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.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
