Educator boxes clever for festival
THE LONDON Beth Din is again this year easing the strict rules governing Pesach food to help shoppers during lockdown.
Guidance issued by the Kashrut Division of the London Beth Din (KLBD) lists 30 products which can be used “in extremis”.
Items range from hand sanitiser and honey to instant coffee and condiments.
A KLBD spokesperson stressed that such items were “intended only for circumstances when regular supervised products are not available, or if people are in isolation and unable to go shopping themselves or have kosher for Pesach supervised products delivered to their home”. Among the “leniencies” are permission “in extremis” for using brands of salt other than Saxa and brands of sugar other than Tate & Lyle.
Foodstuffs still banned include various soft drinks, tinned tomatoes and potatoes, prunes, gherkins, olives and jams.
Non-food items certified as kosher for Pesach by the KLBD include cosmetics, medicines, pet food and cleaning products.
As the pandemic took hold last
Vspring, the Beth Din announced an unprecedented list of goods not produced under special Pesach supervision that could be used during the festival.
But for 2021, “Passover-supervised products are widely available via internet shopping, home deliveries, click and collect, 24-hour shopping and some charitable organisations”.
KLBD director Rabbi Jeremy Conway said “thankfully we are not predicting any kosher l’Pesach food shortages. Nevertheless, we have produced guidelines again this year intended for members in more isolated areas where regular supervised products are not available, or have kosher for Pesach supervised products delivered to their home.”
www.kosher.org.uk/pesach
TO ENABLE people to create their own festival experience in lockdown, Jewish Futures has created a Pesach box.
They have almost sold out, having been pre-ordered around the country by nearly 10,000 households.
Many are being distributed via schools and United and Federation communities.
To ensure the widest use, Jewish Futures has now announced that free downloads of resources are also available from its sedernight.org website.
Jewish Futures director Rabbi Naftali Schiff said the organisation operated on the “firmly held conviction that there are multiple pathways of Jewish engagement rather than the ‘one size fits all’ approach.
“The new Our Story Haggadah is easy to follow with a concise and contemporary translation, simple explanations and both Ashkenazi and Sephardi customs.”
Rabbi Schiff added that the website offered a wide range of other Pesach content including recipes, games and children’s activities.
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