hummus kashrus problems?

IM-MA

Mon, Jul 04 2005, 12:00 am

http://www.newsday.com/news/na.....lines

An influential Israeli rabbi has ruled that a key ingredient in hummus is not kosher when prepared by non-Jews, his top aide said Sunday, presenting a religious challenge to followers who savor the Mideast staple.

The ruling regarding tahini sesame seed paste sent Israeli hummus companies scrambling to check their production processes. Some feared that the ruling would affect sales of the chick pea spread that many Israelis consider the national food.
A former chief rabbi, Mordechai Eliahu, ruled that when sesame seeds used to make the tahini paste for hummus are roasted and shelled by non-Jews, the resulting hummus is not kosher, said the aide, Rabbi David Lahiani.

When non-Jews are involved in the cooking process of foods, this causes them to be designated non-kosher according to Jewish law, Lahiani said.

Meir Micha, chief of the Pinati hummus company, said the publication of the ruling Sunday sent him hurriedly calling all his factories to ensure that the production process was kosher.

"The food will continue to be our national food and we will have to work quickly to get kosher certificates for all the factories," Micha told Channel One TV.

Micha said he thought Eliahu's ruling was only due to a dispute between religious camps. Eliahu's main rival, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef -- himself a former chief rabbi -- told the Maariv daily flatly that there is no difference between shelled and unshelled sesame seeds, and they're all kosher.

In the past, competing rabbis have issued differing edicts about kosher food partly to solidify the following for their own certificates of approval.