See the DVDs shocking the nation:
When the Darkness Falls: The Racially Divided States of America
---------------
Making Criminals of Christians
---------------
The Line in the Sand: America's Forgotten Borders
---------------
The Persecution of Revisionists: The Holocaust Unveiled
---------------
Zionist War Crimes: The Case for the Prosecution
---------------
Judea Declares War: A Critical Look at WWII
---------------
Understanding Anti-Semitism: Why Do Some People Dislike Jews?
---------------
Rep. Paul Findley Dares to Speak Out: A 22-Year Veteran Congressman Exposes Israel's Lobby
---------------
Ritual Murder Revisited: The Hidden Cult
---------------
Human Sacrifice among the Fanatical Hasidic Jews and Other Cults from Ancient Times to the Present
---------------
---------------
---------------
Slave Trade in the World Today
---------------
---------------
The Whole Story of Zionist Conspiracy
---------------
Michael Collins Piper Live Radio 7-8 PM EST
Politically Incorrect Cartoons
Paul Grubach's Writings on the Holocaust, Etc.
South African/ Zimbabwean Headlines
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The
Kosher Tax
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith wrote an article called "The Kosher Tax Hoax," in which the organization alleged that the Kosher-tax paid by Gentiles on their food was, in fact, fair and not a dishonorable attempt to fleece Gentile consumers of their money. However, it is not fair, nor is it honorable. Read the following for more about this:
The ADL and
the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax: Fact and Fiction
For many Gentile
consumers, it comes as a shock to realize that they pay a Jewish tax on each and
every pre-packaged food item with a "U" or "K" stamp on the package, with some
of these fees possibly going to support Zionists in Israel. The Union of
Orthodox Jews (symbolized by the "U" within a circle) and the Circle-K (for
Kashruth or, Kosher) are the two main organizations within the United States
that issue Kosher-certification and its accompanying tax, though there are 273
other Kosher-certification organizations that have other symbols within the U.S.
alone.(1)
The ADL (or
Anti-Defamation League), an offshoot of B'nai B'rith that got its start after
the Atlanta chapter head of B'nai B'rith was arrested and convicted by a jury of
murdering a 12-year-old girl, Mary Phagan, in a cruel manner,(2) has long since
countered Gentile resentment towards this Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax.
Typically, the ADL says that such resentment towards the extra fees paid
on food for the rabbis' certification is the hallmark of anti-Semites.
While it stands to reason that in some isolated cases this may in fact be
true, there is a growing concern among many others over these extra fees that
Gentile consumers are forced to pay, particularly with the downward trend of the
economy.
In an article
called "The Kosher Tax Hoax," the ADL sought to allay many Gentiles' fears and
concerns over the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax. However, upon reviewing
the "facts" presented by B'nai B'rith's ADL, one quickly sees that it is filled
with outright lies or, at best, half-truths.
From the
beginning of the ADL's article, it suggests that it is false that "only a small
segment of the American population desires such markings, and that even the
meanings of the labels are guarded secrets deliberately kept from non-Jews to
trick them into paying the 'kosher tax.'"
If you are a
typical non-Jewish reader, it is easy to see that both these statements are
true, not false as the ADL claims. Have you personally desired such
markings? And, if it is not a "secret" of sorts, why do they not display a
symbol that makes it clear that a fee is indeed paid to a Jewish organization
for Kosher certification?
Lubomyr
Prytulak, a retired Canadian psychology professor, has long argued that a Star
of David (or, Magen David, as it is often called) should also accompany the
Kosher certification to make its meaning well known.(3) This makes sense,
and it would be more fair to Gentile consumers, most of whom are unaware of the
Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax. If the ADL and Jewish organizations were
genuinely concerned with honesty, they would have done this long
ago.
Jewish
organizations do not necessarily seem to be concerned with honesty in this
matter, however. In some advertisements of products bearing "K" or "U"
symbols in magazines, these symbols will often actually be "hidden" or "masked
off." However, when these same items are advertised in Jewish
publications, these symbols might actually be larger and have an arrow pointing
to them.(4) This is, of course, deceptive advertising and goes to show
that there are concerns among Jews or the companies that sell these Kosher
products of the meaning behind these symbols becoming known.
While the ADL
suggests that the claim "only a small segment of the American population desires
such markings" is an anti-Semitic lie, the truth speaks otherwise. In
fact, according to the Kosher-certification agency Star-K, "Integrated Marketing
Communications reports that approximately 2.5 million Jews consume kosher food
products."(5) So what about the other 297.5 million people in the United
States? Why are we then forced to pay for their Jewish religious dietary
habits; why are we forced to pay for the Rabbinical Kosher Excise
Tax?
The ADL argues
that "the cost to the consumer for this service is a miniscule fraction of the
total production overhead; it is so negligible in practical terms as to be
virtually non-existent." Is this true? I certainly would have no
problems if Jews wanted to certify products as being Kosher or not at entirely
their own costs.
As you might
suspect, such talk by the ADL is either an outright lie on its part or, at best,
deceptive. For example, the ADL report cites a "representative of the
Heinz Company." This "representative" reportedly said that the cost is "so
small we can't even calculate it." This Heinz "representative" also said
that the extra business it received more than made up for the costs associated
with the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax. Who was this "representative"?
If what he stated was true, why is his name not even given in the ADL's
article for verification? Did this person even exist?
Quite to the
contrary of the ADL's article, the Canadian Jewish News of March 20, 2003, has
an article with an interesting headline: "Heinz Canada trims kosher product
line." Many of the Canadian Heinz's products were no longer to be
certified Kosher (thereby avoiding the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax, symbolized
by Canada's "COR" - Council of Orthodox Rabbis' marking), although a few
products would still be kept Kosher for Jews. Apparently, according to
(named) Heinz spokeswoman Anna Relyea, this was done to "keep costs down while
continuing to provide [some] kosher products to our customers." The
reasons--given by Heinz for the decision to cut back its on its Rabbinical
Kosher Excise Taxes--were due to "how complex the manufacturing is, what the
savings were and so on."(6) In any event, these costs--that were initially
reported by the ADL as being "so small, we can't even calculate it"--could, in
fact, be calculated and must have been significant.
Another item
that seems to be deliberately distorted in the favor of the ADL is a reported
"fact" given by the Birds Eye company. According to the ADL's article, General
Food's Birds Eye unit paid only "6.5 millionths (.0000065) of a cent per item."
It would be more interesting to know how much General Foods itself paid in
real dollars altogether for the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax, but the ADL avoids
such talk for obvious reasons. But is the paltry sum of .0000065 cents per
item true?
Again, this
seems like a deliberately deceptive move on the ADL's part (or that of one of
its members who was employed at Birds Eye). Does anyone really believe
that a rabbi would fly to Birds Eye foods if he only received 6.5 cents for each
$1 million of business Birds Eye did? If Birds Eye did, say, $100 million
in business, that would be a paltry $6.50 in fees by the certification agency.
This wouldn't even pay for the time involved, let alone travel and
paperwork. So is the ADL lying? Probably not. If you'll
notice, it says ".0000065 of a cent per item." I believe that Birds Eye
sells corn, peas, pieces of broccoli, et cetera. In effect, the ADL's
"informer" was probably meaning that every single piece of corn, every single
pea, and every single bean--that is, every "item"--incur the cost of .0000065
cents. Added up, this then makes sense.
Of course, if
the Jewish agency that charges the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax would care to
make available how much it charged this company in real dollars for the previous
year, that would be a start to being honest. But, if you carefully examine
the web, you will not find one company that has reported this fee paid to the
rabbis. Why is this? From a logical standpoint, it stands to reason
that the rabbis must have some type of confidentiality agreement in which if the
company reveals its cost it is then penalized to a certain extent. What
other reasoning could there be that not one single company discloses its costs
associated with the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax?
The ADL then
goes on to cite a company that reportedly had its business increase as a result
of Kosher certification. Is this true? Possibly. One must keep
in mind, however, what Dr. Prytulak refers to as the "Pyramid Scheme" at his
website. In effect, this is how it works: A large company is courted by
Jews, who fill the company's heads with promises of a greater market appeal--but
only, of course, if they pay this initially "small fee" (in comparison with the
company's total business) for certification. The company agrees.
However, now the company must buy all its supplies from other "Kosher
companies." Aside from the obvious need to purchase food products from
Kosher suppliers, a company might even have to purchase the steel for its
manufacturing process and the cleaning supplies from Kosher companies, to name
just a couple other items now considered Kosher. In any event, if the
suppliers do not give the main company a Kosher product, the company cannot do
business with them. (After all, products prepared by lowly Gentile
companies do not meet the Jewish religious dietary standards as set forth by
rabbis without due compensation.) In effect, if your company happens to be
one of the suppliers to another company, you risk much business by failing to
abide by the Jewish standards (and, of course, paying them your accompanying
fees).
Is the extra
business really there for companies that decide to go Kosher? Not
according to some businesses. The Albuquerque Tribune reported one bagel
company as wanting to be certified Kosher, but "the expense was more than the
... bagel company could muster." The owner stated, "We occasionally get
asked for it but not that often." Another company decided to drop its
"Star-K certification after one year." The owner of that company reported,
"Kosher wasn't opening up any markets for me. I thought it was too much
for my little operation."(7)
As you might
expect, later in the ADL's article, it spends a significant amount of space
questioning the "motives" of those who question the motives of the Rabbinical
Kosher Excise Tax. Since the ADL cannot obviously refute the content of
the argument, it has to resort to attacking the organizations and people who
bring forth legitimate arguments against an illegitimate tax that Gentile
consumers are forced to pay, which is unknown to the vast majority of them.
Of course, the ADL itself has a few skeletons in its closet, so to speak.
Books such as "Conspiracy Against Freedom" or "The Ugly Truth about the
ADL" (available from www.addall.com/used ) tell much of the stories kept behind
the headlines.
In an attempt to
make the ADL's concerns seem legitimate, it cites Dr. Ed Fields, who
states:
"All of this is
superstitious nonsense and has absolutely nothing to do with improving the
quality of any food product. Still, this clever scheme of requiring kosher
labeling has become a multi-million dollar business today!"
Obviously, since
Dr. Fields says this--and since the ADL makes him out to be a "bad" person
through the use of its personal attacks (for failing to cooperate with the
false-logic that Kosher is somehow wholesome)--we are to believe what he says is
false. But in fact, it is true. What the ADL fails to mention, here,
is that many Jews have corroborated what Dr. Ed Fields has stated, and these
Jews are even cited by Dr. Fields. For example, the Washington Post of 2
November 1987 is cited, quoting orthodox Rabbi Schulem Rubin:
"Kosher doesn't
taste any better; Kosher isn't healthier; Kosher doesn't have less salmonella.
You can eat a Holly Farm chicken which sells for 39 cents a pound on sale
and next taste a Kosher chicken selling for $1.69 a pound and not tell the
difference. There's a lot of money to be made. Religion is not based
on logic."
Of course, facts
have always been a problem for the ADL, which is why it has attacked Dr.
Fields's character so much. If you cannot refute the argument, the ADL
seemingly reasons, attack the person's character who makes the
argument.
The ADL's
article then goes on to suggest that Jews are not the only ones who prefer
Kosher. It argues, "Some kosher marketing officials estimate there may be
as many as six million Americans who seek out Kosher foods in the supermarket.
Of these only 1.5 million are Jewish. Moslems and Seventh Day Adventists also
adhere to certain aspects of the Jewish dietary laws." Is this true?
Yes, it certainly is. You see, the article says, "Some Kosher
marketing officials estimate...." Who are these "Kosher marketing
officials" that make this claim? If you said the ADL, you might have just
won the prize.
While I have not
taken the time to see what the Seventh Day Adventists believe, I looked into if
the Muslims found the Kosher certification acceptable as meeting their religious
dietary habits as well. What does the Islamic Food Council of America have
to say about Kosher meeting the religious dietary requirements of orthodox
Muslims, or "Halal," as it is commonly known. According to the Halal
Digest of July 2000, it states,
"Many Kosher
producers believe that Muslims accept Kosher as being Halal. In fact,
Muslims do not accept Kosher certification as being a substitute for Halal
certification. Some Muslims may have believed that Kosher slaughter was
similar to Halal, but they are learning that this is not true and are demanding
Halal certified products. Internationally, only proper Halal certification
is acceptable and monitoring agencies are being established to ensure
compliance."
There is one
major difference (that even I know of) between the Halal method of slaughter and
that of the Kosher method. The Halal method is actually done in a more
humane manner, as it allows the animal to be stunned first. However, this
is not the case with Kosher slaughter, which requires the animal to experience
the full amount of pain and be fully conscious.
Continuing, the
ADL then goes on to say that "the bulk of Kosher shoppers appear to be consumers
who believe the Kosher certification ... means higher quality food." Is
this true? Well, the ADL gives no proof that there are a significant
number of consumers who are non-Jewish and who buy Kosher products because they
"believe" (with the word "believe" being the key-word here) Kosher "means higher
quality food." However, as to the false claim that Kosher is a "higher
quality food," the response to this is best summed up by Rabbi Irving Silverman.
Rabbi Silverman is cited in the 20 March 1987 edition of The
Sun-Sentinel:
"There's one
misconception that I'd like to clear up. There's a perception that Jewish
dietary laws are steeped in health considerations. That's not so at all.
It is a commitment to a strict adherence to a tradition. I'm not
Kosher because it's healthier; I'm Kosher because my parents were Kosher, and my
grandparents were Kosher. It's a commitment!"
In conclusion,
the ADL admits, rather hesitatingly it appears, that consumers do, in fact, "pay
a higher price" at "Kosher butcher shops." While this is nice of the ADL
to actually concede this relatively minor detail, it does not answer the greater
question: How much are we Gentiles paying for the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax
overall? What are the real costs to us as consumers?
This figure of
costs associated with the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax is largely unknown due to
Jews not disclosing how much they charge to the various companies that receive
Kosher certification. In perhaps what can only be viewed as a
mistake by the rabbis who oversee the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax, in 1987 they
disclosed that they expected Kosher steel to bring them in $700,000.00 of fees
per year.(8)
How much is the
total cost today? While the figure is unknown, there are other things we
can tell. For instance, according to both Star-K Kosher certification and
EBizAsiaLink, $165 billion worth of food received Kosher certification in
2002.(9) But does this $165 billion figure also include non-food products
such as steel and aluminum foil, which are not actually Kosher "food" items
despite the fees that are paid and certification received?(10) Probably
not, so the figure may be much greater. Another figure that we can look at
to determine cost is taken from an article appearing in the Detroit News.
It stated that one Kosher certification company brought in an estimated
$20 million.(11) (It is not known whether this figure of $20 million is
actual net profits, or gross business.) You begin to understand how much
money we are talking about when you realize, as stated at the beginning of this
article, that there are 275 such Kosher-certification organizations in the
United States, and a total of 400 worldwide.(12)
It must be
recognized that in addition to the fees paid to rabbis for the Rabbinical Kosher
Excise Tax, there are other fees that a company might incur simply in an effort
to ensure that its product is indeed Kosher. For example, they could not
process pork or non-Kosher beef on the same equipment as Kosher beef, lest it be
"contaminated." Equipment might then have to be added or changed.
Suppliers might need to be changed. Special training would need to
be administered. Perhaps, even a full-time rabbi might need to be hired to
oversee the production.
The total costs
associated with the Rabbinical Kosher Excise Tax from all this is certainly in
the billions, if not the trillions, of dollars.
Related
story: Jewish Ritual Slaughter (link to online video
too)
Online video of Kosher slaughter: small large
(If you experience problems with streaming the above online video, right-click on the link and choose "save target as" then download it to your computer for viewing video offline.)
Footnotes:
1.) See many of
these symbols at Kosher Quest:
http://www.kosherquest.org/html/Reliable_Kosher_Symbols.htm
See article
appearing in the Detroit News about the number of Kosher agencies. It is
said that there are total of 400 worldwide, with the vast majority (275) in the
U.S.:
http://www.detnews.com/2001/food/0104/09/c09-208222.htm
2.) While
many articles attest to this, the most honest and even-handed book about the
matter is called "The Murder of Little Mary Phagan" (New Jersey: New Horizon
Press, 1987). Leo Frank, the Jewish head of Atlanta's B'nai B'rith, had
been convicted by a jury and his appeals were shown to be without merit.
Nowadays, in what appears to be an effort to further divide Blacks and
Whites, the ADL says that White Southern racists wrongly convicted the White Jew
Leo Frank in an effort to let the true guilty Black perpetrator of the crime go
free. For obvious reasons, such talk defies logic. Seventy years
after the fact, Jews were able to secure a "pardon" for Frank; of course, one
cannot receive a "pardon" without having been guilty. The pardon was not
granted due to his innocence but, rather, due to the fact that the townspeople
decided to hang Frank for his vicious crime, because the little girl Mary Phagan
had been brutally murdered by him.
3.) Dr.
Prytulak's "Kosher" website can be viewed at http://www.ukar.org/tax.shtml , and from there there
are about 30 pages of links at his website that deal with the Rabbinical Kosher
Excise Tax.
4.) The
newspaper "The Truth at Last," edited by Dr. Ed Fields, showed one such example
where an ad for Dobie Pad deliberately had its "U" symbol masked off in a
magazine with a mostly non-Jewish readership but not in a publication intended
mostly for Jews. Such deceptive practices should be illegal, according to
"Truth in Advertising Laws." Jews typically engage in ad hominem
invectives when this is pointed out - that is, they try to attack the source
that presents these facts since they cannot refute the facts themselves.
In this case, Jews will say that Dr. Fields is an "anti-Semite, blah,
blah, blah..." Even if what they say is true--and it seems more like he is
simply a concerned American patriot--it does not excuse such
practices.
5.) See
Star-K's website:
http://www.star-k.org/ind-advantages-market.htm
6.) Canadian
Jewish News, March 20, 2003:
http://www.cjnews.com/front5.asp
7.) The
Albuquerque [NM] Tribune:
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/business02/072902_business_kosher.shtml
8.) Newsweek,
"Hey, Have I Got an Alloy for You!" 23 March 1992, p. 49.
9.)
Star-K:
http://www.star-k.org/ind-advantages-market.htm
EBizAsiaLink:
http://www.ebizasialink.com/fairs.asp?ArticleID=2378&SID=156
10.) For a list
of items that are not Kosher, see Kosher Quest:
http://www.kosherquest.org/html/kosher_without_supervision.htm
11.) http://www.detnews.com/2001/food/0104/09/c09-208222.htm
12.) See
footnote 1.