[img]96|left|||no_popup[/img] Dateline Jerusalem — People sometimes think I am crazy when I say it is easier to find glatt kosher food in the U.S. than in Israel. Some do not understand why I order a special glatt kosher meal when flying El Al, Israel's national airline, since only kosher food is served on the flights. Others do not understand why I do not join them at regular kosher restaurants and insist on glatt, mehadrin or badatz restaurants. To tell the truth, I often do not understand why keeping my level of kashrut (kosher) is so much harder in Israel than it was in the U.S. In Israel it should be easy. But for me it is confusing. Since moving to Israel 4½ years ago, I feel as though I have started again from square one.

Although Jewish from birth, I have not always kept kosher or attempted to observe religious laws. I knew I was Jewish, and that was enough for me at the time. I started keeping kosher a few years prior to returning to Torah observance 17 years ago. My whole transformation has been slow. I was called a hypocrite since I did not initially observe all aspects of Judaism once I made up my mind to become religious. I followed most rules of Shabbat observance but still drove to synagogue since I lived 12 miles away. Finally I woke up and realized that keeping Shabbat by praying at home was more important than driving to synagogue for prayer. I eventually moved a little more than a mile from synagogue. Finally I could walk there on Shabbat. In Israel, I live across the street from my synagogue.

What Does Kosher Mean?

A lot of non-Jewish and non-religious Jews have the misconception that something becomes kosher if a rabbi says a blessing over the food. Not true. A rabbi does not have to come over to my home to bless the orange that I pick from my tree to make the orange kosher. However, as a religious Jew, I say a blessing before eating that orange, thanking G-d for being the Creator of the fruit of the tree. What is kosher is defined in the Torah. It is more than just the type of animals forbidden or permitted to be eaten, but includes the way the animal is slaughtered. Keeping kosher includes not mixing meat with milk products, soaking and salting meats, checking for bugs in fruits and vegetables, in rice, flour and grain (bugs are not kosher), and making sure that the pots, pans, dishes food is cooked in do not violate the laws regarding mixing of milk and meat or that the equipment used in processing food is not oiled and greased with lard or non-kosher products, for example. It involves keeping different sets of dishes, pots and pans, having separate ovens and sinks. Those are just the basics. There are so many laws to keeping kosher I do not know where to begin. Kosher-style food is not kosher food, but are just traditional dishes eaten by many Jews.

In the U.S., almost every kosher restaurant is glatt kosher. The kosher butchers have glatt kosher meats. It is so easy to eat kosher in the U.S. Glatt kosher means that the kosher animal's lungs are smooth, without any defects. Glatt is a Yiddish word for smooth. A few years ago people throughout the world were afraid of mad-cow disease, but who ever heard of mad-cow disease affecting glatt kosher beef? Nowadays, however, glatt kosher refers to other non-meat products. The term glatt implies a product is processed under a stricter standard of kashrut, similar to the Hebrew word mehadrin, which means beautified or embellished. In Israel, mehadrin means there is a more stringent level of kosher supervision than regular kosher supervision. For some people in Israel, mehadrin is not strict enough. Those people only will eat food with a badatz certification.

Not all food in Israel is kosher. Throughout Israel many places are only regular kosher. Finding mehadrin or badatz outside of Jerusalem is much harder. That means traveling to other cities for certain restaurants or shopping in particular markets, going to special butchers to make sure my level of kosher is maintained. It means checking every product in the market. I guess I do not understand why everything is not glatt kosher, mehadrin or badatz. Why isn't all kosher under strict or stringent supervision? Since the word kosher means fitting and proper, conforming to ritual dietary law, why is one kosher more kosher than another here in Israel? Keeping kosher was so much easier in the States. Some people say I make things too hard on myself when it comes to keeping kosher. But having become kosher on glatt kosher food, I cannot see myself becoming less stringently kosher just because I moved to Israel. It doesn't make sense to me.

L'hitraot. Shachar.