Not So Kosher Cell Phones

The latest hype among chareidim are kosher cell phones. Every cell phone provider in Israel offers them starting this year. Basically you get a defeatured phone with a defeatured service, with a mehadrin hashgacha label printed on the phone (not kidding), and a separate phone number to indicate so. You can read all about them here: http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/TZR66acellphn.htm

If you ask me, I really don’t care for this whole nonsense, except here is the problem. The kosher phones have different prefixes after the area code to signify that they are kosher, so everyone knows which service you subscribe to. Even if your regular service doesn’t have any of the content that the kosher phones prevent you’re in trouble.

So now people are getting harassed constantly if they don’t have a kosher phone. There are signs sprouting up around religious neighborhood. People get calls from the “moral religious squad” that they better switch or else. Chareidi newspapers will not print your ad if you don’t have a kosher phone, and I am sure soon (if not now) you will need to sign a paper when you sign up your kid to a chareidi school that you only use kosher phones.

All these phones have accomplished is that more Jews hate and abuse more Jews than before, nothing more.

Here is a prime example.

I was driving home with my Sofer Stam teacher, a prominent sofer in the area. He gets a phone call on his cell phone while we are in the car from some stranger who starts screaming at him about how dare he teaches safrus and doesn’t have a kosher phone. He basically politely told that he is not his mother to tell him what to do, he doesn’t understand his hashkafos and this guy doesn’t have to come and learn from him, wished him a nice day and hung up. Then he told me he gets these phone calls almost daily and even SMS messages (which cannot be sent from a kosher phone) about how he is violating the psak of the Gedolim and has no business teaching safrus. It’s terrible, but that’s kosher phones for you.

Sinas chinam is alive and kicking, and it even has a kosher label now. The Gedolim said it’s ok.

Funny Kosher Labels

Mehadrin hashgachos have always been notorious for strange chumras and certifying anything as kosher, even if it’s poisonous, such as laundry detergents and floor cleaners.

But these showed up around Pesach:

Butter Kosher for Pesach AND for Erev Pesach. I guess there is no Chametz AND Matza in this butter. (Click on the picture to see it clearly)




Glatt Alfalfa. Those grassy strings are real smooth.

Glatt Cheese. Don’t want those bumps and holes on the cheese. We want smooth cheese.

Stay tuned for Cholov Yisrael Chicken. Coming to the store near you.

Chareidim dressing like Muslims

I have been saying for a long time that this will happen one day. And that day was this year’s Erev Pesach. I walked into the local Mehadrin supermarket which was packed with people and see this woman standing in line to the cash register. At first I thought to myself, "That’s weird. What’s a religious Muslim woman doing in a supermarket in Ramat Bet Shemesh?" And then I realized that this is a chasidishe lady dressed in a Muslim garb. She was standing with her kid with long peyos looking like a regular chasidishe kid. But she was wearing something that looked like a hajab with her whole head covered and only her face exposed.

I don't really understand how someone can decide that dressing tzniyus is the same as dressing like a Muslim. But here it is.

I took this picture from my (obviously not kosher, but more on that later) cell phone at night on the street as they left the store.

Stocking up on Chometz

Most of us try to get rid of Chometz before Pesach, but some people have a different view of things. A couple of days before Pesach I was shopping in a large supermarket in a not very religious area. There was a Russian couple shopping who stuffed their cart with about 20 loaves of bread. I guess they had to stock up on it for Pesach for themselves and all their friends since none of the stores sell it then. Unless that was for their seder and they were planning on having lots of guests.

The bread of my affliction

I was glad to find out that machine Shmura Matza in Israel is much cheaper than it is in the US, only about $4 per kg ($2 per lb). Even the Hand Shmura is around $20 per kg ($10 per lb). And if you’re willing to wait to buy it until Erev Pesach then the price drops very significantly. All of this is of course if you go to a supermarket.

However, after talking to some of our friends I found out that instead of buying it from a supermarket, that buy it from Matza dealers and pay double or even triple from what the store price is. Someone told me they paid $40 per kg ($20 per lb) for their matza. When I asked, why, they told me because it tastes better. Or at least that’s what the dealer tells them.

I don’t know about them, but for such a price I am willing to eat the store sold matza which to me tastes just fine. Although they probably like to feel the pain of Mitzrayim while eating it, so they have to remember the piles of money which they spent on the matza just a few days before the seder. And then when they raise and say “This is the bread of affliction…” they really mean it.