ARLENE J. MATHES-SCHARF, FOOD SCIENTIST - KOSHER FOOD SPECIALIST and the person behind Kashrut.com, possibly the best kosher information on the web, shared an article about McDonald’s opening a kosher store in Lod’s Terminal 3.
THE BLURB WAS a PR puff piece that McDonald’s franchise owners sent out, probably in cooperation with the Zomet Institute.
Zomet Institute is a highly regarded organization that tries to find ways to make Shabat and haggim more easily observed within the confines of established halacha. It recently established its own kashrut supervision operation that upset the chief rabbinate that, until Zomet, had a monopoly on the money-making field.
THE QUESTIONS
ONE: How will a traveler buy a kosher anything at McDonald’s if the customer and the McDonald’s clerk are shomer Shabat?
The answer may lie in the way hotels and some restaurants feed their guests on Shabat. The guest pre-pays for the meal(s).
If the lodging is small, such as The Farbreng Inn near Richmond VA, management knows who are the Shabat guests.
If the lodging is larger, such as the Hotel Dan in Tel Aviv, guests’ meals are included in the rates — pre-paid or at least pre-arranged.
TWO: Why would an observant Jew be traveling though an Israeli airport on Shabat or haggim.
Airplanes sometimes fail to depart and arrive as scheduled.
KLM, a really good airline, was supposed to get me to Israel from Amsterdam in plenty of time to get to my apartment and prepare for Shabat. Being a “really good airline,” it delayed the departure from Amsterdam until a plane from JFK carrying passengers bound for Israel arrived and the JFK passengers were boarded.
Bottom line: The flight arrived about an hour before Shabat.
Fortunately, my apartment was in Holon and I made it in time. I had yogurt for my Shabat meals that Shabat, but Shabat was saved.
Let’s consider a person leaving Lod for Barcelona.
Lod-to-Barcelona is about five hours. If the flight leaves Israel at, say, noon, there should be plenty of time to reach Barcelona before kabalat Shabat.
If, however, the flight is delayed, the traveler must decide: take a chance that the flight will arrive before Shabat or reschedule the flight.
If the traveler has checked out of his or her hotel, or lives far away from the airport, especially if the traveler has to depend on public transportation, the traveler may not make it home before kabalat Shabat.
THE ANSWERS
The “bottom line” is that it is very possible a traveler could be stuck in the airport for the duration of Shabat.
It would be “nice,” but hardly likely, that the airline would tell the McDonald’s to give the travelers whatever they want simply by having the passenger show a ticket (for departing flights) or boarding pass (for arriving flights).
Since that is just “wishful thinking,” the observant traveler must be able to somehow pre-pay for Shabat meals.
Using a credit card is a possibility, but there are travelers who are loathe to surrender a credit card for carte blanc charges. This is not to suggest that anyone would abuse the privilege, but it happens.
McDonald’s could sell chits in various denominations or for specific menu items. Chits for menu items seems better since the amount/item is fixed.
British Airways issued chits at Heathrow for grounded passengers when employees of its catering company struck and then the baggage handlers joined the strike. The food kiosks quickly ran out of food.
While it seems “strange”, an “open-on-Shabat” kosher restaurant in an airport has its place. It is possible, albeit not likely, that an observant traveler could be “stuck” at the airport for the duration.
How much could a kosher hamburger joint make on a Shabat?
How much could I make if it had a regular kosher restaurant as competition for an observant traveler’s shekels?
It’s interesting what questions a puff piece generates. Old newspaper editors apparently are not supposed to read handouts.
Since both Globes and Yeshiva World had nearly identical copy, its obvious that the editors could not be bothered to put a new “top” (lead paragraph) on the PR release. Lazy. Sloppy. As Robert Allen Zimmerman wrote, The Times They Are A’Changin, but, alas, not for the better for “journalism.”
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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