OU Kosher Presents Kashrut Series for Advanced RIETS Students, 6/4-19

25 May 2012

OU KOSHER HEADS NORTH, TO YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, FOR BIANNUAL SEMINAR TO ADVANCED RABBINIC STUDENTS ON CUTTING-EDGE FOOD TECHNOLOGY, JUNE 4-19

OU Kosher’s Harry H. Beren ASKOU Outreach Program will make its biannual trip north from Lower Manhattan to the Wilf Campus of Yeshiva University, when it presents its “Kashrut in the Community” June Z’man Program for advanced rabbinical students June 4 -19 at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of YU. The program was last held in the summer of 2010, after the end of the regular school year.

The students have all studied the Yorah Deah compilation of halacha relating to kashrut; the program will focus on state-of-the art practical aspects of that halacha in a world of ever-changing food technology. The faculty will consist of experts from the OU Kashrut Department, lecturing on their specialties. OU Kosher CEO Rabbi Menachem Genack, himself a graduate of RIETS and a Rosh Yeshiva at the Seminary, teaching Yorah Deah, will give one of the presentations.

Rabbi Yosef Grossman, the OU’s Senior Educational Rabbinic Coordinator, who supervises this program remarked, “We look forward to the RIETS semicha students once again experiencing a high quality kashrut program on the cutting edge of modern-day kosher food technology, as they look behind the scenes of the OU, the world’s largest kosher certification agency.”

“The OU Kashrut program at RIETS is an invaluable resource for our semicha students as it enables them to observe first-hand how the laws and principles of kashrut that they study in our yeshiva relate to real life situations of kashrut supervision,” said Rabbi Yona Reiss, Max and Marion Grill Dean of RIETS.
“We are privileged to have a strong connection to the OU, where one of our Roshei Yeshiva, Rabbi Menachem Genack, serves as CEO of the OU’s Kashrut Division, and where Rabbi Hershel Schachter, our Rosh Kollel, serves as Senior Halachic Consultant. Undoubtedly, as in years past, these sessions, coordinated by the OU’s team of experts, will enhance the students’ comprehension and appreciation of the complex laws of kashrut in today’s technological age.”

Besides classroom sessions, the students will visit the kitchen of an OU certified restaurant, Yeshiva University’s kitchen, an OU certified factory, and will learn how to audit an OU restaurant.

Shiurim will include:

• Setting up the Local Vaad HaKashrut, with Rabbi Yaakov Luban;

• Addressing the Challenges of Procuring Kosher Fish in the Local Fish Store, with Rabbi Chaim Goldberg;

• How to Be an Excellent Masgiach, with Rabbi Luban;

• Hilchos Kashrut with Rav Hershel Schachter, OU Halachic Posek and RIETS Rosh Yeshiva;

• The ABC’s of Eating Out, with Rabbi Dov Schreier;

• OU Wine and Grape Juice, with Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz;

• Applied Principles of Kashering (site: the YU kitchen), with Rabbi Moshe Perlmutter;

• The Mesorah of Kosher Birds, with Rabbi Chaim Loike;

• Contemporary Meat Issues, with Rabbi Seth Mandel;

• Contemporary Dairy Issues, with Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer;

• Proper Hashgacha of Local Butcher Store and Meat Distributor, with Rabbi Mandel;

• Ask the Rabbanim, with Rav Schachter and Rabbi Eli Gersten;

• Akum in Halacha, with Rabbi Gersten;

• Bedikas Toyloim, with Rabbi Dovid Bistricer and Rabbi Dovid Goldstein;

• Bishul Akum and Q&A on OU Policy, with Rabbi Menachem Genack;

• Modern Kashrut Tools for the Congregational Rabbi, with Rabbi Eli Eleff;

• Schmaltz Is Us, with Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld.

The restaurant tour will be held at Prime KO, conducted by Rabbi Eliezer Stolzenberg, Rabbi Schreier and Rabbi Issar Mordechai Fuchs. The factory to be visited will be Oasis Foods Company, a New Jersey-based manufacturer of products for the food services industry, in which Rabbi Perlmutter will concentrate on supervision, ingredients, labels and kosherization.

For further information, contact Rabbi Grossman at {encode=”mailto:grossman@ou.org” title=”grossman@ou.org”}, or 212-613-8212. Students should sign up at the RIETS office.

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