Chodosh Bulletin addressed to those living far from New York

[Y. Herman]

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 
<mailto:yherman at earthlink.net>yherman at earthlink.net, 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

As we noted in the last Guide of the previous season, major changes are 
coming in next seasons Guide. We will no longer list in the Guide an item 
as being Yoshon based solely on statements of companies regarding the 
Yoshon status of their products. Only information provided by hashgochos or 
from impartial sources such as the US Department of Agriculture will be 
used, in combination with experience we have accumulated over the years.



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

The following are our early estimates of up to which date will it be 
recommended that you can purchase foods without concern for Chodosh. These 
are preliminary estimates only. Corrections and updates to these will be 
posted when available, on the News section of the Chodosh Hot Line and by 
email to those who subscribe to the email list (see below.) The corrected 
dates will also be published in the first edition of the Guide. The range 
of dates we give are the earliest and latest expected safe purchase dates. 
Note that these recommended dates are earlier than the cutoff dates used in 
the past.



·          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

Those who have access to email can have important corrections and updates 
sent to their email address automatically. To subscribe to this free 
service send a blank email message to:

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

Those who have subscribed last year to the email distribution list do not 
need to renew this email subscription.





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and the Mashgichim.











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