Go Kosher
 
5/2/03 - Many clients, koshering their homes for the first time, get emotional. They ask Lebovic to say a prayer for their new kitchen.
 

Adapted from The Rebbe's Army (Schocken)
 By Sue Fishkoff

Rabbi Sholtiel Lebovic is director of the nonprofit company Go Kosher, which he runs out of his Crown Height office. He grew up in New Jersey, where as a boy he helped his father kosher Jewish homes. Now he runs a home-koshering operation that whips through hundreds of Jewish homes a year in the Greater New York and wider tri-state area. Some of Lebovic’s clients are observant Jews who have moved to a new home and need help making it kosher, but he estimates that 70 percent are non-observant people looking to make that first step toward creating a Jewish home. “There are a host of reasons,” he says. “They could be the parents of children who went to Israel, and they want the grandchildren to be comfortable in their homes. They could be becoming observant themselves, or maybe they’re not shomer Shabbat [Sabbath-observant] but they want to keep kosher.”

Lebovic and his crew can usually kosher a home in one session, including taking all the utensils for ritual dunking in a mikvah, blowtorching the oven, cleaning out the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, and advising the client on what has to be thrown away. “It’s not rocket science,” he says. “Lots of rabbis do this. But we have the system down. I try to make it as easy as possible. Once someone has committed to eating kosher, it’s just a matter of keeping separate parts of the kitchen for milk and meat, and buying kosher food. If they backslide, that’s fine. They can call me and I’ll walk them through it again.”

Many clients, koshering their homes for the first time, get emotional. "It is a big thing for these people. It means identity, it means feeling attached to Judaism.”