Bunfight at the CK Corral

LESS than 48 hours after the Kashrut Authority (KA) told the community that the management of Iggy’s Bread does not consider it to be kosher and that they could not recommend it to the community, Iggy’s bread was served at a function under the hechsher of the KA.

Last Thursday morning, Community Kashrut (CK), a new kosher hechsher in Sydney backed by the Council of Orthodox Synagogues of NSW and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, announced that Iggy’s Bread was kosher.

The next day, on Friday, the KA told the community that it was “duty bound to inform kosher consumers that it was today informed by Iggy’s management that it does not consider itself as certified kosher”.

However, The AJN can reveal that when the KA released the statement, it was aware that L’amour Kosher Catering would be serving Iggy’s bread at a wedding on Sunday night, under the hechsher of the KA.

“They [the KA] must have known because we had organised the bread already,” L’amour’s executive chef John Mulligan told The AJN this week.

“The KA must have known before Friday that we were going to serve Iggy’s, as requested by our clients, and that it was going to be kosher.”

Between the initial announcement by CK last Thursday and the wedding under the KA’s hechsher on Sunday, the two kashrut organisations were in open warfare on Facebook.

First the KA posted that CK was not an acceptable hechsher because its standards, “in terms of kashrut itself as well as its administration”, are not up to international kashrut standards.

The KA also posted that it “is not intending to allow further debate on this matter on Facebook” and deleted comments regarding CK and Iggy’s from its page.

Meanwhile, CK’s Rabbi Yedidya Krauthammer posted: “The supervision of the Iggy’s bakery was a process that commenced four months ago, during which all ingredients used in the production of breads were checked, as well as the rate of replacement and turnover of ingredients from their storage, the level of cleanliness of the facility, the storage operations and the operation of the ovens.”

The AJN can also reveal that Kosher Australia in Melbourne assisted CK to make sure that all products and ingredients were kosher.

“A number of ingredients were replaced on the basis that they were not acceptable on any standard of kashrut, and others required replacement where they did not meet the standard of Mehadrin,” Rabbi Krauthammer said.

“The operations of the ovens were inspected in order that we could be sure that the bread would meet the standards of Pat Yisrael beyond any doubt. Over the past week regular inspections have been established, so that we can ensure that these standards are maintained.”

The AJN asked the KA last Friday what standards of kashrut CK were not upholding and also if L’amour has purchased bread from Iggy’s under the supervision of the KA, but the KA had still not responded when The AJN went to print on Wednesday.

UPDATE: Following the publication of the story in The AJN this week the KA posted a statement on its Facebook page stating that the bread used by L’amour on Sunday was made in a special supervised batch.

JOSHUA LEVI