Okay... This is beyond silly.

Clean, maybe, but is New York's water kosher?

New York City seems a fine place for an observant Jew to keep kosher. There are specialty shops for those who take multiple ultras in their orthodoxy, and for those of less strict beliefs, nearly every corner deli offers bagels and such.

And it all works out just fine, provided you don't get thirsty. Some rabbis now say that New York City tap water - for a century a gold standard for cleanliness - is not kosher. These rabbis have recently discovered that there are tiny bugs, called copepods, in the unfiltered water that streams into the city from upstate. These bugs are harmless. But they are crustaceans. And crustaceans are not allowed.

Over the past two weeks, concern about the copepods in the water has grown into a matter of intense debate throughout the city's Orthodox Jewish communities.

Disputes over interpretations of Talmudic law, part sport, part obsession and part spiritual imperative, spill into public view periodically in New York. Last month, for example, members of the Satmar community in Brooklyn took wigs made from Indian hair and burned them in the street.

This concern about the water, though, "really spans the entire spectrum," said Harold Skovronsky, an Orthodox Jew who lives in Midwood, a neighborhood where many people wear yarmulkes with business attire instead of the flowing robes worn by more strictly Orthodox Jews.

"They're not scared," he said. "It's purely a religious issue."

Signs of concern abound in neighborhoods like Midwood, though they are muted. At Alexander's Hardware Locksmith, a worker named Gregory Likhtin has taken the water filters from a spot on the overflowing shelves and set them right up on the front counter near the cash register. A few blocks away, officials at Yeshiva Toras Emes Kamenitz elementary school have spent hundreds of dollars installing plumbing gear behind the walls, intending to filter the drinking water. Midwood is home to Rabbi Feivel Cohen, a ranking religious leader who has taken a stand against drinking unfiltered tap water, according to people who have heard him speak publicly. Cohen declared through a closed door that he was "not giving interviews."

The dispute over the water is multifaceted and opaque. It goes all the way back to the dispute over the vegetables. Alei Katif, a company based in Rehovot, Israel, that sells vegetables rabbinically certified as bug free to those who believe that ingesting insects is counter to Talmudic law, was accused by some Jews in New York of selling contaminated vegetables, said Yair Hoffman, an Orthodox Jew who lives in Queens.

Alei Katif officials suggested instead that the vegetables became bug-infested upon being rinsed in New York, Hoffman said. (Calls to the company's headquarters on Sunday produced a long greeting in Hebrew that offered no way to leave a message.)

Two weeks ago, Hoffman and others tested the company's assertion by subjecting city tap water to a microscope. They saw copepods, millimeter-long zooplankton that are common in the ocean and in groundwater.

"And they're ugly," Hoffman said.

Ugly though they may be, city officials and independent scientists agree that they are harmless.

"There's absolutely no health risk," said Charles Sturcken, a spokesman for the city's Department of Environmental Protection.
Jonathan Cohen, a Duke University student who is writing a doctoral dissertation on copepod migration, said that some look like armadillos, some like bowling pins and other like rolling suitcases.

"It would be like swallowing a couple of gnats if you were outdoors on a summer evening," Cohen said. "If you take a gulp of water you might get a couple. But it's not like you're ingesting thousands of them."

The city's surface water supply provides 1.2 billion gallons, or 4.5 billion liters, of water daily to eight million people, and its cleanliness has won its overseers permission from federal authorities to skip filtering altogether, relying instead on chemical processes.

But the cleanliness of the water only provides fodder for the debate. What defines an insect? Does seeing one through a microscope constitute seeing one for the purposes of kosher law? And, perhaps most confoundingly, can a person legitimately claim not to see a copepod with the naked eye after looking through a microscope and learning what one looks like?

Reactions from the faithful have been as varied as permutations of the original question.

Saul Kessler, who sells wholesale water filters and installs full-home filtration systems, said he has received 100 phone calls from homeowners. "People are just on fishing expeditions; that's what I've found," said Kessler, who tells callers that a home system will cost between $800 and $2,500.

Laser Shum is still drinking tap water.

"If you take a microscope, you'll see a lot of things you don't want to see," Shum said. He is boiling his tap water, he said, "but not because of that."

And Lenny Berkowitz, 49, is waiting for consensus among the rabbis.

"They'll let us know," he said.

For Bahar Tuht, 23, an employee of Alexander's hardware store who is not Jewish, the rush on filters has been a learning experience. He has sold about 40 in the last two weeks, or about 20 times as many as in a normal two-week period, but his customers have become more selective about the kinds of filters they will buy, following subsequent declarations from their rabbis.

"Some of the filters have a light indicator; the light goes on, it's no good for Shabbos," Tuht said. "I work here, I sell stuff. You learn."

Source: International Herald Tribune

[ 06-02-2004, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

And here's a picture of the cheeky little bastard, for those interested. ;)

[ 06-02-2004, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

Buy a Brita, it's that simple.

And note, amidst being really anal retentive, that the children of Moses didn't drink filtered water.

Hmmmmm...shrimp. :D

i strongly doubt that when the bible or whatever discussed not eating crustaceans (a term which was NOT used) it was not referring to microscopic organisms that you could drink without knowing the difference. then again, im not sure if im allowed to say that, so nevermind the rest of my point.

I'm sure there are at least a few Rabinic scholars who have dedicated a good hunk of their life to just that question.

oh, i wouldnt doubt they did devote quite some time to it. i mean, looking at history and how the jewish scribes worked, their being meticulous wouldnt surprise me.

Just ask the Jewish messiah Y'shua to take on any and every breach from the law of Moses. Whether aware or unaware, his death makes any sin atoned for. No Yom Kippur needed.

Then, once you receive "The Counsellor" he promised, you can simply ask Yahweh himself what is kosher or not, rather than ask rabbis. [img]smile.gif[/img] ;) :D

See, I think that ignorance would have been bliss in this case. For all concerned.

They should be thankfull they have clean fresh drinking water on tap. I wonder what millions of people around the world, devoid of any water or only have access to sewer standerd water thinks of this debate?

These people need a big reality check, and a trip to the 3rd world to refocus there minds to real problems.

I wonder what millions of people around the world, devoid of any water or only have access to sewer standerd water thinks of this debate?

granted that they dont have water or access to sewer standard water, i somehow doubt they've been to the ironworks forum to see this debate and therefore they probably dont think much of it at all...

But they didn't know about what was in the water, did they?
Maybe they would have invented filtered water if they had...

Shouldn't God have warned them then?

'Thou shalt not drink New York's tap water.'

[ 06-05-2004, 11:37 AM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

Oh, the jews had sinned greatly. I wonder with how many hours of prayer did they made up for that sin? :D

If cannibalism is against Kosher laws, I wonder if drinking from the East River would thus be a sin...

Of course ignoring the deadly health hazards imposed by such a stupidilicious action as drinking from the East River.

First of all if Jewish people lived in 3rd world countries which some do, as there aren't many of us to go around, they would condone the fact that there are impurities in drinking water and thus drink when neccessary simply for the fact that you need to survive. Life is greater then keeping kosher, but if you can do something about it, then by all means it is a Jew's obligation to do so and follow Torah law.

As for the person that said crustacians weren't even mentioned within the Torah, i'm going to fill you in on a little secret, the Torah is not to be taken in literal context, it is interpretation. The derivation of the many Talmudic laws that exist, which is quite a lot comes from direct interpretation and logic that commentators in the past have pointed to. Another little secret is that the Torah is the written portion of Jewish law, with the written portion came, you guessed it, oral tradition. Oral tradition has been passed down throughout all generations untill it became apparent that it is quite possible that the Oral Law had become corrupt or simply wrong. (Like playing telephone). Therefore a rabbi (forgot who) went against oral tradition and wrote down the oral laws forming the Gemura. The Gemura is a compilation of all oral laws and traditions that use to be recalled purely by memory.

I do not expect you to understand or even agree with anything above. I am simply pointing out that many statements found in this thread is well. . . ignorant. It would be a good idea to research traditions and customs of other people to fully understand why this would prose such a problem to THEIR WAY OF LIFE. The other thing I would like to point out is that if your not part of the culture, or do not embrace it in anyway, than frankly it isn't any of your bussiness what they do, why would you care at all? Why can't you just overlook those things? There is a herrendous amount of secular faults in our world that can be traced down to the bickering of little children.

What has the Jewish community done to you? Frankly, they just want to be left alone and mind their own bussiness. Do not relate this to the problems with Israel and Palestine in anyway to this comment. I do not agree what is happening in the Middle East and there are some Jews who do believe it isn't our time to be there. If giving up a piece of land on a material plane to satisfy people to prevent the loss of thousands of innocent lives then by all means it should be done. I'm not going to Israel anytime yet and have no intentions to. Israel is also roughly the size of New Jersey o.O. But on the other hand if Israel is given up to the Palestinians, many radicals will still want us dead. ::sigh:: What a paradox.

Do unto others what you want done unto you. (The epitome of Jewish law)

[ 06-07-2004, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: Nightcloak ]

Nightcloak, to the extent our views are "ignorant," please educate us. Your views as an apparently-practicing Jew (or at least one knowledgable of the practices) is valuable. Being folks who just want to try to discuss shit in this crazy world, we will often times make "ignorant" statements because we just don't know enough. Adding folks like you with specialized knowledge we don't generally have is part of the strength of IWF. Please take the time to educate us while you denegrate us (or, even better, in lieu of denegrating us).

Just my two pennies.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you feel like a no body. I just come across this type of thing all too often, as funny as that may seem.

As for being a practicing Jew, well hrm. . . - After an interesting family ordeal and a spark of OCD, and well - no friends, I found a religous orginization (or they found me o.O) who puts together those trip thingies in communities and stuff. I met a lot of nice unreligous and religous people and wanted to try it out. Make a long story short, I spent 8th grade in a yeshiva (Jewish private school), with the support of my parents (definetly not my sister!) and tried it out. Nothing too different, just Hebrew subjects became part of my everyday life for that year. Then came. . .

"Go to Israel, Go to Israel" A brainwashing phenomenon I found not to be affected by. So that and the fact that I wanted to go back to public school and show everyone I wouldn't take their crap anymore made my decision to leave.

**Coincidence** ?: - Second week of my return to public school -> hit by a car .

Anyway I saw both of two worlds and it was quite an interesting ride. The religous aspect to me had great views on everyday life, socialization, dresswear, and so forth. The "un-religous" side, well it was great to see a girl with a mini skirt on again too [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] !

[ 06-08-2004, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Nightcloak ]

As for the person that said crustacians weren't even mentioned within the Torah, i'm going to fill you in on a little secret, the Torah is not to be taken in literal context, it is interpretation.

so what youre saying is that when i mention the fact that the words "and then God said, 'though shalt not eat crustacians'" isnt in the torah, im right? you dont have to be defensive and all, i was just pointing out that one celled organisms MIGHT be a little excessive, but hey, its your game, right?

well it was great to see a girl with a mini skirt on again too

Oh, I know the feeling...

Not being defensive at all in this post, just letting you know first off.

Yes, by taking things in literal context and so forth and by "interpreting rationale" it would appear that people do take things a little too far. Hence one of the reasons why I have left the religous scene. Although I believe in God, there are simply many things I don't agree with, that do appear down out right mean. Does this make those who do such practices incompetant people? Only those who don't have open minds.

The other thing is that I would like to make apparent that it simply isn't your way of life. You don't know anything from it and it is entirly up to you whether or not you would like to find out more about it. All religions take some things over the top that may seem rediculous to another person in their perspective. It would be difficult to make you understand when your simply not brought up that way.

Now here is the area that aggrivates me, its those people who see a "new" thing or simply don't know enough about a subject and immeadiatly assume they have the right to judge another by their observation without any other input. This doesn't account for everyone or everything, for simply there are some things that are obviously wrong, but for some people to degrade a culture over such small things as. . . keeping kosher? I'm not saying you did, which you didn't but I have seen and heard many things in my very short existance which is sad.

This argument doesn't just pertain to how the majority of the world sees the Jewish culture, but how they see everyone elses cultures. Just because i'm going on about "people and Jews" this and "people and Jews" that, I don't mean to simply block out the other countless races and religions that have their very own severe problems in the world today just because "I don't believe in what you believe."

Religion is a tool for every day life, a guidance for the horrible things not under control by man, the gap for the unexplainable and unreachable, a connection to the things that only emotions can express. I guess what i'm trying to say is, in the end we commonly share the same values, perhaps not the way we practice them, but what we overall strive for.

::edit:: Concerning people making decisions and judging entirely what they see first hand is at its root a natural phenomenon that is uncontrollable. But in being human, we have been given a gift of choice, and choice is something that needs to be used wisely. Things in nature have developed the way it does simply for defensive and survival reasons, so I don't really blame anyone for how they react at first, it just aggrivates me when they can't look past such a basic instinct later.

C U L T U R E - S H O C K

[ 06-08-2004, 05:39 PM: Message edited by: Nightcloak ]