Convenience Stores: Convenient, But Not Always Safe

The High Holidays are approaching, and who among us doesn't long to pour out their heart at the holy site in Meron or experience miracles at Rabbi Meir's grave. The journey is long, and drivers often decide to take a break at one of the gas stations along the way. Recently, "convenience stores" located along roads have become popular, serving as mini-cafés adorned with fragrant pastries. Prominently displayed is a kashrut certificate claiming all baked goods come from strictly kosher bakeries - a modern replacement for the ancient 'robbers' that once stood at roadsides.

Well, it's worth knowing a few facts about these fascinating establishments.

Today's bakery industry has changed significantly. They no longer bake pastries on-site like they used to. Yes, you can still compliment the baker on his wonderful handiwork, but it's worth knowing that he's just the person putting pre-made dough into the oven. Currently, there are only a few manufacturers of pastries and desserts who distribute their products to bakeries. The sellers only need to turn them into finished, fresh products through local baking, adding toppings before baking.

However, this process creates many kashrut issues, the biggest being - particularly in the Jerusalem and northern regions - that the actual baking is performed by local workers who are generally not Jewish. This classifies the pastries as "bread made by non-Jews." Indeed, in places where kashrut supervision is strict, a Jewish person assists with lighting the oven, which is considered sufficient participation.

This solution is acceptable only for pastries and not for items considered "cooked." Since the shiny appearance of pastries comes from brushing them with egg liquid, according to Ashkenazi authorities, this is considered cooking.

In practice, public establishments don't install external heating elements. Moreover, in modern ovens, as soon as the oven door opens, the oven's operation stops completely and resumes only when closed. So if the person placing items in the oven isn't Jewish, it's certainly considered "baking by non-Jews."

By the way - an oven used by a non-Jew requires kashering, so even if we cleverly insert the pastry ourselves, we still haven't eliminated the concern of "bread of non-Jews." Not to mention that workers have frequently been caught "red-handed" heating their personal food - sometimes even meat dishes in a dairy oven.

Another obstacle - the kashrut certification only applies to the pastry itself, but the toppings are added locally. The eggs themselves aren't inspected, and certainly the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, grain mixtures, and chocolate chips aren't necessarily kosher.

Even assuming these products are kosher, sesame seeds and grains naturally tend to become infested quite quickly, and surprisingly, so does chocolate, especially when stored near heat sources. Just witnessing once how the topping process is done, with egg liquid mixing with sesame or grains and sitting for many days waiting for someone to clean it, is frightening to imagine...

Finally, remember that these pastries are presumed to be dairy or even actually dairy, as they are baked in the same oven, on the same tray, with cheese remnants from previous pastries that may have spilled over...

Tip - for those of us who store sesame seeds in the pantry after opening the package, please wait a week, maximum two weeks, and then thoroughly sift and shake the sesame seeds in a tea strainer (about 2-3 mm hole size) so that the sesame remains and the waste comes out, Safari crawling, that's probably what you're seeing...  

Our thanks to Rabbi Yishai Malka, one of the Beit Yosef Badatz supervisors, who shared these findings with us.