A Kosher solution all round

Press, 14 April 1984, Page 11

A Kosher solution all round

NZPA-AP Boston Marc Epstein was on the horns of a dilemma worthy of the best Jewish scholars of yore: what to do with his Kosher vegetarian restaurant during Passover. Preparing the downtown establishment for the holiday by giving it a thorough cleaning and replacing almost all the equipment and dishes to remove any trace of leavening as required by Jewish law, Would be prohibitively time-consuming and expensive. And Mr Epstein’s lease will not permit him to close the Milk Street cafe, as most Kosher restaurant owners do. So he turned to a local rabbi well known for his expertise in Jewish law. The answer: Mr Epstein sells the entire cafe to his Gentile staff for the eight days of Passover, the holiday that commemorates the Jews' exodus from Egypt in such baste that they did not

have time to let their bread rise. Starting Monday, Passover Eve, Mr Epstein will leave for a holiday in Israel and K. 8.0. Associates will take over the cafe. Robert Keane, aged 24, the cafe manager, William Brothers, aged 19, the assistant manager, and Muriel Ortiz, aged 25, the baker, will become responsible for eight days for serving the Middle East Blueplate — baba ganoush and humus on lettuce — the salmon quiche and the potato and onion soup. No Jews are employed during the period to avoid having any Jew violate the holiday. Mr Epstein will advertise during the week that the cafe is not Passover Kosher so that observing Jews will stay away. But he estimates that no more than 15 per cent of his customers are Jewish and the rest of the year he does

not draw attention to the cafe’s observance of Jewish dietary laws. After Passover Mr Epstein, aged 26, will get back his restaurant in the ground floor of an office tower that he must open to serve every business day. The partners will keep the week’s profit, suspend K.R.O. Associates until the next Jewish holiday, and go back to being employees. The profit amounts to a hefty bonus to 60 to 100 per cent of their pay for the week, Mr Epstein said. The practice of a house-' holder selling his chometz — bread or other food containing leavening — for a week and then buying it back after Passover is wellknown. It was to that practice that Rabbi Mordecai Savitsky of Newton, a renowned Talmudic scholar looked in advising Mr Epstein. He said that selling businesses for Passover went

back 15 centuries to the Babylonian Talmud (volumes of rabbinic learning expanding on biblical laws). "That’s what happened in the old country,” said Rabbi Savitsky who went to the United States in 1939 from an area near Vilna, now in the Soviet Union, and still wears the traditional long beard and black coat. “It’s real, not just a gimmick. I mean, not just like making something to fool people.” The orthodox rabbinical group that certifies the Milk Street cafe as kosher has accepted the arrangement. “It’s OK with them as long as they realise I’m sincere, I’m not interested in making money for the week and that I’m not trying to pull the wool over their eyes,” said Mr Epstein.

In other words, he said. “Everything's strictly kosher.”