page_title: Kosher foods
section_title: Food preparation by non-Jews
hierarchical_section_title: Kosher foods / Food preparation by non-Jews
context_page_description: Kosher foods are those that conform to the Jewish dietary regulations of kashrut, primarily derived from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Food that may be consumed according to halakha is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér, meaning "fit". Food that is not in accordance with law is called treif meaning "torn."
context_section_description: The classical rabbis prohibited any item of food that had been consecrated to an idol or had been used in the service of an idol. Since the Talmud views all non-Jews as potential idolaters, and viewed intermarriage with apprehension, it included within this prohibition any food that has been cooked or prepared completely by non-Jews. (Bread sold by a non-Jewish baker was not included in the prohibition.) Similarly, a number of Jewish writers believed food prepared for Jews by non-Jewish servants would not count as prepared by potential idolaters, although this view was opposed by Jacob ben Asher.
  Consequently, Orthodox Jews generally rule that wine, certain cooked foods, and sometimes dairy products, should be prepared only by Jews. The prohibition against drinking non-Jewish wine, traditionally called yayin nesekh (literally meaning "wine for offering [to a deity]"), is not absolute. Cooked wine (Hebrew: יין מבושל, yayin mevushal), meaning wine that has been heated, is regarded as drinkable on the basis that heated wine was not historically used as a religious libation; thus kosher wine will often be prepared by Jews and then pasteurised, after which it can be handled by a non-Jew.
  Some Jews refer to these prohibited foods as akum, an acronym of Ovde Kokhavim U Mazzaloth (עובדי כוכבים ומזלות), meaning "worshippers of stars and planets (or Zodiac)". Akum is thus a reference to activities that these Jews view as idolatry, and in many significant works of post-classical Jewish literature, such as the Shulchan Aruch, it has been applied to Christians in particular. However, among the classical rabbis, there were a number who refused to treat Christians as idolaters, and consequently regarded food that had been manufactured by them as being kosher.
  Conservative Judaism is more lenient; in the 1960s, Rabbi Silverman issued a responsum, officially approved by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, in which he argued that wine manufactured by an automated process was not "manufactured by gentiles", and therefore would be kosher. A later responsum of Conservative Judaism was issued by Rabbi Dorff, who argued, based on precedents in 15th-19th century responsa, that many foods, such as wheat and oil products, which had once been forbidden when produced by non-Jews were eventually declared kosher. On this basis he concluded wine and grape products produced by non-Jews would be permissible.
caption: Rabbi in a Kosher wine shop
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