Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 01.26.2006

Backlash greets kosher food in Belarus

(JTA) -- The production of a new kosher bread in a city in Belarus caused a string of anti-Semitic newspaper articles.

An editorial in the Mogilev Register, a local daily, warned those of the Russian Orthodox faith to keep away from kosher “products in the same way they keep away from idol sacrifice,” claiming that the blood of sacrificed animals is used in kosher rituals. 

It also claimed that the bakery’s management, in its drive for profit, is turning the city into a Jewish community, the Russian AEN news agency reported. 

An article in the Evening Mogilev, another daily, said the act of making something kosher is “sacrilegious and anti-Christian.”