Friday, March 03, 2006

Kosher "arches"

Yahoo's "Odd News" section has a kosher article about McDonald's in Tel Aviv. Well, you may say: "It's odd to think of McDonald's as a kosher restaurant."

True, the traditional McDonald's fare of cheesebugers with ice cream and malteds for dessert is definitely traif, which means non-kosher.

But McDonald's as all successful businesses is after one thing, and that's money, so they've compromised their "standards" and opened kosher restaurants in Israel. Some cities have both types nearby, and it gets rather complicated. The Jerusalem Rabbinate, which certifies the kashrut of food businesses in Jerusalem, does not certify branches of any chain which is also traif. The rationale is that it confuses people, and they may G-d forbid, enter a traif branch, thinking it's kosher.

The Tel Aviv Rabbinate has now taken a similar stand, at least when it comes to McDonald's. So, now, the kosher branches will have "Blue Arches," rather than the traditional red ones. So if you keep kosher, look out for the blue arch!

PS No, I've never sampled the fare.

6 comments:

Soccer Dad said...

Beautiful. There's this Kosher cooking carnival. You should submit this to the KCC!

Batya said...

I did!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see this news.

BTW, are the traif-McD's arches red in Israel? In the US, they are yellow, on a red background.

If they're swapping the red for blue, then it's the background at the base of the sign, not the arches themselves.

wendy said...

That is so interesting!

Batya said...

I passed the one in the Jerusalem Central Bus station yesterday, and they were red and yellow. I don't know what their kashrut policy is now, but they planned on being kosher, since that's the big draw in Jm. The local rabbinate wouldn't approve, since it doesn't allow the same chain traif and kosher.

Anonymous said...

I ate at the McDonalds at Ben Gurion airport a few nights ago before I left for America. I had chicken mcnuggets and fries. I didn't think there was anything so special about it, other than the novelty of eating at McDonalds. (My kids were more excited about it when I told them than I was.)