Beer Buying Brouhaha Brewing

April 12, 2018
Better put down that pint of Guinness, and don’t even think about cracking a Corona. This month, some Orthodox rabbis are telling New York Jews they should stick to Budweiser — or not drink beer at all.

The unusual edict was made after the rabbis who keep watch on New York’s kosher food supply realized in the weeks before Passover that the owner of the city’s dominant beer wholesaling firm is Jewish.

“He’s 100% Yid,” said a rabbinic administrator at the Central Rabbinical Congress, a Kosher certification agency affiliated with the Satmar Hasidic sect.

That posed a problem for the rabbis, because while the New York beer magnate, Simon Bergson, is Jewish, he is not traditionally observant. Under certain complexities of Jewish law, that has led some Orthodox rabbis to rule that all the beer he owned during the week of Passover is not suitable for consumption by Jews.

Read more: https://forward.com/news/398518/orthodox-rabbis-order-jews-to-stick-to-budweiser-or-skip-beer/