• Kosher-Certified Products Come of Awe in Surge of Interest By BEN GALLOB (Copyright, 1965, JTA, Inc.) More and more American Jews buy more kosher products every year and this trend has been reach- ing a new peak with each succeed- ing Passover. The growth in the purchase and use of kosher products, particular- ly for Passover, has in recent years reached a point where it now reg- ularly attracts the respectful in- Happy Holiday Otto Painting & Dry Wall Co. 9335 Beech Road KE 7-7279 •••■■••■•■••■■ wo•• ■•••■.•■■ .o.••w• ■ Best Wishes to All Our Friends and Relatives MR. MORRIS POSNER and Family 23590 Beverly Oak Pork, Mich. terest of the business press. A leading business daily has reported several times in recent years on the growing importance of "the kosher market." A buyer of a ma- jor grocery chain, emphasizing the importance of Passover product sales, was quoted in a trade mag- azine as asserting that stores in the chain in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods sold as many kosher products in volume in the usual two-week shopping period before Passover, as they did during the other 50 weeks of the year. Observers of varying degrees of expertise have cited the rise in kosher product sales as evidence of a growing return to Jewish re- ligious observance and values by a growing number of American Jews, an indicator along with ris- ing synagogue and Jewish center membership, and increasing enroll- ment of children in Jewish schools of all kinds. A rabbinical expert who has been associated with kashruth cer- tification in the food industry for some four decades agrees that there has been a surge of interest among American Jews in kosher products in recent years and that Happy Passover To All Our Friends and Patrons MAMA MIA PIZZA Spaghetti . Chicken . Bar B-Q Ribs - Shrimp - Fish & Carry Outs and Delivery 15425 West McNichols Chips VE 6-3177 Best Wishes for A Joyous Passover To the Jewish Community CENTRAL OVERALL SUPPLY CO. Mrs. Emma Schaver, President cpassover reetings Men's Clothing MEN'S FINER APPAREL "Where Fit Is Foremost" 1430 GRISWOLD (Between Grand River & Clifford) Phones: WO 1-8751 and WO 1-7951 Best Wishes to All Our Friends and Patrons for a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Passover COBO CLEANERS EARL RUBY and GEORGE MARCUS 18135 Livernois UN 3-0400 purchases for Passover do increase as compared with kosher purchas- ing during the rest of the year; but he is skeptical about current interpretations as to what these facts mean as a yardstick of great- er observance of the Jewish dietary laws. Rabbi Alexander S. Rosenberg, the rabbinic administrator of the kosher certification service of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Con- gregations of America, draws on a wealth of experience in evaluat- ing these trends. On its 40th an- niversary this year, the Orthodox Union's kashruth certification pro- gram has agreements with some 450 companies throughout the United States and in a number of overseas countries, including Israel. These companies make more than 2,200 rabbinically endorsed and supervised kosher products, many of them household names. Rabbi Rosenberg divides users of kosher products into two groups: the committed who buy and use only kosher products in obedience to a religious commandment; and what he calls the uncommitted Jews, who do so for other reasons. The steady increase in enroll- ment and gradutes from Orthodox- sponsored day schools, as well as the vastly larger number in after- noon Orthodox schools has provid- ed a growing base for formation of Jewish families in the committed category. But Rabbi Rosenberg be- lieves that these alone would not account for the accelerating rate at which kosher products are being purchased, which leads in turn to an equally accelerating rate at which manufacturers are seeking kosher certification for their pro- ducts. He regards the uncommit- ted American Jew as one who is groping vaguely to fill out a Jew- ish identification which is as un- learned as it is incomplete. Such Jews, in his view, grasp at any tenuous straw held out to them. Buying and using kosher products is a way of Jewish identification made easy by a number of condi- tions unique to 20th century Ameri- can life. Kashruth has a dignity in the American Jewish community which it lacked for the immigrant gen- eration of Jews at the turn of the century. For many members of that generation and especially for their children, kashruth observance was associated with being a "green- horn," a barrier to becomina "at home" in the new world. b Now, for example, kashruth at Jewish public ftmctions is routine, whether or not the function is under Orth- odox auspices. The emblem of kosher certification has become a sort of status symbol in American Jewish life. Rabbi Rosenberg has doubts that there is as great a disproportion between year-around and Passover kosher purchasing as the food in- dustry seems to believe. He points out that when a shopper enters a store and goes directly to the special Passover section which is now standard in grocery stores in Jewish neighborhoods before Pass- over—from the small corner groc- ery to the massive supermarkets— she is engaged in an easily identi- fiable kind of buying behavior. Committed or not, that shopper is buying specifically and visibly kosher products. But when this same shopper pushes her cart through the aisles of the same store during the other 50 weeks of the year, the casual observer would find it hard to de- termine, from her actions, whether she was buying a particular brand of baked beans because her family liked the flavor of that brand, or because it had on its label the in- conspicuous emblem of Orthodox Union rabbinical endorsement. This situation stems from the fact that the economics of modern food production often make it un- economical to have both kosher and non-kosher production of the same product in the plant. It is simpler to have all production of that product under rabbinical su- pervising. Hence, the shopper may THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Friday, April 16, 1965-37 Passover Greetings to All RYNNE CHINA CO. be looking for a particular food for its flavor or quality or price, without interest or even knowledge that it was made under rabbinical supervision, while the Jewish shop- per seeking kosher products, looks for the certification emblem. It is this fact which raises doubts about comparisons of Passover versus year-around kosher shop- ping volume. Orthodox leadership in this country has managed to translate marginal and nostalgic ,Tewishness, at least to some degree, into more enduring commitments through the uncommitted Jew's growing inter- est in kashruth. For Orthodox Judaism, Rabbi Rosenberg observes, there is more than one meaning to the saying that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Largest White China Dealers in the Midwest Everything for China Painter Imports from France, Germany and Japan 222 W. 8 Mile LI 2 - 8700 1 blk. 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