Why are parents comfortable sending their kids to camps whose kitchens have no formal kashrus supervision?
Laundry bag? Check.
Toothpaste, bathing suit, and plenty of snacks? Check, check, check.
It seems it wasn’t that long ago when your son or daughter was busy taking tests in school, while you were doing homework of your own, researching sleepaway camps to find one with the right environment, facilities and crowd for your child to thrive. But even as the coach bus pulls away from the curb, full of children excited to spend a few weeks getting away from it all, there’s one reality from which there can be no vacation — living within the confines of halachah.
It goes without saying that parents are going to do their due diligence before making their final decision on which summer camps’ hashkafos and practices align with their own. But even with an on-site rav to ensure that ruchniyus remains priority number one, the camping experience does pose certain halachic challenges. While obvious issues are dealt with head on, one can’t help but wonder — are there others that are being accidentally overlooked, and, if so, how can those oversights be corrected?
Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, kashrus administrator for the Chicago Rabbinical Council and the executive director of the Association of Kashrus Organizations (AKO), an umbrella of major kashrus agencies collaborating on shared issues, is well versed in the inherent pitfalls of large-scale kitchens. He’s mystified by the notion that people are comfortable sending their kids to camps whose kitchens have no formal kashrus supervision, even though they themselves would never even dream of eating in a restaurant without a hechsher. Based on his firsthand experiences, Rabbi Fishbane estimates that nearly 90 percent of summer camp kitchens are in need of improvement when it comes to kashrus.
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