Los Angeles Market in Kosher Meat Scandal Gets New Ownership
Image by thinkstock
Local businessman Shlomo Rechnitz has bought a scandal-plagued kosher supermarket in Los Angeles from its former owner, who is suspected of mislabeling its meat.
The Rabbinical Council of California, a kashrut certifier, on Wednesday announced the troubled Doheny Market will undergo a serious makeover after Rechnitz purchased the store from Mike Engleman at its behest.
“The store will reopen in the coming days under RCC supervision, after undergoing a thorough restocking and will feature mehadrin kashrus standards,” the RCC said in a statement. “The previous owner has no financial or operational interest in the store.” Mehadrin is an especially stringent kosher ceritification,
Scandal erupted on March 24, the day before the first night of Passover, when evidence gathered by a detective showed Engleman smuggling meat from an unknown source into Dohney Market while the rabbinic supervisor was away.
The Rabbinical Council of California immediately revoked the kosher certification of the popular meat store but worry spread over the Jewish legal status of products sold to unsuspecting customers, casting a pall over the Passover plans of hundreds of families in the area.
Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, a well-respected religious arbiter, ruled all meat sold prior to March 24 was considered kosher, even if a minority of it was not.
The Rabbinical Council of California said it asked Rechnitz, who is Belsky’s son-in-law, to buy the store to ensure the observant community in central Los Angeles had a reliable source of kosher food.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
