RESTAURANTS : Kosher Cops Answer to a Higher Authority

A thousand angels can dance on the head of a pin, but the laws of kashrut-- what is kosher, or permitted to Jews, according to the dietary laws--could hardly fit into the heads of a thousand angels. --Israel Shenker

It’s not just a matter of separating the flayshik (meat) from the milchick (dairy). The laws of kashrut are demanding and exact--so exact that many of Los Angeles’ most established Jewish restaurants have never bothered to apply for kosher status.

“It’s a hassle,” says Al Langer, owner of Langer’s Deli, which has been in business for nearly 41 years. “You’ve got federal laws and a whole bunch of other baloney to deal with. Then the rabbis argue with you. It’s absurd, a ridiculous thing.”

Langer certainly isn’t alone in his convictions. Other venerable deli institutions--Canter’s, Art’s Deli, Junior’s--are not kosher. But a new guard of restaurateurs is emerging; they’ve decided that kosher kitchens are worth the hassles. And with the steadily rising numbers of Orthodox Jews in Los Angeles (the community has nearly doubled in the last 10 years), there are plenty of customers to go around.

“Seven years ago we’d get two or three application inquiries a year,” says Rabbi Binyomin Lisbon, kashrus administrator for the Rabbinical Council of California, “now I’m getting at least one or two calls a week.”

The council, Southern California’s largest Orthodox rabbinical organization, currently has 24 certified kosher restaurants or delis in its jurisdiction, with certification pending on four other restaurants that are set to open within the next few weeks. Add to that number approximately 15 other kosher restaurants under the supervision of either smaller rabbinical organizations or individual rabbis.

“There’s never been a time when so much has been available,” Lisbon says.

Kashrut all comes down to a single biblical commandment: “Thou shalt not eat any abominable things.” It seems a reasonable request--most people don’t go out of their way to eat abominable things. Of course, since what is abominable to one may not be abominable to another, the Old Testament goes on to define the term in great detail.

The most important shalt not--it’s mentioned three times in the Bible--has to do with not seething a kid in its mother’s milk. Pork is the most famous abomination in the meat kingdom--a hog doesn’t cheweth its cud and is, well, a pig and will eat just about anything. And even among the three safe animals (cows, sheep, goats) there are intricate rules about slaughtering techniques, cooking methods and even the cuts of beef allowed. No filet mignon, no T-bone steak, no porterhouse, no round steak--if it’s past the withers (or hips) it is trefa, or forbidden.

Banned in the book of Leviticus are the camel, hare, eagle, vulture, raven, rock badger, owl, lapwing, hawk, pelican, stork, heron, bat, ostrich, weasel, crocodile, lizard and other swarming and slithering things because “they are a (sic) detestable thing.” While locusts, crickets and grasshoppers are not detestable according to Leviticus, we have yet to see these delicacies served in Los Angeles’ kosher restaurants.

To keep all the rules straight, each kosher restaurant must be under rabbinical supervision. The council has about a dozen inspectors, who constantly check certified restaurants, butchers, hotels, groceries and wholesalers--sometimes as often as twice a day.

Then there are the state inspectors to deal with. Three years ago California passed a bill (currently up for renewal) that provided funding for the state Department of Agriculture to set up a kosher inspection program.

The need for legislation became apparent when the state attorney general’s office got a tip that several kosher meat markets were selling non-kosher meat as kosher. The undercover investigation, involving several middle-of-the-night stakeouts in back alleys, turned up what Herschel Elkins, senior assistant attorney general, called a major case of consumer deception. “Lo and behold, we caught four companies directly in violation,” Elkins said, “and some others who closed up before we could bring actions against them.”

The council’s Rabbi Lisbon says that the state action was a turning point of some sort. “The (kosher shops) also know that we’ve tightened up in the last few years,” Lisbon says. “The application process (for kosher certification) has become much more thorough.”

The stricter enforcement guidelines seem to have worked. “It got the charlatans out of the business,” says state inspector Dick Gonser, who claims to have found no major violations in his three years on the kosher beat. “I’m a goy ,” he adds, “but I just happen to be a kosher cop.”