Bloated Bovines Cause Panic Among Kosher Consumers

Rumors of milk being rendered non-kosher have been spreading like wildfire through the observant Jewish community and are being fueled by an unusual source — methane.

Panicked calls from concerned citizens have flooded the offices of kashrut supervision agencies and rabbis nationwide as the rumors swirl from the bungalow colonies of the Catskills to the urban shtetls of Williamsburg, Boro Park, Lakewood and Baltimore.

The kashrut supervision agencies have, by and large, encouraged kosher food consumers to go on drinking milk and eating dairy products as their experts anxiously try to get to the bottom of the issue.

“We’ve got a lot of hysterical people out there and the public is clamoring for answers. The rumors are flying fast and furious,” said an official at one kashrut supervision agency.

The source of the controversy is apparently a bovine digestive disorder.

The hay and feed consumed by cows can result in an excess production of methane gas, which causes some dairy cows to become so distended and uncomfortable that their milk production suffers.

To cure them, two procedures are commonly employed which may render the cows, and therefore everything they produce, treif, or nonkosher.

One procedure involves a farm worker inserting a needle into the cow’s belly to allow the methane to escape. In the other procedure, for chronically suffering cows, a veterinarian makes a six- to eight-inch incision to untwist part of the cow’s intestine and then adheres the intestine to the interior of the abdominal wall to keep digestion moving.

PROCEDURES PUNCTURE VITAL ORGAN

The problem, say some rabbinical authorities, is that the procedures puncture the organ known in Hebrew as the “keyvah,” roughly equivalent to the stomach, which is one of the vital organs that must be healthy in order for an animal, and its products, to be kosher.

The gas-releasing procedures have been performed for years.

But the controversy erupted recently when an on-site supervisor of a Cholov Yisrael dairy reportedly noticed that it was being done more often than people seemed to be aware.

Sharing his observation with a handful of people was all it took for the rumors to take off in religious circles, say observers.

In the end it may not be a problem affecting the overall kashrut of milk because relatively few cows are believed to have the procedures done to them.

Rabbinical authorities interpret the laws governing kashrut to mean that if most cows are kosher then all milk is kosher.

According to Rabbi Menachem Genack, rabbinic administrator for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, estimates of the number of cows who undergo these procedures range from 1 to 10 percent.

But more precise figures must be obtained before that determination can be made, said experts.

Genack said that the Orthodox Union is in touch with the Food and Drug Administration and experts in bovine anatomy to find the answers.

At the moment, he said, “in terms of the OU’s position, there’s no change in the status of the milk.”

Star K Laboratories, a major supervision agency based in Baltimore, is in contact with veterinarians and farmers.

“I don’t have any answers yet,” said Avrum Pollak, president of Star K. “We’re looking into it. A lot of misinformation is being bandied about and in order to make a responsible statement to kosher consumers we need more information.”

An official of the Central Rabbinical Congress of the Satmar Chasidim, based in Brooklyn, said that no prohibition against milk has been issued, though people have stopped drinking it.

There are two schools of thought in the observant world when it comes to the kashrut of milk.

The view followed by the OU is based on a ruling by the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who said that since nearly all milk sold commercially in North America comes from cows, rather than non-kosher animals like pigs, it is safe to assume that all milk on store shelves is kosher and does not require additional supervision.

Other rabbis say that to guarantee the kosher status of milk, the milking of cows must be supervised by a competent Jewish authority. Milk and dairy products produced this way are known as “cholov Yisrael” or “milk of Israel.”

Both regular and cholov Yisrael milk are affected by the possible problem.

Rabbinical authorities from all kashrut supervision agencies are anxiously working together to resolve the problem which, if it is widespread, would present a challenge of enormous proportions.

According to Rabbi David Senter, kashrut administrator of Kof K, based in Teaneck, N.J., “Rabbis from all supervision agencies are working together and pooling information. When the Jewish community has a problem, we come together.”

An official of another supervision agency had a more cynical view of the reason kosher supervision experts are so worried: “Ninety-nine percent of our products are dairy and dairy based,” he said. “It would close us all down if we can’t give a hechsher (kosher imprimatur) on milk.”