Sixth Sense

I was one of the lucky ones (100,000 of us went to hotel programs this year) that had the good fortune to spend Passover with members of my family in a New Jersey hotel with a well-known chef. Without hanging around the kitchen, I could sense the many challenges the operator faced in feeding more than 1,000 guests. Would

It is beginning to look like a most unusual and even distressful Passover. The calendar gave us plenty of breathing room as the holiday was almost a month later due to being a leap year. What I did was give people enough time to make Passover plans despite the lingering fears of Covid. It allowed for early production and

Passover is around the corner and the preparations are very much in evidence. I watched a large tractor-trailer back out of a driveway of a local matzoh bakery with its expensive cargo. Yes, shmurah matzoh prices are rising again and so are many other prices for basic Passover prices. “I feel for the customer,”

Brooklyn, NY… Here’s what a sign read in one of the kosher supermarkets. “Please Note: We are forced to raise some prices due to new pricing that we are being charged. Our apologies!” Similar signs worded in many different ways essentially convey the same message. What they really are saying is:

Miami Beach…No, I am not the jealous type. My kids are in Miami, the Bahamas and the American Dream and I am in Brooklyn observing the snow-covered streets. No, I am not jealous. Nor do I care that I never had a winter vacation, currently called Yeshiva Week. But at least there’s money to be made by the

Israel is in the midst of an unprecedented kashrus controversy that has become highly political. The current government is seeking to end the monopoly by the Chief Rabbinate on kashrus issues. For American tourists, negotiating the kashrus scene in Israel has always been nightmarish. They often long to return to the

This issue covers some of the highlights of 2021 as far as the kosher food industry. Overall, one must be extremely optimistic by the developments in the industry which continues to impress and even surprise. A good deal of the expansion and growth is due to demographics, larger families and migration into smaller markets

The BDS (Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions) movement unsuccessfully tried to get kosher Israeli products off the shelves under the pretext that they were produced in the Israel “occupied” Judea and Samaria. Now they have expanded their vitriolic campaign to college campuses attempting to ban kosher foods in

Kosherfest 2021 had the largest attendance ever, thanks to the thousands who followed the show on social media. The numbers are simply staggering as Kosherfest proves to be mother brand of the entire industry…Israel food exports to US top $.75 billion despite pandemic… AKO Convention to deal with many

New York…I spoke to several key kosher purveyors wondering why they skipped the 2021 Kosherfest. I wondered out loud why companies that are an integral part of the kosher community would not participate in the annual gathering of the kosher food industry as other industries do? Some answered that they did not see