Pepsi-Less Generation

LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

I

t was never meant to
be. Michael Jackson
haredim
and the
(Orthodox Jews)? Guns
`N' Roses and the hared-
- im? The "Pepsi Gener-
ation" and the haredim?
Not likely. .
In the end, which came
at the beginning of June,
they parted company. The
Eda Haredit, an Orthodox
court that bestows Israel's
most prestigious hechsher
(kashrut seal of approval),
told the soft drink maker
that from now on, as far as
it was concerned, Pepsi
Cola was treif
The problem wasn't with
the contents, or the pro-
duction process — that
was okayed by the
Jerusalem-based Eda
Haredit a year-and-a-half
ago when Pepsi, finally
deciding to stand up to the
Arab boycott, received the
hechsher and began sell-
ing in Israel.
"The problem was every-
thing else but the
kashrut," said Meir Ruch,
head of advertising for
Tempo, the Israeli soft
drink company that dis-
tributes Pepsi here. "The

spirit of the young genera-
tion, as Pepsi Cola
International sees it, goes
against the Eda Haredit's
beliefs."
Pepsi started off on the
wrong foot — it debuted in
Israel with an ad cam-
paign showing man
descending from the apes,
evolving into the "new gen-
eration" Pepsi drinker.
The Eda Haredit howled,
and Pepsi dropped the ad.
Then the soft drink
company started running
promotions showing
provocatively-clad teen-
age boys and girls. The
Eda Haredit howled again,
and Pepsi covered up the
girls a little.
At the end of May, Pepsi
sponsored a Guns 'N'
Roses concert in Tel Aviv.
It was held on a Saturday
night, after Shabbat
ended, and Pepsi went out
of its way not to violate the
holy day of rest — the
stage was set up before
Shabbat, the Pepsi bal-
loons were even blown up
before Shabbat, said Mr.
Ruch.
But even before lead
singer Axl Rose greeted

the crowd of 45,000 by
shouting, "Shalom, moth-
erf !" it was clear
that most of the fans had
driven to the concert while
Shabbat was still on — a
mass desecration.
Finally, there was, or
will be, Michael Jackson.
Also sponsored by Pepsi,
Jackson is tentatively due
to perform in Israel on the
night of Saturday,
September 18. Unless the
anticipated 70,000 fans
walk to the concert, there

A Pepsi-sponsored
Guns 'N' Roses
concert was the
last straw.

will be an even greater
desecration.
"Enough," said the Eda
Haredit, and it yanked
Pepsi's hechsher. Pepsi
remains officially kosher
— it still has the kashrut
seal of Israel's Chief
Rabbinate. But because
most haredim disapprove
of the Chief Rabbinate —
it operates under the aus-

pices of the "Zionist
regime," and most hared-
im see the Zionist regime
as a desecration in itself —
they will not buy it.
"Maybe we'll lose cus-
tomers in Jerusalem and
Bnei Brak (a nearly all-
haredi city near Tel Aviv),
but that's not significant,"
Mr. Ruch said.
He says that now, but
Pepsi thought all along
that the Eda Haredit's
hechsher was significant
enough to bend over back-
wards to get it. Coca Cola
made do with just the
Chief Rabbinate's seal for
many years, but when it
learned that Pepsi was
coming in with the Eda
Haredit's stamp, it rushed
to get a hechsher from the
Eda's chief rival, Rabbi
Moshe Yehuda Leib Lando
of Bnei Brak.
"The haredim have large
families, they buy a lot of
food and drink, and Pepsi
and Coca Cola fight over
every sale," said
Menachem Friedman, a
Bar-Ilan University pro-
fessor who is an expert on
Israel's Orthodox.
The hechsher means

more income not only for
the companies that carry
them, but also for the rab-
binical courts that sell
them — a hechsher costs
money, the amount differ-
ing with the size of the
company, and it must be
renewed every year. For
the Eda Haredit, which
holds tremendous sway
over the haredi community
with its charities and civil
courts, the selling of
hechshers is a major
source of funds, noted Mr.
Friedman.
(The Eda Haredit would
not comment about any-
thing, as it does not talk to
the press, which it does
not trust, said one of its
rabbis, Shmuel Yankif
Goldman. "We don't deal
with public relations, we
deal with important
issues," he said.)
While the Eda's hechsh-
er is the most prestigious,
it is not the only one, Mr.
Friedman pointed out.
There are over a half-
dozen others — from
Rabbi Lando, from She'erit
Yisrael (run by the widely-
revered Bnei Brak Rabbi

PEPSI-LESS page 50

