PRINT15 Av 5770
July 26, 2010
Yeshivat Netiv Meir, located in the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Yerushalayim, took a major step during the vacation months, kashering the entire kitchen to the standard of Badatz Mehadrin, under the supervision of Rav Avraham Rubin Shlita.
That means beginning this fall, the school’s cafeteria meals and all food produced on location will be under the supervision of the Badatz.
The new operation runs under the name Dash Catering (054-490-6816- Avi Scharf)
Why exactly should a yeshiva be expected to have its kitchen under a specific hechsher? It is expected that any real yeshiva has someone in charge of its kitchen who is reliable enough to actually do so properly.
A number of months ago, I attended a kashrus conference for yeshiva heads and folks responsible for yeshiva kitchens, administrators and cooks. It was more than a bit alarming to learn how many ‘frum’ yeshivot(s) simply trust the kitchen to a religious person, and too often, it becomes a case of each rav assuming the other is taking care of business.
As a result, there are too many yeshiva kitchens with non-Jewish or Jewish cools serving unsupervised meals, and the preparatory work in too many cases is sorely lacking, including but not limited to inspection of rice, legumes, greens and other basic kashrus laws.
In short, a yeshiva needs a hechsher, formal or informal (undertaken by the school’s rabbis) as does every other cooking establishment.