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Published on: 8/30/2007
Last Visited: 8/30/2007
Rabbi Aaron Flanzraich, spiritual leader of Beth Sholom Synagogue and president of the board, made up largely of Conservative and Reform clergy, said the committee, chaired by Rabbi Steven Saltzman of Adath Israel Congregation, was established in response to issues raised by local Conservative congregations.
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For example, Rabbi Flanzraich said, some congregations have received phone calls from COR on a Thursday evening informing them it would be unable to provide mashgichim for Shabbat, and the synagogues may have been expecting hundreds of people for a bar or bat mitzvah.
"Eventually the problem was sorted out, but it created an air of unpredictability to an important aspect of congregational life," he said.
Armed with those concerns, he said, the committee was formed in order to speak to COR about these and other issues.
Rabbi Flanzraich said the committee, which has yet to meet with COR, believes that diversity and pluralism shape the fabric of religious institutions, and that it's not in their best interest to be served by an unrepresentative monopoly.
"We do appreciate and respect what COR does, but we would like to see it achieve a sense of transparency," he said.
This could be achieved, he added, by having a COR board of directors that represents a broader cross-section of the Jewish community.
"There is no transparency if the board's values are based on the standards of a single person or single organization.The idea behind transparency is compromise and reasonable balance.The board should not be led by the right or the left."
The nature of a communal organization is that it lends itself to a standard that is reasonable and rational, and based on Halachah, Rabbi Flanzraich said.
He also said he sees no problem in welcoming new hechshers into the city, "provided they are reliable and halachically trustworthy.
"New York has hundreds of hechsherim, and people do their research.They are well informed as to what best suits their level of comfort."
Many people have accepted a new local hechsher, Mehadrin Kosher, supervised by Rabbi Moshe Levy of Nachal Yisrael, a small shul and beit midrash near Bathurst Street and Wilson Avenue, Rabbi Flanzraich said.
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Rabbi Flanzraich stressed that he has a lot of respect for COR, "but having a number of [kashrut] organizations will not imperil anybody."
The Toronto Jewish community has grown tremendously, and it's far more diverse than it ever was, he said.
He noted that as the community has grown, most of its institutions have had to re-evaluate their procedures so that they fit the new reality.
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