured an informative, well-written overview of kosher wine, and of kashrut in general for the uninitiated. The Jerusalem Post did the same a week earlier, as did a nifty-looking Atlanta-based e-zine called Creative Loafing.

Eco-kosher

It could be a delayed reaction to PETA’s exposé about inhumane treatment of animals at a kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa a couple of years ago, but there seems to be a movement towards demanding shochtim and abattoirs display ethical and humane treatment of animals.

Of course, Jewish vegetarian groups have been around for years, but there are sparks that even the kosher meat market might be inching towards animal rights concerns. Over the summer, the Washington Post and New York Times both ran long features about the blending of ethical concerns with ritual ones, and the Forward newspaper used the run-up period to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to talk about moves in the Orthodox world to treat chickens used for the pre-Yom Kippur kapparot ceremony humanely.

Technically, kashrut has nothing to do with treating animals properly before slitting their throats: If a knowledgeable shochet kills a kosher animal in accordance with halacha, the meat is kosher. But to many people, the “whys” of keeping kosher are just as important as the “hows,” and explanations about “why keep kosher” often include kashrut’s supposed ethical superiority.

Even non-Orthodox kosher-keepers are getting in the fray. Over the summer, the Conservative movement announced plans to issue a hechsher tzedek, intended to confirm that workers and animals are treated appropriately at kosher slaughterhouses, focusing on creating kosher conditions at all stages of the process. The move is strongly opposed by Orthodox organizations.

Take me out to the (kosher) ballgame

Going to the ballpark this summer in the U.S. (and now in Israel) need not mean sweaty salami or soggy tuna fish sandwiches for the kosher community.

Kosher Sports Inc. provides kosher hot dogs at stadiums in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Miami. Strikly Kosher has metro New York covered, with stands at Yankee Stadium, Giants Stadium, Continental Arena, Nassau Coliseum and Richmond County Bank Ballpark, home of the minor league Staten Island Yankees. The Staten Island team even has bentchers embossed with the team name for those who don’t want to miss Mincha or Maariv at the ballgame.

The Jewish Press reported last summer that Chabad of New Hampshire was bringing kosher food to select home games of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats in Manchester, N.H.

The Los Angeles Dodgers serve kosher hot dogs at several games each year, as do the Arizona Diamondbacks.

But we think the best option for kosher baseball fans is the Israel Baseball League, set to begin its inaugural season in Israel on June 24 with teams like the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox, Raanana Lightning and Petah Tikva Pioneers, managed by the likes of former NY. Met Art Shamsky, former N.Y. Yankee Ron Blomberg and former Chicago Cub Ken Holtzman. There are no games on Shabbat, and all concessions will be kosher.