Update from the Guide to Chodosh

[yherman at earthlink.net]

UPDATE FROM THE GUIDE TO CHODOSH



NEWS AS OF SEPT 15 03



CORRECTION TO THE GUIDE



The Guide has not yet been mailed out and there is already a correction 
thanks to an alert person who called the Hot Line to provide me with new 
contacts at the company in question: Natural Ovens breads are all Chodosh 
at this time, with the exception of the Best Burger Buns.



PDF VERSIONS OF THE GUIDE



As mentioned below from my earlier announcement, I offered to make the PDF 
version of the Guide available to all those who request it by E mail. I 
have since received a very large number of such requests. It is not 
possible for me to respond to all of those using the old manual one-by-one 
response approach I used last year. Meanwhile, someone is kind enough to be 
working on an approach so that people should be able to request the PDF 
version without the need for my direct intervention, the way that you can 
already request the text version. I have saved all the existing requests 
for the PDF report without answering them. I hope to have the auto-response 
approach working within a day of two. I will send out a new message when it 
will be available. Meanwhile I am asking that you please excuse the delay.



WHY THE GUIDE DOES NOT HAVE A WEB PAGE ON THE INTERNET



Last week I sent out a message which indicated that I am honoring a psak 
halacha not to use Web pages on the Internet. Several people have responded 
to that with varying levels of incredulousness. Some people asked that I 
discuss the reasonability of such a psak. I do not have the qualifications, 
ability, or time to enter into such discussions. The approach of the Guide 
over all of the years has been that we do not force any psak halacha on 
anyone else. Therefore we have always presented Chodosh-related facts and 
urged the reader to ask his and her own halachic questions. In this case, 
years ago I accepted, bli neder, on myself the psak not to use any Web 
pages for the Chodosh project. I hope to continue passing Chodosh-Yoshon 
related information to the interested public as in the past, within the 
constraints inferred by this psak.

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NEWS AS OF SEPT 12 03



The first issue of the Guide to Chodosh has gone to the printer. It is 
expected back on Monday or Tuesday, Sept 15 or 16. It will be mailed out to 
the local distributors and paid subscribers as soon as possible thereafter. 
Meanwhile, we have prepared two versions of this Guide to be available by E 
mail, at no charge to your. One is a text only version that any E mail 
reader can read. The other is a PDF file that can only be read by the Adobe 
PDF reader program.



This years Guide has the first major change of format in the 31 years of 
its publication. We have assigned one of 5 categories to each items listed 
in the Guide, indicated by the Hebrew letters aleph, beis, gimmel, daledand 
ches. These are measures of the reliability of the claim to Yoshon and the 
ease of finding the Yoshon item in the stores. These symbols work fine in 
the printed and PDF versions of the Guide. However, they are lost, replaced 
by ?in the text only version.



To order the text only version to be sent to you automatically, send an E 
mail message to:

<mailto:Chodosh-request at jif.org.il>Chodosh-request at jif.org.il

In the body of the message type:

Get Guide.txt

Make sure you capitalize as shown. DO NOT send this request to the yherman 
E mail address.



To order the PDF version, send an E mail message to 
<mailto:yherman at earthlink.net>yherman at earthlink.net. In the subject line, 
state that your are requesting the PDF file. We will try to send this file 
to you as an attachment by return E mail as soon as possible.



Meanwhile we plan to disseminate information on a frequent basis via E mail 
and news recordings on the voice Hot Line (845-356-5743). If you find the 
frequent E mails annoying, you may unsubscribe from the E mail list, as 
described below.

******************************************************************



NEW ADDRESS FOR ORDERING THE GUIDE TO CHODOSH

Those who wish to order the 3 printed issues of the Guide to be printed 
through the season should send a check for $15 to our new address. (This 
address is only for subscription-related matters.) Project Chodosh 
subscriptions, PO Box 297279, Brooklyn, NY 11229.



Our current preliminary date estimates follow:

Freshly baked products in local bakeries such as breads, challehs, rolls, 
bagels probably Chodosh starting: Sept 1 in the East and Far West, Aug 15 
in the Mid West.

Packaged foods containing wheat, other than pasta: Probably Yoshon if 
packed before Aug 15. Probably Yoshon if purchased up to Sept 5. After that 
package codes have to be used.

Packaged pasta probably safe if packed before Sept 15, probably safe to 
purchase up to Oct 6. After that package codes have to be used.

Foods containing oats probably safe if packed up to Sept 23, probably safe 
to purchase up to Oct 14. After that package codes have to be used.

Foods containing barley (other than malt) probably safe if packed up to 
Sept 15, probably safe to purchase up to Oct 6. After that package codes 
have to be used.



SPECIFIC BRAND INFORMATION UPDATED SEPT 12 03

The following are cutoff packing dates for specific products.



Barley: Gefen-Yoshon at least up to package code of 0805 (Aug 5, year not 
used).

Benco, Trinidad, Peak, Jack Rabbit Chodosh packing date Sept 15, 
Goya-Chodosh starting Oct 15. Quaker-Dec 15, Arrowhead Dec. 1. 
Unger-according to the mashgiach plans for producing Yoshon barley have not 
yet been finalized.



Oats Chodosh packing dates: Quaker-Aug 21, ConAgra, -Sept 21, 
Arrowhead-Sept 23,  Maypo-Oct 1, General Mills (Cheerios, etc.)-Oct 20.

________________________________________



To send an E mail message to the Guide, please address it to: 
yherman at earthlink.net.



Before you discontinue using an E-mail service, please unsubscribe from 
this list by sending a message to:

chodosh-unsubscribe at jif.org.il. Then if you wish to resume receiving these 
messages from your new service, send a message 
to:  chodosh-subscribe at jif.org.il.



You can request several reports by sending an E-mail message to: 
chodosh-request at jif.org.il. Then in the body of the message type the 
command: "get" (without the quotes) followed by the name of the file that 
you want. Type each request on a new line. Make sure that you copy the file 
name exactly as spelled including capital letters. These reports are now 
available:



Get Guide.txt

This gets the text-only version of the latest Guide to Chodosh.



get Guidelines.txt

This gets a long report on Guidelines to Mashgichim on Chodosh. This has 
not been updated in the  last two years, but is still substantially valid.





get News.txt

This gives the latest news bulletin, such as this note.

__________________________________________

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