Push the Button!
Rabbi S. remembers the exact day when he realized that there
was a problem. He was on a day off from his job as Assistant Supervisory Advisor
to the Undersecretary of Field Mashgichim (Dairy Division) at the OU, when he noticed
something odd on his computer screen.
At 9:30, his longtime coworker from the daily division,
Avrohom Gordimer, posted a blogpost to Crosscurrents.
At 9:32, Gordimer responded to a comment on the blog.
And again, at 9:34, and :9:35, and again every few
minutes, until noon, when he posted yet another blog entry. Each of the entries
exceeded 5000 words. Rabbi S. recalls feeling concerned, for Gordimer had been
dispatched that day for a very important job:
to activate the rennet feeder for over 3 vats at a cheese factory. If
Gordimer was online all day, who was pushing the “on” button on the rennet vat?
If he did not do it, the cheese may fall into the category of “gevinas akum”
(according to some rishonim).
Around 300 pm Rabbi S. was relieved to see that an entire
hour went by without Gordimer posting. But as he soon discovered, Gordimer was
in fact not turning on rennet feeders, rather he was getting his makeup touched
up for a photo shoot for a glossy Hareidi magazine. Rabbi S. later determined
that the button on the feeder was indeed never touched by Gordimer’s unassailably
Jewish hand.
That there had been issues with the cheese supervision
within the OU for some time now is something of an open secret around the mashgiach
community, but nobody has spoken to the press about it until now. After days of
reporting and a prime number of interviews, a complete picture of unboiled parmesian
cheese lines, calf stomach linings, and unpressed buttons appears.
The Cheesehead
Avrohom Gordimer was known for years as one the top 20
cheese mashgichim in the Greater New York area, earning him such nicknames as “The
Cheesehead,” “Gevinas Da’as,” “The Munster Rebbe,” “The Big Cheese,” and “Avrohom
Farve.”
“He could do hagala on a cheese line like nobody’s
business” Rabbi W., a mashgiach, told me. But even years ago, according to
Rabbi W., Gordimer displayed some questionable behavior. Gordimer had a lot to
say about non cheese related issues, and was desperate to get his message out. Numerous
Kosher cheese consumers lodged complaints with the OU when they found, included
with their cheese, hand written screeds against the Nishmat Yoetzet Program,
Philosophy professors in Yeshiva University, and Carlebach minyanim. The OU looked the other way. After all, how
many notes could one guy write? But that was before the fateful day that
Avrohom Gordimer discovered the internet.
CrossFire
According to many reports, Gordimer was hesitant to blog
at all, as none of his rebbes did so (and certainly not the tzaddikim from
previous generations). But after much pressure from the Crosscurrents blog, he
wrote his first post, “Women Belong in the Kitchen, Unless it’s a Big
Industrial Cheese Kitchen, In which Case they are not Allowed and Doing so
would Violate the Mesorah.” It was not long before an angry comment by a famous
radical open orthodprax feminist was posted on the site. Gordimer replied. The
feminist replied. And his cheese supervising skills were never the same.
“I remember the day when his name rose to the second most
popular option on the google search autofill for ‘Avrohom.’” Rabbi F., another mashgiach
told me. “He threw such a party. Empty cheese spray containers were everywhere.
But tell me, whose signature appeared on the packaging? Who wrote the letter on
the cover of each individual batch? Who applied the special coded insignias
unique to the mashgaich and kashrus to the cheese?”
One oft told story, though yet to be confirmed by hard
evidence, tells of a pile of young goat stomach linings in one of the factories
for which Gordimer was responsible. Another has the OU being placed on Kraft’s “Bacon
Flavored Cheese with Real Bacon Flavor”, whose source was a factory that Gordimer was responsible for
“negative supervision”, in which mashgichim are sent to visit the cheese plant
when it is making its regular, non-kosher products, to assure that kosher
labels are not applied at such times. (Negative supervision is needed for all
non-kosher facilities which schedule special kosher productions, but it is more
critical in the case of retail cheese manufacturers.)
“I personally have stayed fleishig for over two years straight,”
Rabbi W. told me, “Just so I could avoid eating cheese without anyone realizing
the real reason- that I cannot trust its hashgocha.”
Closed Orthodoxy but Open Cheese- odoxy?
No one can possibly find fault with Gordimer’s persistent
attacks on the open orthodox kofrim with their mishkav zachar and semichas
nekeiva. But at what cost? Who is watching my cheese? I am more than happy to
expunge evil from the community, but not at the cost of affecting my diet in
the slightest way.
As Gordimer puts so clearly in his voluminous writings,
Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a specific tafkid for everyone, and it is not for us to
step out of our roles. You, Avrohom Gordimer, have clearly been put on this Earth
to watch cheese. Please do us all a favor and resume your proper role.
