Hechsher

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Hechsher

A hechsher (IPA: , ???? Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
: "kosher approval" , plural: hechsherim) is the special certification mark

Certification mark

A certification mark on a commercial product indicates five things:* The existence of a legal follow-up or product certification agreement between the manufacturer of a product and an organisation with national accreditation for both testing and certification,...
ing found on the packages of products (usually foods) that have been certified as kosher (meaning "fit" for consumption). In Halakha
Halakha

Halakha ? also Hebrew transliteration Halocho and Halacha ? is the collective body of Judaism religious law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions....
(Jewish law), the dietary laws of kashrut specify food items that may be eaten and others that are prohibited as set out in the commandments

613 mitzvot

The 613 Mitzvot are statements and principles of law and ethics contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses. These principles of Biblical law are sometimes called commandments or collectively as the "Law of Moses" , "Mosaic Law," or simply "the Law."...
of the Torah

Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
. Observant Jew

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s generally will only eat permitted foods.

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A hechsher (IPA: , ???? Hebrew

Hebrew language

Certification mark

613 mitzvot

Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
. Observant Jew

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s generally will only eat permitted foods. To assist Jewish consumers, rabbi

Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
nic authorities produce and regulate their own hechsherim. It is usually Orthodox

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism is a Jewish denominations of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict constructionist and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmudic texts and as subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim....
rabbis who assume the jobs of mashgichim (singular: mashgiach
Mashgiach

In Judaism, a Mashgiach is a person who supervises the kashrut status of a kosher establishment.A mashgiah may supervise any type of food service establishment, including slaughterhouses, Food industry, hotels, Catering, nursing homes, restaurants, butchers, groceries, or cooperatives....
, "supervisor"). This means that they will "supervise" the products and processes that manufacture kosher food to ensure compliance with the required standards. The mashgiach will allow the manufacturer to apply a hechsher to the packaging of the product only if found to contain only kosher ingredients and produced in accordance with Halakha. The rabbi may also apply additional words letters after the hechsher to denote whether the product contains meat

Kosher foods

Kosher foods are those that conform to the rules of Jewish religion. These rules form the main aspect of kashrut, Judism dietary laws.Reasons for food being non-kosher include the presence of ingredients derived from non-kosher animals or from kosher animals that were not properly slaughtered, a mixture of meat and milk, wine or grape j...
(often denoted "Meat"), dairy

Kosher foods

Chametz

Chametz refers to bread, grains and leavened products that are not consumed on the Jewish holiday of Passover, as well as all food items that are not specifically marked "kosher for Passover." According to Jewish law, Jews may not own, eat or benefit from chametz during Passover....
(P), whether the product is pas yisroel (bread baked at least in part by a Jew), cholov yisroel
Cholov Yisroel

Cholov Yisroel refers to all dairy products, including cheese and non-fat dry milk powder, which have been produced under the supervision of a Jew....
(any dairy products came from Jewish owned farms), or whether the product is yoshon

Yoshon

In Judaism, Yashan is a concept within Kashrut , based on the Biblical requirement not to eat any hadash? grain of the new year prior to the annual Omer korban on 16th Nisan....
(lit. "old": all grain contents took root before the previous Passover

Passover

Passover is a Jewish and Samaritan holy day and festival commemorating God sparing the Israelites when He killed the first born of Egypt, and is followed by the seven day Feast of the Unleavened Bread commemorating the Exodus from Ancient Egypt and the liberation of the Israelites from Judaism and slavery....
).

Specific authorities

In America

The united states of america

The United States of America may refer to:* United States, the country* The United States of America ...
, one of the best known hechsher symbols is the "OU" of the Orthodox Union

Orthodox Union

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America , more popularly known as the Orthodox Union, or OU, is one of the oldest Orthodox Judaism organizations in the United States....
based in New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Outside of the United States, they are less well known. They employ hundreds of rabbis as mashgichim and are generally accepted.

There are many other respected hechsher logos; examples include: Star-K

Star-K

The Star-K organization, also known as the Vaad Hakashrut of Baltimore, is a kosher certifying agency based in Baltimore, Maryland under the administration of Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, with the involvement of many other rabbis ....
based in Baltimore, Maryland

Baltimore, Maryland

Baltimore is an independent city and the largest city in the U.S. state of Maryland in the United States. Baltimore is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay....
, the logo of both the Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Joburg, is the largest city in South Africa. Johannesburg is the province Capital of Gauteng the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa....
and Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second most populous city in South Africa, forming part of the metropolitan municipality of the City of Cape Town. It is the provincial Capital of the Western Cape, as well as the legislature capital of South Africa, where the Parliament of South Africa and many government offices are located....
Beth Din

Beth din

A beth din, beit din or beis din is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Land of Israel....
used in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
, MK Va'ad Ha'ir based in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal, or Montr?al, is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada of Quebec and the List of largest cities and second largest cities by country List of the 100 largest municipalities in Canada by population....
, Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, and Kosher Australia based in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the more common name for the geographic region and Census in Australia of the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area. It is the second List of cities in Australia by population in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million and serves as the List of Australian capital cities of Victoria ....
, Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
.

The largest number of agencies are in the U.S.A. Kashrus Magazine publishes an annual guide of almost all kosher supervision agencies world-wide; its 2007 Kosher supervision Guide features 921 agencies.

Spelling

At the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee
Scripps National Spelling Bee

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a highly competitive annual spelling bee. It is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scripps Company and is held in the ballroom at the Hyatt Washington hotel in Washington, D.C....
, contestant Saryn Hooks correctly spelled "hechsher," but her spelling was ruled incorrect. A few minutes later, the judges realized their printed spelling of "hechscher" was incorrect and reinstated Hooks, thanks to 7th grader Lucas Brown, who noticed the error and called it to the attention of his father. The transliteration from Hebrew into German is "Hechscher".

Hechsher

Specific authorities

Spelling

See also

External links