Is A Swordfish Kosher? | Kosher Fish Q&A with Rabbi Chaim Goldberg of OU Kosher

[Music] Welcome Rabbi Goldberg. It's a pleasure to have you. As promised, we reached out to our audience as we were learning Desar and they came across the sug invite our friends at U Kosher to answer the questions directly. So we've already discussed a we've discussed and here we are our opportunity in to speak to Rabbi Goldberg who is known at the OU as the fish expert quote unquote. Um he's been dealing with fish for a very long time. We could have a separate conversation a long one probably about all the different areas of fish that he's gotten into over the years. So before we get to the questions, Goldberg, how long have you been at the OU and how have you gotten into the fish industry? >> Thank you for having me, Rabbi Schwed. I'm working at U Kosher. I just hit my 23rd anniversary and I've been the fish guy since day one. The previous fish guy was promoted to a different responsibility and starting day one, I was expected to be expert in everything fish related. So trial by fire as we do things here at the OU and uh I did my best to learn everything as quickly as possible and now I know more. >> If we walk into your office, it does not smell like a fish store, does it? >> Thank god it does not. >> Okay, let's jump right in. First question. Hi, I heard there's a difference in standard between commercial tuna such as Bumblebee or Starissist and quote unquote Hayish brands like Dogim and others that only the OU will certify meaning the former ones only certify and the Hamish brands are maybe have a different process which are certified differently. Can you explain on the most basic level? We're not here to get into rights or wrongs. was just one of the mitas between the different standards of the brands of tuna fish. >> Sure. So, in terms of an OU certified product, U tuna fish factories are dedicated to producing exclusively kosher species of fish. So, there's no concern of anything happening in an U tuna factory that would be happening in any other place, something that would be untold of anyway. Um, so the concern that some people have is it could be that there's a requirement according to that you have Mashki supervising every fish before it's butchered. Meaning before you remove the kosher simon snap of a casc fins and scales, you'd want somebody of our nation to investigate the fish and guarantee that it was a kosher species before you cut it up. U does not require that. And the thinking behind that is that we don't look at fish as being significantly different than any of the other products that we certify. We look at the nature of the factory, what they handle, how they handle it, why they handle it, and if we don't see any real reason for them to handle anything other than kosher species in an appropriate way, we don't have to require a mashidi. So that's going to be the main difference between the quoteunquote tuna and the non-heamish tuna. Hamish tuna. There's a mashiach that's sitting there and babysitting exactly what's happening when the mashiach isn't there, which is that the factory only produces nothing but kosher species of tuna. >> Excellent. So, I think this might segue into the next question. Um, anybody listening here and probably anyone not listening knows that fish aren't born in the factory. Their fish are swimming in the water whether they're natural or farm-raised and they're fish netted out of the water and to taken onto boats most of the time and then brought to the factory. So could you just give us some practically what's what happens in that space? Is is the is there a mash there? Would a mash be required there? Would a mashia be required there sometimes? Just talk us through that that step of the process. >> Right. So every different fishery has going to have a different situation happening by it. So since we started talking about tuna, I'm just going to answer the question relative to tuna. In that case, tuna is a wild fish. There's no such thing as farm-raised tuna. So what you're going to have is a factory troller of some sort that's going to be either trolling, longlining, pening, different fishing methods, how you're going to bring the fish on board the vessel. And there's no need for a mash to be on the vessel. And I don't believe there is any Mashk on any Hashkah's vessel because nothing's happening on the vessel. The fish is just being stored there sometimes for many days until the processor can get back, the boat could get back to the processing facility. That's where the fish is going to potentially be gutted and cooked and processed and everything else. So there's nothing happening on the boat. There's no need for a mashf to be on the boat. And I'm not aware of anybody else requiring a mashk to be on the boat or what the tollus of mashk being on the boat would be. So this this is a question my own question. Um you know as growing up you hear and this might be just pure hearsay. So that's why we want you to clarify that there are certain types of fish that perhaps are steamed or cooked or some kind of process happening on a boat before they get to the factory. Is that just false or depending on the fish or not relative relevant to kosher fish? >> Just false. >> Thank you. Next question. I feel like many Jews aren't aware of the problems of buying fish. So, we're going to skip, you know, the details of the question, but the question basically is there are people who live in areas where there's no kosher fish stores and people who live even where there are kosher fish stores, they may find it either cheaper or more convenient to go to a non-coosher fish store. Could a person do that? And if they do that, how could they buy fish in a non-coosher fish store? Okay, that's a great question and it's the kind of question that we handle here at OU Kosher on a regular basis. People call it to ask that. We've answered that in many different social media uh platforms. So, if you check the OU's various social media platforms, you'll see my answers to that. They send me around to give Shirum in town, out of town, virtually all over the place. And I'm happy to repeat myself. Maybe I get better at it. I don't know. But so much I can tell you. There's two different issues. And you have to keep those issues separate because people try to focus on one or the other. So keep it in mind that there's two issues. First issue is guaranteeing that the fish that you're dealing with is a kosher fish. Now, how you going to do that? You're going to have to check that fish for the presence of scales that can be removed without ripping the skin. The mistake is that people think, "Oh, I know this name and this name means it's a kosher fish, so I could just turn my brain off when they're looking at it by name." And that's obviously not going to be acceptable. So, you're you're going to want to make sure that you only buy whole fish that have the skin still attached to them. While the skin is attached, you're able to check that skin in order to remove a scale from it. If you know the fish very well, you have something called a tus ion. And that tus ion, the ability to recognize what something is by looking at the skin. That would also be sufficient for you to recognize that the fish is a kosher type of fish. That's only step one. You also have to consider step two, which is maintaining the kosher status of the fish from the time you identified it till the time they're handing it to you. And that means thinking about all the different things that it may be touching that are going to put non-coosher schmutz on your fish. Specifically, the knife, the board, the gloves, all the other fish that are in the same uh refrigerated case that it might have been touching the worker before who loaded the fish into that case. What was he touching? So you have to keep all of that in mind and figure out how do you have to deal with that. So it depends on what kind of environment you're getting it from how you deal with that. So specifically, let's say you're dealing with a fish store where the fish are stored loose on ice. You picked your fish out. The person who's selling it to you showed you the fish. You're clearly able to see that it's a scale on fish. It's kosher fish. No problem. He's already had the fish gutted because when you're going to buy a fish in a retail place, they're definitely not leaving the guts in that long. It's going to cause listeria problems, other problems. You're not going to want that. So, that was at least gutted. Now, the fella is going to cut the fish even further. Well, his knife, his board, and his gloves all have remnants of whatever else he's handling. Even if he changes the gloves, let's say he has disposable gloves. Until then, it was handled with nonclean gloves, the knife, the board, all those things are an issue. So, you're going to want to keep that in mind. If you can guarantee all those things in some manner, depending on what kind of fish store you have, that's great. If not, all is not lost. When you bring that fish home, again, let's assume for whatever reason you cut it with a non-clean, non-coosher knife, board, glove, something like that. You take it home, you rinse it under nonh hot water, meaning that not going to burn your hands. It doesn't have to be freezing cold. You can add a little bit of hot to it, but you're not cooking it in the sink. You're taking that water. You rinse the fish the first time. You take a sharp non-s serrated knife, a straightedge knife, and you scrape every side of the fish. What you're doing is you're trying to remove a little bit of the fish. Not a kadet kipa, not a kad natila. It's called garb pas. You're removing a little layer of the fish from the outside of the fish. And while you're removing that layer of fish, whatever schmutz would have been stuck into the fish is also going to be removed. Once you've scraped all the sides, you rinse it under that same cool water and everything is kosher. The fish, the knife, and the sink. Everything is fine because you kept it under hot water temperature, meaning not hot. So, you have no cautious issues with anything left. >> You mentioned that all the fish are already gutted beforehand. Is the gutting process a concern as well or the gutting process is not a concern? Meaning even if you assure that after you picked off picked out your fish that it's a kosher fish and you assured that everything was clean and everything else, is there a concern that the gutting process beforehand was done with non-coosher instruments and may have put non-coosher schmutz onto the inside of the fish? >> Exactly. The first cut, even if you take the fish home with its scales and skin and everything else still attached to it, they've at least gutted the fish. So, at the very least, you're going to have to rinse, scrape, and rinse the gut cavity where the fish was cut open. But yeah, you always have to keep that in mind. That's a potential issue. Now, if a person is buying factory sealed fish, for example, let's say they were going to, am I allowed to say the name of a supermarket? Let's say they were going to a place like Trader Joe's and they bought refrigerated salmon in the Trader Joe's fish section. So, that is not kosher certified, but it's plain salmon. You know what it is. You're able to recognize that it's salmon. It's still got the skin attached, so you can definitely know that it's a kosher fish. You do not have to do any of those things because the kind of factory that's processing that kind of salmon is an industrial environment where we're not worried about them using non-coosher knives, board, or gloves. They're handling farm salmon exclusively. And even though the OU's never been to that factory specifically, yes, we have, but let's not talk about that. We don't certify it. And because we don't certify it, we're just going to tell people the best thing to do is just eat it as is. You don't really have to scrape it, rinse it, or anything else. That environment is dedicated to salmon. So, you're good to go on that. So, I can't give you a rule for every fish store. Everything is going to depend on how it works. But, you just got to keep those two issues in mind. One issue is making sure the fish is a kosher species. The second is that it's handled in the kosher way. >> Excellent. Very very clear. Now >> that's the special >> bishop question. The two conditions for something to require bishop is that it's right that it's prepared and would be eaten at a king's table which is a separate conversation what exactly that means and also that it will not be eaten raw. Typically um when we were kids we didn't usually see fish being eaten raw but as times have progressed and sushi has become something part come part of our society raw salmon is being eaten all the time does that change the laws of bishel akum regarding any salmon all salmon any fish all fish rabbi goldberg >> so as far as U policy is concerned we don't regard any changes to bishalakum because of sushi. Meaning, as far as we're concerned, salmon, tuna, yellowtail, any of the other species that you would theoretically find raw served in sushi are not now designating that species as being edible raw. There's a bunch of different reasons for it. Realize that nobody is taking a a side of salmon with a fork and a knife and just digging into it. You take tiny tiny pieces of fish. Sometimes you're marinating it in a sauce. You're definitely putting soy sauce, spicy mayo, God only knows whatever other things you do besides eating it with vegetables, rice, and everything else. So, personally, if I was going to eat sushi, which is rare, I would be making misinus on it because the icker by me is the rice and the fish is tough. So, you might even be able to eat shoe leather if you wrapped enough soy sauce and spicy mayo on it. So, the bottom line is the OU's policy has been that we don't regard any of the fish edible raw in sushi as now making the species edible raw. So, sorry about that. Make sure that you have a Jewish person cooking your fish for you and then you're good to go. >> You probably want a Jewish person cooking your sushi anyway because of the other issues that may arise. >> For that, you got to come to a full fish presentation. >> Yes. Okay. Which Rabbi Goldberg mentioned there's a lot of information on fish on the OU's website, OU social media. So, just Google U fish. You could add the name Goldberg and you're going to get lots of information from Rabbi Goldberg about fish. I just want to get back to one thing you said before um about skin and the scales. So, just to clarify, a regular person like myself who never went and started looking at exactly what fins and scales are, how would they go into the fish store and know if those fins or those scales, you know, meet the criteria of that they'll pull off the skin or won't pull off the skin as you pick the scales off? >> Yeah. So the funny thing when a lot of times when I'll open up a fish presentation I'll ask people how many people here um think that they would be qualified to she an animal right where we are and of course people are not said and how many people would want to write their own tal fill in or uh even tie their own titus without a rebby showing them how to do it and pretty much not I said okay by the end of today every single person here will know very clearly how to check a fish that it's kosher whenever somebody tells me they're nervous about it I tell them you can't be that much dumber than the 5-year-old girls that I taught it to. I even had a song for them to remember. And if you want, I'll teach you the song, too. But the bottom line is it's not hard to learn. It's a one-time thing. Somebody shows you what it's supposed to look like. Basically, a scale is going to look like a fingernail, and when you try to pull it out of the skin, it's going to pop. If it doesn't pop, you're probably doing it wrong. So, you can definitely ask the fellow behind the counter if he could scale it for you. And if he takes a scaler and he rubs it against the fish and you see stuff flying in every direction, it's a kosher fish. >> Okay. And now to wrap things up. Wrap things up. There's a fish called a swordfish. If we had YouTube videos, we could show them swimming. Swordfish has been a topic of conversation amongst piskim scientists um and anyone else who wants to weigh in about its cash status. Rabbi Goldberg, are swordfish uncosher? Are they kosher, uncoo or somewhere in between? >> So the story is as follows. As a matter of policy, the OU does not consider swordfish a kosher fish. That's not because we have independent knowledge that it's definitely not a kosher fish. Rather, there's a few logical logistics reasons why practically you can't eat swordfish today. For those people that are not familiar with it, swordfish apparently have scales when they're in their juvenile stages, and those scales are absorbed into the flesh later on in life. According to Allah, that would be perfectly fine. There's just one problem. That's only good in theory. In practice, when I have a piece of fish in front of me, I need to be able to know that that fish is kosher. There's two accepted methods of doing that. One is by removing a scale from the sample of fish that I'm given, seeing that it comes out without ripping the skin and knowing that it's kosher. or two is with tus ion like we mentioned earlier the ability to recognize the species as of a species that we know to be kosher by looking at the skin that's not currently available on uh swordfish that's available for commercial purchase because commercial swordfish are not babies they're fully developed adults and the scales even if they're present are totally embedded in the skin and nobody in any community that I'm aware of uh at least amongst Orthodox jewelry can claim to have any tradition that we've always eaten this swordfish and treated it as a kosher fish. So therefore, we can rely on that. So while we have had instances where someone was able to look at a juvenile swordfish and see that it was kosher, Rakar confirmed we have no right to rely on one fish that was identified to us as having been a swordfish to now pass it on the species. And I myself had an incident with Rashar that RFAR and I had a meeting together with Rabbi Bistaser who's also a fish fellow here at the OU and we bought a swordfish steak from Trader Joe's with skin on and brought it to RFA to see what he would say about it because he had famously told people that he had seen a baby swordfish and it was kosher and some of his tal were quoting his name that he said practically you could eat swordfish. So I brought him a swordfish and I asked him what did he think about it and he said well can you take the scales off it and I said you cannot. So what are we supposed to do with it? I said this is the swordfish. So he reminded me of the story which it was a very good story. Rashef tells it better than I could. So you'll ask him if you want to hear it. Um it was a great story about how he had got this baby swordfish on his table and checked it and it was definitely kosher. And I said people hear you say the story and they believe they can purchase adult swordfish. Said of course not. You don't have a scion on it and you can't check it for scale. So why could you do that? So the bottom line is I can confirm that this is not a mahocus between Goldberg and Har said it in front of witnesses that we do not endorse the idea of people practically eating swordfish. And it's not because the fish is intrinsically not kosher. It's because there's no way for us to know for a fact that it is kosher. >> Incredible. So we've kept this under 20 minutes. Thank you, Rabbi Goldberg. if you have anything else interesting, exciting that's on your table or in your closet fish related that you want to share before we sign off. >> So, some people have asked every so often, I get this as a phone call, they want to know how the U makes smoked salmon bishop Israel. And my answer to that is we don't need it and there's nobody who argues. Say, what do you mean? I'm Mak Israel. He said, I hear you. And when you go to the produce store, do you ask if the apples are bishel? And the fellow says, "No, but the apples are raw." And I say, "And so is the smoked salmon." And the fellow tells me, "No, no, no, no, no. Smoked salmon is cooked. Don't you see? It says smoked on the outside of the label." So depending on how sarcastic I'm feeling, which is usually very, I'll make some kind of very dramatic response that, "Oh, I didn't even see the word smoked at the front of the label. Oh, thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'm only here 23 years and now finally somebody set me straight." Anyhow, so what is the story? Why doesn't smoked salmon need bish Israel? The answer is smoked salmon is completely raw. Now, I'm going to prove it to you the way I proved it to the 5-year-olds. You ready? If you've ever eaten cooked salmon, you may have noticed that when you stick a fork into it, it crumbles. I could explain to you why based on the way the protein sets as it cooks. But the bottom line is cooked fish crumbles. And if you're a typical Jew, you've had locks smoked salmon sometime in your life. And when you picked it up to put it on your bagel, you may have noticed that it wiggles the same way that raw fish wiggles. And that's because smoked salmon is raw. The same way that you smell like smoke after you've burnt the kits and you come back in the house and you have to go quickly take a shower because you smell like smoke. That smoke has attached itself to your skin and your clothing in a similar manner. That's how the smoke flavor is transferred to smoked salmon. Smoked salmon is completely raw. There's no bishial there's no bishel aquam concern on it. There's no way to make it bishy Israel because it's still raw by the time you got it. That's as opposed to hot smoked salmon or kippered salmon that is cooked and it also doesn't require bishi israel because in order to make it you first made cold smoked salmon or locks and that is already edible raw. So once it was edible raw somebody cooking it afterwards even if that person isn't Jewish did not make it bishako. >> Excellent. Excellent. So what you're pointing out to the world is that they've been eating raw fish long before they even taste. >> And what's hilarious is there's only people in New York that it's raw. I had a misa when um when we were I was with Mashk visiting the last smoked salmon factory in Nova Scotia, Canada. Now people who remember smoked salmon like the Nova salmon. Everybody knows no because it came from Nova Scotia. That was a place where you would get salmon from potentially originally wild Alask wild wild Atlantic salmon which is not a thing anymore. All your Atlantic salmon today is farmed, but uh back then when you they had wild salmon, there was smokeouses in Nova Scotia. It was very popular. That's going completely out of style. Adak that the last u certified smokehouse. The lady was trying to drum up business. So, she was going around to her neighbors and offering them some of her fish. And she's like, they were like, "But it's raw." She was giving them smoked salmon and they were like, "But it's raw." And she's like, "Yeah, but it's delicious. Try it out." It's like, "Who eats raw fish? You mean like sushi?" And they couldn't wrap their heads around it. And they were like, "Well, how do you eat it?" And she's like, "Well, in New York they eat it on bread." And people are like, "You're kidding. Why?" It's like, "For breakfast." And they were floored. They They thought New Yorkers were crazy beforehand, but now that they found out that we eat raw fish on bread for breakfast, they're done with us. So, >> thank you very much, Rabbi Goldberg. >> Very welcome. I it to you.