The Kosher Food Tax – and its increasing common copycat the Islamic Food Tax – is something that impacts the lives of most ordinary Americans as well as Europeans in general with companies paying increasingly high annual fees to kashruth certification organizations – most famously the Orthodox Union – to ‘certify’ every day products as kosher (1) and which in turn is used to fund jewish activities as well as lobbying.
As I have explained in a previous article in reference to Jimmy Donaldson’s (aka ‘Mr. Beast’) recent-ish decision to have his ‘Feastables’ snack range certified as kosher:
‘It is actually a form of ponzi scheme run by jewish groups to enable them to fund lobbying the US government – for example the Orthodox Union who have certified ‘Feastables’ have a sizeable political lobbying arm called ‘The Orthodox Union Advocacy Center’ which in 2017 alone spent $640,000 lobbying the US government – on behalf of Israel and the jews as well as advocating for direct donations to Israel to the tune of millions of dollars.
The issue here is that Donaldson – or rather his managers – have bought into the myth propounded by the kashruth certification industry that ‘kosher certification is a sign of quality’ (it isn’t) and that there is a large untapped consumer market for them to exploit (there isn’t).
The truth of what is going on – aside from raising money for the jewish community to help them to continue stealing US taxpayer funds for Israel – is that kosher certification is actually a way to make kosher food cheaper for jews.
For instance, the cost of normal kosher food is notoriously high and continuing to climb so the way around this for jews has long been economies of scale; in other words, if you increase the amount of kosher food produced in any given segment and/or market then you will naturally lower the price paid by jews.
This has been achieved by jewish groups targeting the food of non-jews by claiming there is a sizeable market that corporations are missing out – traditionally jewish groups such as the ADL have claimed Muslims and Seventh Day Adventists also use kosher certification as a guide to what they can eat – and then getting it kosher certified jews often driving up the cost for non-jews but decreasing the cost for non-jews.
Meanwhile these kashruth certification agencies rake in substantial profits via regular kashruth inspection fees, referral fees for ‘kosher approved’ equipment (etc) and suppliers and so on, which is then spent on the jewish community and promoting Israeli interests and nor is limited to the United States as the same thing occurs everywhere from Canada to the United Kingdom to South Africa to Australia.’ (2)
While also noting that revenue generation by getting American taxpayers to pay large amounts of money to kashruth certification organizations and their associated/child companies to organize ‘free kosher school lunches’ for children (3) as well as to do the same in US prisons – (4) this also applies to British prisons incidentally – (5) while driving down the notoriously high cost of kosher food for ordinary jews by – (6) in essence – making non-jews pay for it. (7)
What is driving this – in addition to the use of stricter and stricter standards of kosher which gave us ‘Glatt Kosher’ and has now given us a more extreme standard of kashruth named ‘Glatt Beit Yosef’/’Chalak Beit Yosef’ which is being gradually rolled out across the kashruth certification industry which in turn generate increased revenues for kashruth certification organizations (stricter standards mean they can charge more and require more frequent inspections etc) – is the fact – as I have already pointed out – that the funds generated by kashruth certification are the mainstay of the funding for large jewish groups that have their own lobbying groups which form of the Israel Lobby such as the Orthodox Union in the United States.
Thus in order to increase their revenues in a market that is already heavily saturated with dozens of kashruth certification organizations – and remember the ADL explicitly claim that these groups ‘don’t turn a significant profit’ but yet they keep multiplying which suggests the exact opposite – they have to either convince more companies to ‘certify’ more products by leveraging the delusional belief that ‘they are leaving sales on the table’ by paying tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to these jewish groups every year for the ‘right and privilege’ of putting their little ‘approved’ symbol on their packaging so your local rabbi and his family don’t have to pay so much for their special kosher-approved food and have you pay for it instead.
Or they have to rule that whole new categories of products require ‘kosher supervision’ and this has just been announced in the case of beer.
As a rather upset jew named Louis Keene writes in the ‘Jewish Daily Forward’:
‘There’s a simple reason Halle Goldblatt likes to tour breweries on vacation: People who keep kosher can sample the product. Unlike wine, which requires certification to be deemed kosher, beer has historically received the benefit of the doubt.
“Most people, when they travel, go to wineries,” Goldblatt, a self-described beer aficionado, said in a phone interview. “I can’t do that, but I can always go to a brewery and have a beer.”’ (8)
To put it in simple terms: until now beer operated like salad in kashruth terms in that it was broadly considered de facto kosher and only the ultra-Orthodox jewish weirdos who wrap themselves in plastic sheeting on planes ‘so they don’t come into contact with unclean creatures like goyim and menstruating jewish women’ would try to drink kosher-certified beer and/or inspect each salad leaf in their kosher salad for insects, but now the ‘big three’ of the world of kashruth certification – the Orthodox Union, Star-K and OK Kosher (the only big one outside of these three is really Kof-K and I am sure they will follow suit before too long) – have decided that this no longer holds true and that beer does require kashruth certification after all.
Keene continues on by writing:
‘Multiple kosher certifiers now say the assumption that beer is kosher has gone flat.
The heads of OU Kosher, Star-K and OK Kosher — three of the five major certification agencies — announced this month that all beer will soon require certification to be considered kosher, attributing the change to the increased use of flavoring and other additives in craft beers.
A list of problematic ingredients rabbinic inspectors recently discovered in breweries included oyster broth, clam juice, wine and milk, according to OK Kosher.
“These ingredients are regularly included in craft beers,” OK Kosher wrote in its letter. “As such, the major kashrus agencies have concluded that the time has come to change our old policy of accepting beer as free of kashrus concerns.”
The agencies provided a list of more than 900 beers that are currently hechshered, or certified kosher, which is typically denoted with an agency’s symbol on the packaging. (Ⓤ is OU Kosher’s mark.) The permitted include products from big brands like Coors and Budweiser and medium-sized labels like Hoegaarden and Blue Moon Beers not on the list — among the missing are popular imports like Dos Equis and regional favorites like Sierra Nevada — will no longer be acceptable to serve at OU-certified establishments as of Jan. 1, 2026, OU Kosher said.
The decision undercut a credo that was long a saving grace for kosher travelers, casual drinkers and hopheads. One Facebook thread responding to the news received more than 100 comments, with a few seeing the change as a way for the certifiers to drum up business. But the majority of the commenters — Goldblatt among them — appeared to begrudgingly understand the decision. And a few wondered why it had not come sooner.
“At first, I was like, ‘Oh, no, this is gonna make my life a lot harder,’” Goldblatt said. “But I think it makes sense for the OU. People rely on them to get honest information about the things that they are consuming,” she added, “so I think it’s good for the kosher consumer.”’ (9)
Keene’s point that jews themselves see this not as a ‘necessary change’ but rather as jewish organizations looking for more angles to generate even more cash for themselves is echoed by David Klein at ‘Religion News’ (10) which obviously jives with my own opinion of what they are doing that I have explained above.
Naturally the rabbis – who after all are those who directly profit from the kosher food tax – are trying to ‘justify’ this by pointing to the ‘increasing complexity of craft beers’ (11) and the ultra-Orthodox news website ‘Anash’ even went so far as to try and down play the reality of this rabbinical ruling writing that:
‘To clarify the situation, Anash.org spoke with Rabbi Nissan Zibell, shliach in Orlando, Florida and the Kashrus administrator at the RCF (Rabbinate of Central Florida). He is also a member of the liquor committee at the widely recognized AKO (Association of Kashrus Organizations).
“No Kashrus agency has declared beer to be non-kosher,” Rabbi Zibell told Anash.org. “They are simply saying that, in establishments under their hashgacha. They prefer to only approve beers that are free of any shailos. This is a policy decision, not a kashrus crisis.”
He noted that the clearest evidence is in the letter itself: The OU explicitly permits approved-but-uncertified beers to continue being served for another six weeks, which would not be allowed if any genuine halachic issue had been discovered.
Rabbi Zibell explained that for the past five years, all major kashrus agencies have already been encouraging consumers to prefer certified beers over approved-but-not-certified beers. Over the last three years, the Star-K and cRc have clearly categorized beers into: Certified beers, approved but not certified beers, and problematic / not recommended beers.’ (11)
This however note how everyone else has read the Orthodox Union’s joint letter on the matter with the religious jewish community’s news website ‘COLlive’ explaining the implications of the ruling and the joint letter as follows:
‘Only beers with reliable certification may be served at OU establishments and certified events
A partial list of nearly 1,000 currently certified beers has already been released
Many major national brands will remain acceptable, even without a printed symbol
All craft beers will require a visible kosher symbol or letter
The OU encouraged all caterers and food-service operators to reach out in advance of any event to review beer and alcohol selections. The agency emphasized that while the policy represents a major shift, they are committed to a smooth transition and will be working closely with establishments over the coming weeks.’ (12)
With the ‘Jewish News Syndicate’ agreeing and stating that:
‘Starting on Jan. 1, OU establishments and certified events can only serve beer that has “reliable kosher certification,” the OU said. It said it had a list of nearly 1,000 beers that are kosher certified.
“Note that many national brands already have kosher oversight and will therefore remain acceptable even without a symbol on the label,” it said. “All craft brews would be required to have a kosher symbol or letter indicating kashrus.”’ (13)
While Jessica Mason writing in the drinks industry’s official periodical ‘The Drinks Business’ has much the same opinion writing:
‘A partial list of nearly 1,000 currently certified beers has already reportedly been released with sources citing that many major national brands will possibly still remain acceptable, even without a printed symbol. That said, all craft beers brewed in smaller premises will now require a visible kosher symbol or letter before being accepted by the Jewish community.
The move is set to shake up the sector and assist beer businesses that make the certification a priority, while also essentially blocking others from the revenue that could be gained from more limited styles and ranges of beers being served at Jewish venues.’ (14)
The point here is that this not some kind of ‘considered change’ that the Orthodox Union, Star-K and OK Kosher are trying to portray it as but rather it is a naked grab for a slice of the profits in the highly profitable beer market that they have been prepared to make for quite some time. The point is once again to drive up the cost of beer for non-jews – who after all are the primary consumers of beer – in order to both cut the cost for jewish beer drinkers – those who keep kosher anyway (who are the rabbis primary support base incidentally) – and also increase jewish profits.
So next time you head down to the bar or the pub then you need to look out for those beers that already making you pay the jews for the privilege of drinking beer.
Happily, Mark Zimmerman at the ‘San Deigo Jewish World’ has already created a small list of such kosher certified beers: (15)
Samuel Adams
Heineken
Coors
Budweiser
Miller
Orange You Glad It’s An IPA
Berry Weiss
Hop Nosh Tangerine IPA Beer
Lesser Jesus Pale Ale
Vote with your wallet my friends.
Say no to the Kosher Food Tax.
References
(1) On this please see my detailed article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-kosher-food-tax-debunking-the; also see: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/rabbinical-council-of-europe-admits
(2) This is from the following article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/mrbeast-and-the-reality-of-the-kosher
(3) On this see my articles: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-free-kosher-school-lunches and https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-jewish-conspiracy-to-get-american
(4) On this see my articles: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-continuing-push-to-have-non-jews; https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/how-us-prisons-disprove-the-kosher; https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-kosher-food-to-the-us
(5) On this see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-kosher-food-to-hm-prison
(6) For example, see: https://jewishpress.com/sections/businessfinance/the-frum-community-has-a-spending-problem-and-its-not-what-you-think/2025/11/21/; https://jewishpress.com/sections/businessfinance/the-frum-community-has-a-spending-problem-and-its-not-what-you-think/2025/11/21/; https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/england/london-travel/oy-vey-being-jewish-costs-an-extra-13-000-9z9kbcqxf https://coastalcourier.com/coastal-living/faith/the-extreme-cost-of-kosher/; https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/342699/the-ridiculously-high-cost-of-a-kosher-thanksgivukkah/
(7) On this see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-continuing-push-to-have-non-jews
(8) https://forward.com/news/784852/is-beer-kosher-certification-rule-change/
(9) Idem.
(10) https://religionnews.com/2025/12/09/how-kosher-is-beer-as-with-other-products-its-increasingly-complicated/
(11) https://anash.org/kashrus-insider-there-is-no-kosher-beer-crisis/
(12) https://collive.com/ou-all-beer-now-must-have-a-kosher-certification/
(13) https://www.jns.org/starting-in-2026-ou-says-only-certified-kosher-beers-at-its-venues-events/
(14) https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2025/11/kosher-certification-planned-for-beer/
(15) https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2025/11/24/jewish-trivia-quiz-kosher-beer/
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