New York, NY – The director of Kosher Law Enforcement for the New York State Department of Agriculture is confident that the discovery of packages of pork labeled “Shechitas Beis Yosef” at a Sunnyside supermarket was a one time, innocent mistake.
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The New Yorker magazine was first to report about the incident.
Luzer Weiss paid an official visit to the Associated Supermarket in Sunnyside, Queens this morning and did a thorough investigation of the entire facility in addition to speaking with the store managers who informed them that the first time they used the newly purchased second hand packaging machine, they noticed bizarre lettering coming up on the labels.
Having no idea what the unusual letters meant, they contacted the person from whom they bought the machine less than two weeks ago and were told how to delete the Hebrew letters from the system so that they would no longer appear on the labels. The seller also sent out a technician who went through the program to verify that there were no more Hebrew letters anywhere in the system.
“The managers were very apologetic and said the problem only affected a few packages,” said Weiss in an interview with VIN News. “They have never sold kosher meat, are not in a Jewish neighborhood and in fact, they specialize in pork and ham products. They printed out new labels for me and each one came up without any Hebrew letters.”
According to Weiss he inspected the entire store, including the packaging machine and saw no evidence of any additional labels with Hebrew writing on them anywhere on the premises.
Where’s the guy who think this was some conspiracy by Arabs and that this was done on purpose? A pretty reasonable explanation and this is not even a store that ever does sell Kosher meat, so I doubt anybody Jewish came in walking over to any meat section. Also – this incident should not take away from communities which have been frequenting stores that are not exclusively Kosher because that is where they need to get their Kosher meat. Please do not berate those that need to (and are halachically allowed to) get their Kosher meat from wherever they can in their place of residence.
Again, this was just a silly mistake. Thanks, Rabbi Weiss, for clearing this up for the public.
I’m amazed how this minor incident has been so totally blown out of proportion. It was a minor error that was quickly corrected by the store owners. No big deal and no one was hurt. There were no treifus sold and the reference to the Sephardeshe hashgacha for the pork was obviously incorrect. Again, lets not make such a big tzimmus over a minor paperwork error.
Did they spell bet yosef as ket yeesef on their whole previous line? Don’t buy it. something is not right.
This is no error this was done on purpose, this is another finkel story
So the question is why is an Israeli Artist frequenting a store that specializes in pork and other pig products.
Notice it does not say “Shechitas Beis Yosef” – but shechtas “cys yysf” .
There is not a “B” in the second word but rather a “Chuf”, and there are 2 “Yid” in the last word, rather than a Yid and Vov before the “sf”.
In any case, the pricing is good, they should start selling kosher meat..
pretty cheap for bet yosef meat don’t you think/
There is something strongly amiss with the origins of this label. One thing is certain. The graphic artist who designed this label is not versed in the Hebrew Alphabet. Is not familiar with the nuances of the distinctive (But similar looking) letters. For example. The letter “Reish” when compressed becomes a “Vav”. Or, a “Bet” without the tip at the base in the right corner reads as a “Kaf”. There was a similar occurrence (Without any Kashrus implications.) on the tubs of Kosher butter, Some similar-looking, but different sounding letters were mistakenly printed on, that confused the intended message.
To all those who noticed the spelling errors in the hebrew words. Nobody seems to have noticed that even the word shechitat is spelled shehitat with a “hey instead of a “chet” if I can see it correctly. And as pointed out the “kaf” instead of “bet” and the “yud” instead of “vav” altogether spell out “shehitat ket yisef” instead of “shechitat bet yosef”. It seems like this was done on purpose and just to be on the safe side they made a spelling mistake in EACH word. I don’t know if it was this store or the previous machine owner’s store, but someone needs to investigate this matter further and not just leave it at that…
This is no way a simple mistake. I don’t understand why Luzer Weiss would think it is- It can’t be a leftover from the previous owner because of all the spelling mistakes. Something is wrong here Mr Weiss…
Firstly, this ‘excuse’ sounds fishy as many have pointed out. Secondly, where are the real rabbis from the OU, Kof K etc.? They are asleep at the wheel! They steal money from the public yet their watchdog agencies are nowhere to be found and they never really take Legal Action . So once again do not trust (these) rabbis!
Yeh right a printing mistake. My foot this was no printing mistake, there was pork in that package.
it is time in all places were they sell meat – it should be a משגיח תמידי
Why all this nonsense, mistrust, finkel story, you people are so unintelligent it’s pathetic… the store does not sell kosher meat period… it doesn’t intend to sell kosher they are not interested in fooling anyone, the label does not even say kosher. all it’s attempting to say was Shechitas Bet Yoef, if they wanted to fool or mislabel anything wouldn’t it be logical to have it on the beef or on both rather than on the pork only? stop being so close minded and think for a minute before you shoot your guns (mouth) off
Thats a scary thought that any place could use a second hand machine thereby producing “kosher” meat. Sounds way too easy for someone else to scam their way to selling non-kosher unsuspecting (chicken, meat NOT pork) items to the jewish community.