CHODOSH BULLETIN-5 JUN 06
Right before Shevuos I sent out the annual Pre-season Chodosh Bulletin. This is reproduced below. In it I repeated the note that I had printed in the last issue of the Guide to Chodosh of last seaon, namely that the Guide for the forthcoming season will adhere to new standards that will not list as Yoshon any food that is not under hashgocho for Yoshon, or whose Yoshon status can not be independenly confirmed. This change was decided after consultation with Rabbonim, Roshei Yeshiva and mashgichim. It was motivated by the increasing evidence that food producers have recognized the commercial value of the Yoshon market and these producers can no longer be in the category of mashiach lefi tumom(speaking in unbiased innocense). Such assumption was valid years ago, but not any more.
I keep receiving expressions of concern from people living away from the Metropolitan New York region. They do not have the heimishebrands of packaged foods under hashgocho that are available in the New York area. They have been able to keep Yoshon over the years by relying on national brands with no hashgocho at all for Yoshon. Now they are concerned that they may be unable to continue to observe Yoshon due to what they anticipate will the greatly limited coverage of the new Guide.
Firstly, I would like to refer you to the assurances that I printed in the Preseason Bulleting that is attached below. Secondly, I would like to ask the help of those living away from New York. Please send me a short list of those Yoshon food items that you are relying on in your routine menu which are not under hashgocho for Yoshon. This should be only items that are truly very important to you (like flour). Send me the full brand name of each item and a full sample package code for each, including possible factory code. Please only include items that were listed in the old Guides as being from winter wheat or otherwise assumed Yoshon. (Those items that you used with cutoff dates given by dating codes will continue to be listed in the new Guide, athough probably with a somewhat earlier cutoff date than in the past. These you may have to store a little longer.) I will do my best to try to get independent confirmation of these important items so that I should be able to continue these in the new Guide on a more reliable basis.
Send these requests to me by email to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or by US mail sent to Yoseph Herman, 20 Sylvan Road, Monsey, NY 10952. Please do this a soon as possible to give me the needed time to investigate. I will not be able respond to individual submissions, but will try to include them in my research for the new Guide.
Y. Herman
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PRESEASON CHODOSH BULLETIN, MAY 06
TIME TO RENEW SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE GUIDE TO CHODOSH
COST INCREASES, NEW POST OFFICE BOX ADDRESS
The Guide project does not accept any donations. Even though this is a volunteer project, there are expenses that need to be covered by the sales of the Guides. For many years, the cost of the Guide had remained at $15 for the three issues per season, or $5 per issue at the local distributors. During these years the number of pages per booklet and the cost of mailing have both increased significantly. Therefore we are forced to increase the cost of the subscription from $15 to $18 for the three issues. For those who buy individual copies sold by local distributors, the first issue will cost $8 and the remaining two will be $5 per issue. The $18 covers subscriptions to be mailed within the USA. For Canadian addresses, the cost of the 3 issues is $20. For Israel, Europe and other overseas locations the cost is $24. To subscribe, please send your checks made out to Project Chodoshto the Guide address given above.
Note the change of address for subscriptions from last year. To have the three issues of the Guide mailed to your home send your full name, address including apartment number (if any) and zip code, and phone number, together with the amount of money specified above to:
Project Chodosh Subscriptions
PO Box 150088
Kew Gardens, NY 11415
All other correspondence should be sent to the Monsey address, listed at the top of this page.
CHANGES IN THE NEW GUIDE
People living far from the Metropolitan New York area have contacted us to register their fear that the lack of access to many of the heimishe brands available in the New York area would deprive them of sources of Yoshon. We will do our best to maintain useful Yoshon information about nationally available brands. Here are some example of the changes, which also address the needs of maintaining coverage for national brands:
· Dating codes will continue to be supplied for packaged foods as they were in the past. However, the cutoff dates used will often be earlier than in the past, based on Chodosh-crop harvest dates supplied by the US Dept of Agriculture.
· We will no longer accept that all wheat used in General Mills cereals is always Yoshon, but will supply cutoff dates for such wheat ingredients. Similarly, the cutoff date for oats in Cheerios will be earlier than in the past.
· Those wheat baking flours that were listed as always using winter wheat will be listed with a cutoff date, unless we can confirm independently that they always use winter wheat.
· We are making an effort to contact all individual local bakeries, pizza shops and similar establishments that have in the past claimed to be Yoshon, but had no hashgocho for Yoshon. We will not be able to continue to list in the Guide those that do not respond and provide information about Yoshon hashgocho for their establishment.
· We had always recommended that everyone get all three issues of the Guide to keep up with changes and corrections. This will be even more pertinent this year, as we will work to keep gathering more information using our new guidelines, after the publication of the first Guide.
ESTIMATED CHODOSH STARTING DATES
· Items using oats should be safe to purchase without looking at codes up to sometime between Jul 27-Aug 10.
· Foods using wheat, other than noodles and pasta, safe to purchase up to around Aug 14-Aug 28.
· Noodles and pasta up to Aug 21-Sept 4.
· Barley products, other than items from barley malt, safe to purchase up to Jul 28-Aug 10.
· Barley malt products, including beer should be safe to purchase up to Dec. 15.
THE EMAIL MAILING LIST
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Project Chodosh is an independent activity, not affiliated with any movement or organization. We thank the Jewish Internet Fund (JIF) for allowing us to use their E mail distribution services. The JIF provides free email and web hosting to Jewish education and outreach organizations. We also thank the sites moruda.com and sefer.org for allowing the public to use E mail to request copies from their facitlites of the Guides to Chodosh and the Mashgichim.
