An undercover video captured the owner of a Los Angeles kosher meat market bringing unsealed boxes of chicken into the store, leading to the revocation of the store’s kosher certification the day before Passover.
Mike Engelman, owner of Doheny Glatt Kosher Meats, was videotaped on March 12 directing his employees to unload boxes of meat from his car, late at night, while the store’s kosher supervisor was absent. The footage led the Rabbinical Council of California to revoke the shop’s kosher certification on March 24, leaving many kosher consumers in the lurch.
Engelman eventually admitted his wrongdoing after initially denying the accusations in a meeting with the rabbinical council, the L.A. Jewish Journal reported.
“He did claim that it was kosher — I think that the way he put it was that he ‘never brought nonkosher meat into the store,’ and that he ‘never sold something not kosher,’ ” said a source who attended the March 24 meeting, according to the newspaper. “But he did acknowledge bringing in boxes — he claimed it was poultry — into the store.”
Engelman has run Doheny, located on Pico Boulevard in the heart of Orthodox Los Angeles, for 28 years. He declined to comment, on the advice of his attorney.
The footage was shot by Eric Agaki, a private investigator acting independently of the rabbinical council, the Jewish Journal reported.
On March 28, Doheny reopened under new rabbinical supervision.
Rabbi Menachem Weiss, whose father, Rabbi Meshulom Dov Weiss, is listed as the shop’s new kosher supervisor, told the newspaper that two mashgiachs (supervisors of kosher law) would be present in the store at all times and that seven cameras had been installed to permit remote monitoring of the premises.
The dispute over Doheny Glatt Kosher divided a Jewish community that for decades has prized the market’s brisket and chicken, as well as high-end fare such as bison, prime steaks and grass-fed beef.
Even as the rabbinical council shut down the store, other prominent rabbis stood by the shop.
The Los Angeles Times reported some defenders as saying the shop is under attack from disgruntled competitors. In a letter emailed to congregants last week, the Times reported, the chief rabbi of one of the city’s largest synagogues, Rabbi Adam Kligfeld of Temple Beth Am, urged people to continue to patronize Doheny “because by doing so we can make a statement that kashrut should be about kashrut … and not monopolies or power plays or raising suspicions.”
The Times also quoted some people in the heavily Orthodox Pico-Robertson district who were critical of Doheny.
“If [the butcher] did it in Israel, New York or Chicago, he’d be dead by now,” the Times quoted a woman as saying. Another woman standing outside the store, according to the Times, said, “How are they still open?” n