|
Kevin Grace article "Is it kosher?" Please allow me to defend myself My email of 12-May-2000
My email of 16-May-2000
|
|
Joseph Ben-Ami ambush "Rebuttal" I am ambushed, and offer a brief reply My email of 26-May-2000
P.S. to my email of 26-May-2000
My email of 28-May-2000 (The "web posting" alluded to below is the present page.)
|
|
June 05, 2000 Issue Full Text |
 |
Please do not represent kosher as some sort of Jewish conspiracy against the public
by Joseph Ben-Ami |
|
proves there's some sort of Jewish conspiracy The fact that Joseph Ben-Ami was able to get a full page in The Report Newsmagazine, with color portrait, for his attack upon me, while I am denied the right to defend myself, and can't even get editor-publisher Link Byfield to reply to any of my emails, goes far toward strengthening my suspicion that: (1) there is a Jewish conspiracy — a very successful one — against the public finding out the facts of kosher certification, and that (2) Link Byfield has been bullied into joining that Jewish conspiracy. It goes without saying — or should, anyway — that such a conspiracy would be "Jewish" not because most Jews were involved in it, but rather because most of those involved in it were Jews. |
|
Some expansions are not benign. Some are metastacizing cancers that go unperceived by the victim, and are quite unlike any expansion which is driven by awareness and choice. A better comparison, in more ways than one, would be to say that the rapid expansion of the kosher market is not unlike the rapid expansion of the "Russian" mafia. |
|
only growing certification Consumers cannot demand what they are unaware of. In fact, growing consumer awareness of kosher certification is a threat to the kosher industry because of the likelihood that aware consumers will begin to choose kosher-free products. |
Failing to provide corroboration is a habit with Mr. Ben-Ami. If the "great pains" refers not to anything Mr. Ben-Ami has ever beheld, but refers only to Kevin Grace's one brief experience (coming up below), then Mr. Ben-Ami's assertion that kosher certifiers take "great pains to publicize" the meaning of their logos is unwarranted. |
the meaning of kosher labels A single small-scale and brief promotional campaign (which Mr. Ben-Ami learned of only through Kevin Grace's article on kosher, but has never seen the likes of himself) in the vicinity of Jewish neighborhoods in Vancouver does not demonstrate the desire of kosher certifiers to have their logos widely recognized. The evidence before us points to the superior generalization that kosher certifiers organize educational programs not "regularly" but rarely, and that these programs avoid targetting "the public," but rather target Jews. As to exactly what this singular program consisted of, Mr. Ben-Ami doesn't know, since he lives on the other side of the continent, and only read a brief reference to it in Kevin Grace's article. The main purpose of the campaign might have been not to promote the general public's ability to recognize kosher symbols, but rather to promote the notion that kosher products are healthier, a notion which is contradicted by kashruth authorities, as will be demonstrated below. The fact that none of the participants in this discussion reports any similar campaign being observed before or since suggests that it was experimental, and that the results were not wholly successful — promoters do not typically restrict their advertising to a few supermarkets within a single week once and never again. If kosher-certification agencies did want kosher logos to be widely recognized, then they could simply add the word "KOSHER" and the Magen David to them, which would render their meaning so clear that no educational programs would ever be necessary. To even more fully guarantee the public's ability to identify kosher logos, however, kosher certifiers could also take the obvious step of running ads in mainstream newspapers and magazines or on radio or television, which I have never seen them do. The proof that kosher certifiers don't want their logos recognized is that the vast majority of consumers in fact are unaware of the existence of these logos, and when the logos are brought to their attention, do not know their meaning. |
COR is recognized by almost nobody The comparison would be unfair indeed, as "Ralph Lauren" and "Disney" names or logos are prominently displayed, and their significance widely understood by consumers. In contrast, kosher labels are tiny, are sometimes hidden, but most importantly are designed so as to have no meaning for the vast majority of consumers. I venture to predict that not one Gentile consumer out of a hundred knows that the tiny COR on his packaging stands for Council of Orthodox Rabbis. All kosher labels could come with the word "kosher" — but they do not because it is intended that they not be recognized for what they are. Consider, for example, the following admission:
So, Ralph Lauren and Disney make their names and logos prominent and recognizable because it helps sales, and kosher certifiers make their logos hidden and unrecognizable because they know that this is the only way to avoid hurting sales. What kosher certifiers fear — and they are right to do so — is that when the public learns to identify kosher products, it will avoid them. There is no other explanation for keeping kosher logos hidden and their meaning secret. |
|
Kosher certification provides a "real service" only to (1) that infinitesimal minority of Canadians who observe Jewish dietary laws, (2) those who profit from the collection of kosher certification fees, and (3) any Jews among whom kosher certification income may be distributed. No other benefit is derived by anyone. The rumor — encouraged by the kosher business — that kosher products are purer or more hygienic or more nutritious is false — Kashruth authorities flatly deny that health is either the intent of the Jewish dietary laws or the effect:
|
|
I am flattered that the only estimate that Mr. Ben-Ami gives of the cost of kosher labelling comes from me, although I think it reflects somewhat poorly on his kashruth expertise that he is unable to cite any figures of his own. Come to think of it, this sum of $40,000 that Mr. Ben-Ami gets from me is the only statistic that he cites in his entire article, casting even further doubt upon his expertise. Had Mr. Ben-Ami been a little more assiduous in his research, he might have noted that the $40,000 that I cite was quoted by Rabbi Bernard Levi who runs the OK certification service, and who thus might be expected to be downplaying his fees, and that furthermore this fee paid by a single manufacturer was in 1975, which at 10% increase per year would be equivalent to a fee of $433,338 today. Had Mr. Ben-Ami been a little more assiduous still in his research, he might have allowed his eyes to scan down a few lines on that same page of mine, and there noted Rabbi Jonah Gewirtz planning to charge steel manufacturers $700,000 in 1992, which at an annual increase of 10% would be equivalent to charging $1,500,512 today. Had Mr. Ben-Ami not been as indolent in his research as he apparently was, he could have flipped open any book on kashruth, and there discovered sums more startling than either of the above, as for example that in New York City in 1934, "$25 million were spent above the normal retail value because the product was believed to be kosher" (Harold P. Gastwirt, Fraud, Corruption, and Holiness, 1974, p. 9). Rather a lot of money, given only New York City, and given that long ago; and let us not overlook that (the inseparable companion of kosher labelling being fraud) Gastwirt is careful to remind us that although the products may have been labelled as kosher, they possibly were not so in reality. Mr. Ben-Ami — if Kosher labelling in New York City alone way back in 1934 grossed $25 million in surcharges, don't you think that it is possible that it might gross considerably more than that in surcharges in all of Canada today? Mr. Ben-Ami — get off your butt, get some facts, and stop expecting your readers to be amused by your display of grasping at straws. Probing deeper for any evidence whatever of Mr. Ben-Ami's expertise, or any evidence that Mr. Ben-Ami had ever gone to the trouble to do the slightest bit of reading in preparation for his article, we are disappointed — Mr. Ben-Ami not only offers no numbers beyond repeating my $40,000, he also never offers a single quotation, never refers to any individual by name (except for Kevin Grace and myself), never cites a book or a newspaper or magazine article (except of course for Kevin Grace's Is it kosher?); in spite of directing his attack at me, never shows any indication of having visited my web site, or being aware of the accumulation of information on that site, or even being aware of its existence; never offers a single verifiable concrete detail which throws any light on the key questions, except in a few cases where he seems to have made up some detail whose truth ranges from dubious to plainly wrong. Continuing to sift for some sign of Mr. Ben-Ami's expertise — we might expect that if he had ever published anything (not necessarily a book, but let us say even an article) on the subject of kosher certification, that he would have told us, which he does not. As Mr. Ben-Ami furthermore does not offer any credentials either of his accomplishments in kashruth studies, or credentials that he represents some Jewish group or some Kashruth organization, we are left with the overpowering impression that he is just a guy who wandered in off the street, figuratively speaking, and was given a full page in The Report Newsmagazine, color portrait included, merely out of consideration for his being Jewish. On that page, Mr. Ben-Ami bent his efforts to slandering me, and editor-publisher Link Byfield of The Report Newsmagazine denied me the opportunity to defend myself out of consideration for my being Ukrainian. |
|
The bank robber who makes off with $40,000 might also say, "What of it? Such a sum is so small in relation to the huge amounts handled by banks as to render the loss to the individual depositor negligible." Can Mr. Ben-Ami be so naive as to not recognize that this one bank robber will rob another bank tomorrow, and another the day after that, and that his successes will encourage others to rob banks, and that their example will encourage crime of all sorts, and that the money that these many criminals accumulate can be used to stage still greater crimes, and that sums larger than $40,000 will be lost, and so on, and so on, all working toward the destruction of the society? Mr. Ben-Ami's argument that a $40,000 loss to Canadian consumers is insignificant is analogous to the argument that three cancer cells discovered in a biopsy are too few to be a threat to the patient. The whole point is that the biopsy cancer cells are an indication that cancer exists in the body, and a warning that the cancer may have spread, and a threat that it will spread; and in the same way the existence of a single $40,000 secret payment bringing no benefit to the general consumer is an indication that the economy is being parasitized, and a warning that the parasitization may have spread, and a threat that it will spread. |
|
reversal of the truth Of course Mr. Ben-Ami does not tell us how he arrived at his remarkable conclusion that kosher products are cheaper. He is blessed with the gift of pulling facts that suit him out of thin air, and he is blessed with the even greater gift of hypnotizing editor-publisher Link Byfield into not requesting corroboration. However, the kosher literature swamps us with evidence to the contrary. You will recollect Rabbi Shulem Rubin above telling us that Holly Farm chicken may sell for 39 cents a pound, while indistinguishable kosher chicken sells for $1.69 a pound. I find such statements that kosher is more expensive abounding in the kosher literature, and I find statements supportive of Ben-Ami's contrary assertion totally absent. Here are two quotes that I am readily able to lay hands on:
|
|
can't find out the gasoline tax I do not linger over Mr. Ben-Ami misquoting me — his error doesn't change my meaning, but it does fortify the image of slovenliness that the rest of his article has been building up. I also do not linger over the abomination of not knowing what "to beg the question" means, and incorrectly guessing that it means "to call to mind the question" — though at least here Mr. Ben-Ami can offer the defense that he is merely following the recent lead of others whose education has been as defective as his own. More to the point — I can readily find out what the government tax is on gasoline — I can telephone the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) or any gasoline retailer, or I can email a business reporter at a newspaper, or I can write my member of parliament, or I can ask the manager at a gas station — and any of these will give me the answer, and they won't call the thought police, and they won't question my sanity, and they won't try to get me fired, and they won't menace me, and they won't have me investigated. I can do even better than that — I just did an Alta Vista Canada search for "gasoline tax" on the Internet. Item number three looked promising — a CAA site — and so I clicked on it first, and the very first sentence told me that the federal tax on gasoline was ten cents per liter. Of course more detailed information is available only a few mouse clicks away, as for example the following fuel taxes in New Brunswick: Gasoline tax 10.7 cents per liter Motive fuel (diesel) tax 13.7 cents per liter Propane tax 6.7 cents per liter Aviation fuel tax 2.5 cents per liter Locomotive fuel tax 4.3 cents per liter Any degree of detail is available — that Alta Vista Canada search for "gasoline tax" netted me 62,570 pages of information. In contrast, there is no way to readily find out the magnitude of the Jewish supermarket tax, and when I try, Jews as far away as Ottawa and New York City (good thing I'm not paranoid, or I'd suspect a conspiracy) write articles hassling me, but not giving me the answer. There is, in short, a stunningly-obvious difference in the availability of information regarding the government gasoline tax and the Jewish supermarket tax, and for Mr. Ben-Ami to pretend not to see this stunningly-obvious difference indicates a willful blindness which sends his already-shaky credibility crashing to the ground. |
|
upon things he does not know Has either the Council of Orthodox Rabbis (COR) or the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) authorized Mr. Ben-Ami to describe their business relationship? If so, then Mr. Ben-Ami should announce this, and then as a recognized spokesman of these organizations, his words might carry some weight. If not, then Mr. Ben-Ami should disclose the alternative source of his information. In the absence of either of these, he may be suspected of additional fabrication. |
|
long enough to write your essay You can go back to sleep now. |
|
If you want to know what qualification did get Mr. Ben-Ami a page in The Report Newsmagazine, please ask editor-publisher Link Byfield through any of the channels given at the top of the present page, as for example by emailing him at [email protected]. |