NY rabbis accused of ‘Mafia-like’ methods in kosher turf battle
Call them La Kosher Nostra.
A clique of rabbis on Long Island are being accused of
Mafia-like tactics to maintain what amounts to a monopoly over the local kosher
certification process — sparking a twisted turf war that has outraged local
residents and businesses alike, The Post has learned.
A lawsuit filed last month by Chimichurri Charcoal Chicken —
located on the busy Rockaway Turnpike across from a McDonald’s — claims the
rabbis behind the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway ordered
observant residents to stop eating at the chicken joint last year after it
started using a competing certification service.
The Vaad — led by Rabbi Yosef Eisen, who is also named in
the suit filed in Nassau County — even killed Chimichurri’s lucrative catering
work in a retaliatory move, court papers claim.
“The existing Vaad does not want competition, is afraid of
the competition, and is trying to use its power to drive them — or attempt to
drive them — out of business,” the lawsuit says.
The Vaad’s lawyer, Frank Snitow, told The Post the lawsuit
“is entirely without merit,” adding that “Rabbis have an obligation and a right
under the First Amendment to guide their communities with respect to religious
issues and this does constitute a religious issue.”
Cedarhurst steakhouse Five Fifty Restaurant used a
rabbinical court in a failed attempt to resolve a complaint about kosher
certification.
The complaint offers a rare glimpse into a power struggle
inside an Orthodox Jewish community that, until now, has been handled privately
and by the rabbinical courts, sources said. But some residents are pleased to
see it finally spilling into public view, claiming the Vaad has been abusing
its authority to decide which establishments can claim to follow proper kosher
dietary restrictions, including whether they correctly keep separate utensils
for meat and dairy.
“Kosher supervising is a big business and for the rabbis
it’s about power,” said one fed-up Five Towns resident. “This case is about
injustice and bullying.”
Chimichurri claims its problems started last July after it
dropped the Vaad — the dominant kosher certification operation in town — for a
rival called Mehadrin of the Five Towns. Unwilling to accept the loss of
business, the Vaad issued a “defamatory” statement blasting Chimichurri’s
kosher food standards, the lawsuit claims.
The Vaad said it “must categorically and absolutely
recommend to all of the members of our community that they avoid eating at the
restaurants under that [new service],” court papers say. The Vaad specifically
named Chimichurri as well as Keneret FreshMarket in Hewlett, NY, and a kosher steakhouse
in Cedarhurst called Five Fifty Restaurant, according to the suit.
The Vaad’s actions carried weight in part because it won the
support of 53 rabbis from Five Towns to support the move, sources said.
Many business owners refused to openly comment for this
story, citing fear of retaliation. One exception was Arthur Ashirov, owner of
Keneret Fresh Market, who said he’s seen revenues drop 10 percent since the
Vaad’s letter denounced his small grocery in July.
“The Vaad doesn’t want to have competitors. That’s the
bottom line,” said Ashirov, who says he’s unlikely to sue because it will cost
too much. He said he’s sticking with the rival certification service because he
thinks they are doing a good job and are less expensive.
“I have no issues with the Mehadrin,” Ashirov told The Post.
“They are very attentive and they charge a flat fee while the Vaad charges
extra for everything they do.”
Asked about the Vaad’s fees, its lawyer, Snitow, said, “I
understand that people complain about the expense, but the Vaad would be hiring
people with less qualifications” if it charged less.
Eisen did not return calls for comment. The Mehadrin also
didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Vaad claimed in public statements
last summer that it had a legitimate reason to ask observant Jews to stop
patronizing certain businesses based on concerns about potential conflicts of
interests, the complaint said.
Chimichurri, owned by businessman Zvi Ben-Yoseff, claims
Vaad’s edict last summer had a chilling effect on business, with customers
reaching out via text to say they were being pressured to stop eating there.
Catering business in Westchester and Plainview also went away, it said.
In one instance, a customer who “previously organized an
enormous volume of weekly deliveries” to Westchester “indicated via text
message that he had to stop doing the deliveries due to pressure from his local
rabbi,” the lawsuit claimed. A source told The Post the deliveries had been
going to a Westchester school.
Chimichurri and Five Fifty Restaurant tried to settle the
conflict last spring in rabbinical court, according to rabbinical court papers
obtained by The Post. But the rabbis behind the Vaad, including Eisen, never
showed up for the hearing.
Nearly a year later in April, the rabbinical court blasted
the Vaad rabbis for having “brazenly abused their rabbinic pedigree by
insisting that their actions and intentions are beyond mortal scrutiny,”
rabbinical court papers show. Accordingly, the rabbinical court took the rare
step of granting permission for the businesses to sue in secular court.
Chimichurri and its owner didn’t return requests for
comment. The owner of Five Fifty Restaurant also declined to comment.
Tomer Tao, owner of Jerusalem Mini Market, a small corner
shop in Cedarhurt that sells challah bread and Israeli style salads, says he,
too, believes he was retaliated against last year after he dropped the Vaad for
a Brooklyn rabbi who was charging less.
“I got in a fight with one of their supervisors and it got
nasty — I felt extorted,” owner Tomer Tao, told The Post. The Vaad supervisor,
he said, “would come in two or three times a day to check for bugs in the
produce at $25 an hour. We couldn’t afford that.”
He claims the Vaad slandered him by telling people in the
local synagogues not to shop at his store “because I’m ‘not kosher’,” he said.
“I defended myself and warned them that I would sue them for
damaging my business. They don’t have a right to tell people not to shop with
me.”
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