K A S H R U T . C O M_©

October 15, 2023 from the Times of Israel:

"On a regular day, the Haachim Restaurant on Tel Aviv’s Ibn Gabirol Street is loud and boisterous, full of diners ordering from the upscale steakhouse menu of hummus and meat skewers, labane topped with artichokes and hunks of whole roasted cauliflower.

"This week, it’s become ground central for a massive food supply line, as some 100 restaurants in Tel Aviv have gathered forces, cooking for soldiers, hospitals and the surviving evacuees of the Gaza border communities.

"Over the last five days, this restaurant team alone has turned out some 20,000 meals a day, with the help of around 300 volunteers in an effort started by Haachim owner Yotam Doktor on Saturday night, when he realized the unfolding tragedy would require all kinds of supportive efforts

"Working closely with the Brothers in Arms protest group, which is handling the complicated logistics of figuring out who needs food and where, Doktor’s team, which includes chefs, packers and organizers, are cooking, packing and sending tens of thousands of kosher meals from Haachim around the country, with another 7,000 or so meals from other Tel Aviv restaurants.

"fter one truckload of 2,000 meals was tossed on Monday because it wasn’t kosher enough for its intended recipients, Dok, as he’s known, realized he wanted to be able to supply food to whoever needed it.

"Now Haachim, along with several other usually nonkosher restaurants, received temporary kosher certification from the city’s rabbinate this week, in order to provide kosher food.

"It’s an emergency kosher certification, valid this week through Friday, and then he’ll have to renew it next week, said Doktor."

"n that first day, the OCD kitchen took all dairy products out of their kitchen, and began working with alternative kosher certification organization Tzohar. They quickly realized the army wouldn’t accept food made with Tzohar supervision.

"Elbert dug in, spoke to a rabbinate kosher supervisor in Tel Aviv, brought him to the OCD kitchen to make it kosher, and had an emergency, one-week certification the next day.

"And then, the assigned kosher supervisor had a panic attack, said Elbert.

"Elbert got President Isaac Herzog on the phone, who contacted former chief rabbi Yisrael Lau, who issued a Jewish law decision to allow non-kosher restaurants to have emergency kosher certification for this period.

"Asif, the Tel Aviv culinary center with a popular restaurant on its first floor, is also in the process of getting a temporary kosher certification, said Chico Menashe, the Asif CEO.

"Asif’s kitchen staff is working with Gil Ackerman, a Tel Aviv caterer, who brought another 100 volunteers and with logistics led by Haachim. The restaurant, which usually has three chefs in the kitchen, now has 15 in the open front and another ten in back to prepare some 8,000 meals a day.

"Instead of their usual sophisticated fare, they’re frying schnitzel stuffed into pita and big containers of warm comfort foods for hospital patients.

"The Offaime food logistics operation is mostly based out of their Hansen House location in Jerusalem’s German Colony, with 8,000 meals a day right now and plans to reach 10,000 to 15,000 a day next week.

"Some 90 percent of what Offaime is preparing is going to soldiers and reservists, as well as to hospitals, families who were evacuated from the south, volunteers at Magen David Adom, and 'anyone who asks,' he said, 'even to homeless people, who are being ignored a lot more right now.'"