Brooklyn, NY – Rabbis from Kashrus agencies across the country gathered last night in Brooklyn to see and hear how to remove the Anisakis worm from fish.
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The seminar was sponsored by the Vaad HaKashrus of Flatbush, under the direction of its Rav HaMachshir, Rabbi Meir Goldberg. The Vaad had flown in Rabbi Shneur Zalman Revach and his assistant Yehudah to demonstrate. The event was videoed and projected so the hundreds of participants could better see. Representatives from CRC in Chicago, Star K in Baltimore and Kashrus agencies across the country flew in to attend the seminar. The OU, the Vaad of Queens, the Five Towns Vaad HaKashrus was also in attendance.
Among the other attendees were Rabbi Meir Goldberg – Vaad Hakashrus of Flatbush, Rabbi Tzvi S. Goldberg – Vaad Hakashrus of Flatbush, Rabbi Mordechai Taitelbaum – Vaad Hakashrus of Flatbush, Rabbi Ahron Mandel – Vaad Hakashrus of Flatbush, Rabbi Chaim Goldberg -OU, Rabbi Shmuel Heinneman – Star K, Rabbi Meir Kurcfeld – Star K, Rabbi Sholem Fishbane – cRc of Chicago, Rabbi Dovid Cohen – cRc of Chicago, Rabbi Yosef Eisen – Vaad of the Five Towns, Rabbi Zechariah Adler- Kehilah Kashrus, Rabbi Chaim Schwartz – Vaad of Queens, Rabbi Yechiel Babad – Tartikover Rov, Rabbi Moshe Y. Blumenberg – Tartikover Beis Din, Rabbi Dovid Babad – Tartikover Beis Din, Rabbi Luzer Weiss – NYS Dept of Agriculture Kosher Law Enforcement, Rabbi Binyomin Bess, Rabbi Yisroel P. Gornish, Rabbi Moshe Harari Raful, Rabbi Yosef H. Ilovits – Machon L’bidikas Tolayim, Rabbi Yaakov Wagschal – New Square Kashrus, Rabbi Jakobowitz – Rosh Hamashgichim Nirbater, Rabbi Moshe Busso -Shaarei Tzion, Rabbi Gershon Tannebaum – Igud Harrabonim, Rabbi Usher David – Rosh Yeshiva Emek Halacha , Rabbi Berish Schapiro – Naroler Rov, Rabbi Avraham Weisner – KCL, Rabbi J. Horowitz Merkaz Hatefilla, Rabbi G. Bald – Irguin Shiurey Torah, Rabbi Yosef Wikler – Editor Kashrus Magazine, Rabbi Moshe Yaged, Rabbi Yudel Shain – Rabbi David Weber – Mashgiach for R’ Asher Eckstein Belzer Dayan, Rabbi Mosher Weiner – Kashrus Information Center/ Kashrus Information Service, R’ Yehuda Green, Rabbi Yair Hoffman, Rabbi Doniel Epstein – OU, Rabbi Moshe Farkas, R’ Yitzchak Kaufman, R’ Dovid Fingerer, R’ Avrum Leib Weiss, and Rabbi Avraham Brykman.
The following six minute video was made to review what was shown.. the full video will be available to purchase at a later date.
Video credit Five Towns Jewish Times– Rabbi Yair Hoffman
The problem is not the worm. If its entire life it is in the flesh of the fish there should be no problem. According to the wikipedia article the egg hatches in the host fish and spends its entire life in its flesh. Why is it a problem. Next they will tell us that tape worms in meat are also osur, and we will be left only with tofu!
Hey, Brooklyn has many bigger problems under the carp(et) than just the fish. Agree with me or not there has to be priorities. Need I cite examples?
That is disgusting.
If what Rabbi Yair Hoffman said is true that this “Yehuda” filmed the worms migrating from the stomach – then those worms should be assur..
Instead of showing it to local vaadim why isn’t this being presented instead to the people who really matter, namely, the Gedolei Haposkim in the USA so they can see the evidence and give their psak based on first hand information? News reports and symposiums are all good and fine and with all sue respect to any chosuve rabbonim who participated, but in the end what really matters is the psakim of the foremost poskim in America–not administrators from local hashgochos.
Congrats to Rabbi Meyer Goldberg of the Vaad Hakashrus of Flatbush for pulling this off.
I do know what was more important – showing the demonstration orgetting all those rabbonim to sit in the same room with each other.
Kosher or not, who wants to eat that? It’s disgusting! Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, consumption is dangerous not only if they are still alive, but even if they are already dead.
Why was no one from the CHK or OK there? Wasn’t Lubavitch important enough to be invited??
Very interesting (and gross) video. Did any of the esteemed rabbonim at this demonstration give a psak?
My daughters watched it with me. They are not eating this fish anymore no matter what the ou says
Like so many others, I wonder when we will get ONE psak we can rely on
Basically. anyone who sees this video is not going to be eating these fish. The kashrus agencies have to either ban this video or the fish
This asifa was only for those who wanted to learn how to remove it. It was not a debate as to whether they were assur or not. The vaad of Flatbush is to be commended for getting this together as well as for improving the status of flatbush kashrus so that bnei torah can eat there..
While many joke that with all these chumrahs we will all soon have nothing to eat but tofu, that may really be what hashem wants. There is absolutly no chiyuv to eat either meat or fish and we can be mehader the mitzvah of elegant seudahs on shabbos and yom tov by making special recipes using tofu, whole grains, nuts and other vegetarian ingredients. Most importantly, this will result in much less heart and health problems. Our wives and daughters will also have much fun learning to cook healthy and enjoyable meals without fish and meat.
Seems that there won’t be much fish if the oil spill isn’t over
At least we now know what they look like.. When did this whole tumul start anyway?
Is Gefilte fish ok? It’s made from white fish.
Perhaps Rabbi Hoffman could fill us in as to how these particular pieces of cod were acquired. Who brought them? Who selected them? Did they simply buy ten random pieces at store or was there some screening beforehand in order to find pieces that were infested?
All of this is important, of course, in order to understand how prevalent this is.
I wonder why they are calling it anisakis, if its being pulled out of a Cod fish.
The round worm in Cod is not anisakis, but Phocanema decipiens.
This is a very sick way of getting people to only eat you’re hechsher!
There are many great poskim who also undersrand food and science AND are not in the hechsher buisness who say its muter
which fish are ok and which fish tend to have these worms?
Sanhedrin–Eyn Ben david bah ad sheyivakshu dug lecholeh veloh yimatzeh
The Star K under Rav Moshe Heineman has a list of fish that don’t have to be checked and of others that must be checked which includes flounder and sardines.
I haven’t seen anyone post that the worm is botul in the fish. Everything is botul min hatorah. If this worm is considered a berya then midrabanan it is not botul even if the fish is 60 x the worm. In reality the fish is thousands of times more than the worm. So prove to me that the worm in the fish is considered a berya before you make it ossur. Even if it is a berya the Rashba says that a berya is botul in 1000. At most it is a sofek drabanon whether or not it is considered a berya. and sofek drabanan is lkula. and in addition to this we have the Rashba who says that even if it is a berya it is still botul in 1000 x. For more information look up tzemach tzedek yoreh deah siman 70 end of sif daled.
Is there such a thing as a microscopic berya?? Isn’t the air which we breath full of microscopic organisms???
will we not eat from the leviason fish when moshiach comes?
What’s all the fuss about; those worms are delicious.
When moshiach comes and hashem serves us the livyoson, these guys will be checking it for worms. (and pulling worms from the walls of the suka made from the skin).
Maybe they should also ossur smoking completely or is that too hard and too unpopular.
always said fish are for display not for eating.
“Will it still be ok to use animals and fish for korbanos when moishiach comes “
They brought korbanos from fish? That’s a new one on me.
Thank you to the Vaad Hakashrus of Flatbush for this eye opening (and gross) video.
The video was very dramatic, but I wonder why they were showing cod, when the primary concern for the typical kosher consumer is salmon.
Was it because they would be more likely to find it and so that the presentation would be more dramatic?
More money, higher prices for rules decided years ago. Remember when the craze in NY was filters on tap water. What did our ancestors do? Use their underwear to filter the water. Am beginning to think these people are going to far to the left and rewriting settled law.
Next we’ll need microscopes in the kitchen?
Pardon me for sounding this way, but does this mean that ALL, and i mean ALL of our food have to go under a microscope?? or light? A MERE 50 YEARS AGO, they shept water from a brinem and filtered the water with a rag…the worms were VISIBLE then and thats all that counted…maybe we shouldnt be eating at all…after all, the air is full of pesticides…and who knows what type of insects our pollution might possess?? If there would be a problem 50 years ago, the big rabbanim of those times would make us aware of that….
Ill just continue enjoying my fish without nitpicking it beforehand.
Sorry to say but this fiasco is more embarrassing than the Rubashkin trials.
Before I saw this I thought this was just another unnecessary chumra that a small group of Charedim were trying to put in place for the sake of banning things. But after watching this video, I think I’d rather not be eating that.
The Shulchan Aruch says that worms found in the flesh or between the skin and flesh are allowed. From this video it looks like that is where they are found. There’s no evidence to say that the Anasakis worm somehow changed all of a sudden. It’s been known about for centuries. How come all of a sudden there’s this new controversy about something that was settled centuries ago?
Whether this is kosher or not, it’s still disgusting and I think most people would rather not be eating those worms.
The reason we eat gefilte fish is because it is made of ground of fish, therefore any worm is ground up and botel. That’s where the minhag comes from.
Very important to say that “farm raised” salmon aka “baby salmon” does not have the anisakis problem, and many other types of fish are anisakis free, you don’t have to jump to tofu in order not to eat those “appetizing” worms..