Not altogether kosher

Press, 10 January 1984, Page 14

Not altogether kosher

By

RUTH SINAI,

of Associated Press, in Tel Aviv

To Israel’s rabbis, they are impure, creeping creatures and definitely not kosher; but shrimps mean hard currency, and they are one of Israel’s up and coming export industries. Even the Israeli Government, which usually bends over backward to accommodate the religious establishement, is indirectly lending a hand to the growing number of farmers who are getting into crustaceans. ' Israel’s rabbinical leaders say they don’t like the idea and have been pressuring the Government to withdraw its support. Meanwhile, the rabbinate has extracted a promise from the farmers that their yield will be sold exclusively abroad and not contaminate any Israeli dinner tables. Yet shrimp is becoming a popular delicacy in Israeli restaurants. In Tel Aviv it is a lot easier to find

shrimp, either imported in cans or locally grown, than it is to find gefilte fish. Rabbi David Nesher, head of the Rabbinical Kashrut Division, which leads the fight to keep Israel kosher, is emphatic on the subject of shrimp. “It is forbidden to grow and it is forbidden to sell impure, creeping creatures,” he says. The Old Testament Book of Leviticus rules them out in the same strong terms it applies to pork. “Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” Under ancident, traditional Jewish dietary laws, pork also is forbidden food, but pigs are raised in Israel. Many restaurants sell pork, but to dodge rabbinical injunctions, they resort to advertising it as white steak or special steak. The rabbinate has so far failed

in its efforts to stop the sale of pork in Israel. Even the powerful clergy can not argue with the success of the shrimp, and in dozens of collective farms in northern Israel, farmers are growing freshwater breeds and bringing in badly needed foreign currency by exporting them to Western Europe.* The venture has proved so successful that there is even an Israeli company exporting its shrimp-breeding know-how. In Eilat, the Red Sea port at the southern tip of Israel, scientists at the Israel Oceanic and Limnological Research Company are breeding shrimp as well as equally nonkosher oysters. Since the company is listed purely as a research institution, it is funded by the Government.