Rabbi Avrohom Rubin Of Badatz Mehadrin: ‘Imported Dairy Items Could Be Treif, Certainly Chalav Akum’

 Rabbi Avrohom Rubin Of Badatz Mehadrin: ‘Imported Dairy Items Could Be Treif, Certainly Chalav Akum

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In the wake of new Israeli government regulations removing tariffs from items imported from abroad a large number of new dairy items are available in Israeli stores from various countries worldwide. However Rabbi Avrohom Rubin, the head of the Badatz Mehadrin in Rehovot, warns that “consumers of these items should know that they might be chas veshalom transgressing prohibitions of tereifos (non-kosher food) and certainly chalav akum (milk from gentiles).”

Rabbi Rubin added that “one needs to search both on local and imported items for those which have a proper kashrus symbol which is recognized as Mehadrin, since in some milk products there can be untold numbers of complex halachic issues which are no less severe than meat and chickens.

Rabbi Rubin added that this year when Shabbos is adjacent to Shavuos, the cowsheds which act in accordance with halacha milk via a gentile and leave the milk in special cold containers and do not transfer it to a milk facility on shabbos or yomtov. However in Eilat which is outside the borders of Israel for halachic purposes and in the Yotvata cowshed which is near Eilat, the halacha is that two days of Shavuos must be observed according to the poskim.

Rabbi Rubin added that for this reason his Badatz had prepared huge cooling containers as well as full surveillance of the containers in order to ensure that no prohibited act would be perfomed by Jews during the entire three days of the coming Shabbos and Shavuos and no milk would be transferred on these days to the dairy facilities.