01-26-2021 STAR-K in UAE

welcome to starkey's monthly webinar we're here in the uh stark offices in baltimore glad you could join us for this month's webinar um hi jason we appreciate you joining as you can see on the bottom right of your screen you have a chat box if you have any questions about what we're discussing please uh feel free to go ahead and chat with us we'd love to talk to you um is our are we coming across clear if anybody could just let us know type in uh let us know that we're clear if you have any trouble hearing the sound on your computer you can call the following numbers okay thank you uh you feel and elisa here are the numbers two six seven two seven nine nine thousand two six seven two seven nine nine thousand and you put in the key uh in the pin two six two eight seven five seven four eight six one more time six two eight seven five seven four h6 um we hope that uh you'll stay with us the entire hour if you don't have a chance to listen or you didn't you know someone who wants to listen afterwards all our all our webinars are recorded and we have them on our website star dash k.org uh videos um so today we have a special special guest starbuck holland who's director of special projects at uh star k from his uh office uh in his home for a social distance that's i think far enough for us right rubber hound um i love social distancing i hope it lasts forever okay all right so holland just came back last week from from the uae and uh we know there's a lot of interesting things going on now with uh with that with the with the peace accords and uh we thought we would give you a little taste of what it is to to to to visit there to travel there to give certifications there and uh i i'm sure it's going to be an interesting presentation about i can't i have to start with this picture this is what so this is the arrival hall in the dubai airport um when we came into the airport i don't know if you could actually see it but just to the right at the bottom right of the picture there was a um there was a bunch of people standing there when we when i walked in with uh you know i walked in with my cart with my with my carry-on package ready for my suitcase they're all waving shalom shalom shalom very it's a very very interesting experience uh in the sense that i received the warmer welcome in dubai than i received when you come to even israel uh certainly uh when you fly in other places in the world you know you don't receive such a welcome are those real real palm trees in the background um no no no there's no palm trees inside the airport i don't think uh well there's something in the back they look like but maybe they're fake oh i don't know you know what they maybe they are real palm trees i don't know one thing i would say is i i just want to take a minute before we start just say hello to everybody uh and uh it's a pleasure to i see some people that i know see some people that i don't know i'd like to say hi to everybody uh it's a pleasure it's a pleasure to be here today thank you for coming okay so robert holland i'll give you the floor what do you want to start with uh what was how about the the purpose of your trip or what's what's going on with uh in general well there's been a lot of hype of course about the abraham accords which is a historic really historic um which is a very very historic uh agreement uh that was broken by the united states by the previous administration uh to normalize relations between israel and the united arab emirates and uh while most uh people in the jewish community are not that familiar with the emirates uh those of us in the world of conscious and many people in the world of business actually are quite familiar uh with the emirates particularly the emirate of dubai um there's a very large airport and there's an airline called emirates which is a large airline uh that flies out of dubai and to every corner of the earth and uh a lot of us in the cautious world to transit to the far east we're flying through dubai for years in fact we've certified a number of companies kosher uh in dubai for many years dubai is a very interesting see moshe is asking whether kosher companies there before the new accords or is this a new thing yes yes absolutely and just to explain uh dubai is a very interesting one is a very interesting emirate it may be the most interesting of all the united arab emirates which is a like a small uh conglomerate of of countries there in the sense that there is no oil there um it is a there's not a somebody described it to me this way there's not a milliliter of oil dubai uh was founded by it dubai is i think about at least 100 years old um but you know modern dubai is a vision of the fa the family of uh sheikhs they call them his highness or his excellency over there and it's this vision where i think a grandson of the original founders is currently the head of government there and they created an incredible business center a beautiful city a really really beautiful modern city and a tremendous amount of finance and tourism it reminds me a little of except that they have water it reminds me a little of orlando or las vegas in the united states which uh were kind of for lack of a better word places nobody would ever visit until somebody had the vision to create a quote-unquote oasis in the desert dubai is the home to the largest aquarium in the world the tallest building in the world it's an extremely modern city um some of the pictures that you see let's take some some of them you you just sent me these are not uh that you took them uh personally right but some of these you did think right so this is a picture of the palm uh the palm is this is from this is from the air is that you rubber hound there in that picture um the palm is a man-made island in the shape of a palm obviously hashem that made beautiful things but nothing that's symmetrical um at least not as far as islands are concerned and i believe it was dredged out of the ground uh when they were working on the port they had a lot of dirt so they made this beautiful island with the tremendous uh you know resorts there's a lot of big expatriate community over there it's a tax haven dubai so there's a lot of wealth in dubai i believe dubai has the largest amount of millionaires of any of any uh country in the world you could see here some of the skyline at night uh this is uh i believe uh there's a 12 kilometer boardwalk i think this is on the boardwalk on the way from the palm towards the city but i'm not a hundred percent certain um the i think the the burj khalifa is the largest uh that's the burj al-arab i think this big hotel and then there's something called the burj khalifa which is the world's tallest building um it's really a it's really a visionary city uh in many ways and and it's an attraction i believe the 20 million visitors are there a year um and uh it's um it's really incredible uh it's really it's really an incredible accomplishment to create uh a center uh sort of like the switzerland of the of the gulf states in many ways or it's a it's a tourist attraction it's a financial center it's a um and it's a travel center uh this is a picture of the inside of a hotel uh um it's kind of like a normal hotel uh but it's really really beautiful uh really beautiful place um uh not terribly expensive uh particularly during coven um and they were uh you know there was just a lot of you know there's a lot of people there it's uh it's an oasis you know there's palm trees there's the sand there's beaches uh it's a very friendly place the typical arab hospitality was there as jews our experience with the muslim community is always refracted by the uh relationship between the palestinians and israel uh historically though uh it's very obvious that we have a lot in common with the muslim community every place that i went and i visited 12 uh food manufacturing facilities when i was there and every place where i encountered an emirati or a muslim which was most places um they said welcome to your factory or welcome to your hotel or welcome to your company or you know it was very interesting to what does that mean what does that mean is that that's abraham they make you really they make you really feel at home and it's a fascinating country um 70 of the people who live there are not citizens there's a tremendous amount of indian uh people people from india who work there and in business and professionals and so on and so forth uh and a lot of people from around the gulf states and and filipinos and uh really africans uh they're it's really an amazing country uh let me ask you let's get back to that question so we were there previous to this right we had we have companies there robin yes we certified a number of facilities there uh well before this because they were exporting they needed kosher certification because they're exporting to the united states it's a they have many free zones there uh it's a tax haven like i said and it's a logistics center for that region of the world and there's a tremendous amount of manufacturing in the area and some of it is food related and we did certify a good number of companies that are and their products are available what's changing now with the accords in terms of that i mean they they still needed to export food and they still you know that's what they did then that's what they do now so why is it like exploding well so the the prospect of peace between israel and the united arab emirates opens up uh all kinds of opportunity for two uh complementary economies and societies there there's a gigantic uh there's a gigantic need for an opportunity for trade uh in small nations they're not like the united states or russia or the european union that has you know every climate and every every natural resource and all all different kinds of things that are um you know all different all the all different kinds of things that are available rather you know israel has israel is very very rich in technology israel is very very rich in certain certain natural resources or manufacturing and the emirates is very rich in uh in riches and they have uh there's a lot of uh tourism opportunity israelis love to tour so that's really something that i believe that at least for until until the the shine wears off i believe a three-hour flight from tel aviv to dubai or to abu dhabi is going to be a very exciting destination we saw 67 000 israelis from all walks of life uh in the month of december uh come to come to the emirates so what you're saying you're saying is let me just recap so you're saying that the reason they want to have more manufacturing certified by us is they can sell to israel is that correct and it goes the other way also israel will trade with israel will trade in the other way with emirates what's interesting is the emirates is to the drive the truck ride for trans shipping between dubai and tel aviv is shorter than the truck ride between new york and los angeles as a matter of regular course of business we have stuff that gets shipped uh from new york angelus and vice versa all the time uh over land then you know there may be some complications israel will israel is not currently in a position to to ship over land over saudi arabia to arabia right emirates but the emirates can ship towards israel and uh that's that's really something um [Music] um that's really something that's uh albert's asking alba is uh from spain she's asking is anybody talking yes we've been speaking for a while it must be that your sound is off album but i guess you can't hear me if i say that if my sound is off but uh let me just show you you went to you went to uh at least you sent us some pictures of some uh of a bread factory there that you went to um is there anything different or special about this kind of production i'll tell you that i'll tell you that the uae is a is a fully modern country uh the facilities that we find there are very similar to the facilities we see around the world and uh you know i i think that what's important about it from our perspective is that what's important from a kosher perspective is that they need they have a supply chain that needs to be certified that means there's a number of reasons why a company would want to become kosher certified in the emirates uh one of them is to sell to the u.s market another would be to sell to the to the to the israeli market but the whole supply chain needs to be cautious it means a bakery has flour if it's going to israel it needs to be yoshon so the source of the flower is going to become uh is going to become important uh they have oil they have spices they have uh flavorings and so on and so forth and there and although everything is kosher certified in everything is kosher certified uh for the united states market uh they don't have any knowledge of kosher they have a lot of halal certification but that doesn't talk about the separation between cheese and you know milk and dairy it doesn't talk about uh you know the the separation between non-kosher meat uh and and other things so uh dairy empire is not yet here is a very interesting thing it's a joint venture between a very large uh company in dubai and a german company it's uh 30 uh 30 million square feet of indoor green house and here they're growing tomatoes uh this is why is the highest and best technology that's used today uh there's israeli technology that's used in this as well what what is the starkey gonna going to give a certification on tomatoes for very simple uh schmidt is coming and that it was grown outside of israel exactly so they can ship tomatoes over land to israel and there's people both who are eating tomatoes as a commodity and we're using it as raw material for there's a number of different items that are made from tomatoes some of those companies cannot make what we would call mahadrin product during shemitah because none of the mahadrin actually none of the american or khutsallah saxon will accept products from heta mahiro and um it's uh it's a it's an opportunity for both for both sides because during the summer uh those greenhouses are very those indoor grows are very very profitable because you can't grow anything outside sometimes it's 125 degrees for a month straight there however during the winter though when you know regular regular farming is available regular farming is much cheaper than an air conditioned building and they do it outside then they grow it outside well no this company does exclusively and they're growing so during the winter they their prices go down and they look for markets where they markets where they can get a where they can sell their product uh in a profitable in a profitable way next year it's really going to make now now you're pointing out it's really going to make a big difference people from a hawaii perspective there are two common halachic they're actually three schemes uh to use product that's grown in israel hatha mahira which is like a muhammad sale of the land to a non-jew to make it not obligated in the halachas of shemitah which is a famous hector which was done under great duress and pressure and the vast majority of the religious world is uncomfortable really relying on that the second way to do it is to um purchase uh vegetables that are or fruits that are exclusively grown by non-jews which is a halal cleansing not everybody accepts it and the third option within israel is to purchase products that are grown on something that we call masamune attack in a completely enclosed environment on all six sides you know like they put plastic down on the fields and pour dirt on top of that it's dramatically sealed and everything is grown sort of indoors separated from eric's throat and that becomes permissible all three options have drawbacks either halachic practical or financial you know this provides large is is a tremendous amount of import of uh of uh fruits and vegetables or other you know stuff that grows out of the ground during shmita comes to israel during the shemitah year uh from outside of israel which presents no issues halachically so those that this would offer a very very convenient talking solution will bear the prices now shelley's asking are there good continuous roads between dubai and israel i think you answered that already that they have some issues going over saudi arabia and some uh you know there's no problem with there's no problem with roads there's shipping lines as well it's all political which political okay wants to take us to another topic really we want to talk about is about about the jewish community that maybe i'm sure there are people here who are interested in going and visiting to the to dubai let's talk about let's talk a little bit about you know what what traveling for a kosher traveler uh this unique situation that's that's in dubai um and you know i imagine anywhere else in in the area and that is is that the only kosher certified items that because there's so there's not really a jewish community of any significant size there um the market local market doesn't demand kosher certification like it does in the united states israel and and parts of europe so it's it's hard to find uh you know uh kosher staples uh there are a lot of imported products in the supermarkets um and anything imported especially if it comes from the united states you know is is liable to have ash but staples you know uh things like uh milk and cheese or any kind of kosher cheese and uh milk honestly uh i don't think that it's so simple to drink uh regular milk uh for those who are not making soil in a country that milks camel milk um i was on a camel milk farm uh it's it's more expensive but uh i i i would not feel comfortable telling anybody that it would be acceptable to drink milk uh even if you're not making a house on the united states or in europe uh this is a place that i in my humble opinion uh one would need to drink exclusively call visual halachically if we were to certify the hotel then uh then we would where would we get the milk from the hobbies we got from israel well you'd get it from a place that was certified called soil it could come from anywhere including the emirates uh in order to make something obvious you need a much gift that could be from anywhere that'll depend on the demands it'll be a question of the demands now now because you know there has been a tremendous influx of jews into dubai uh and it is a friendly i must admit it is it's first of all of course it's interesting for those people who have the time and the income to take vacations it's definitely an interesting destination um it's uh actually very jewish friendly uh in the sense it was religious friendly in the sense that it's a modest society that cenius is something real over there uh it's not as uh you know people you know public drunkenness is illegal in the in this country and uh you know illicit drugs are very very illegal and you remember about the plane with this man and you right there there's there's complete separation between men and women and spas i mean the beaches are just beaches but you know there are there are separate pools uh available in certain some of the resorts etc um it's interesting on emirates uh if you want to know what time to dive and you don't have to print out your uh high table or maismanam table beforehand you just click on the screen in front of your seat and it'll tell you the current time and all the difference is money for muslim prayer and if you know like for example you know you needed before the fact which is the you know early morning prayer and the you know before allah then it shows you the direction towards the qibla which is in mecca which is approximates you shalom uh so uh you know obviously uh you know there's there is you know really uh there's a lot of how shall i say uh there's a lot of jewish friendly or religious friendly things about about this country i mean when it comes to kosher they have no idea what kosher is i met with a company who thought that if the local equivalent of church's chicken uh buys kosher chicken then all the churches branches in uh chicken branches in in the emirates will all of a sudden be kosher they don't understand anything about how kosher works uh their frame of reference is halal and um it's uh you know it's a challenge so there's been thousands tens of thousands of people coming uh and there's this you know there's been hotel programs and so on and so forth and i i i can't tell you that i saw a hotel uh you know a catered hotel program uh but i i did have occasion to speak to rabbis uh both before i went and after i went who were involved in those things and they're extremely challenging and they're challenging for many many reasons and i uh a prominent robin artistrol by rafi minatu the ocean company and deeply involved with to share but that cherished real harsher uh went on the religious television network in israel and he pointed out that uh you know people came back from uh this place and cactus wasn't the catchers that you know that we know uh they don't know about capturing uh kitchens commercial kitchens it's a it's a big surprise to go into a place and capture things the way we the way one was supposed to capture them and a lot of lot a lot of staples that you need to cook or don't have ashgacha and i'm not talking about things that don't need hashgakha like salt and and flour but you know more complicated things need hashgraph and it's extremely difficult uh to push out a catered event at a modern level now yeah everything buyer you have to look into that very carefully don't just assume right well it's it's it's it's really it's really very challenging uh there is there is a small local jewish community a very i i believe that there are only one or two other than the rabbis who live there and some you know maybe him that are there professionally as uh what i used to call professional jews um i would say there's maybe only one or two religious households that are permanent residents in the country um i met with one of them actually um very nice people um there's a chabad there there's a there's a regular jewish community uh um there's actually i believe two kabachos there's one in abu dhabi as well and um it's it's um they have a small chicken it's not it's not a it's there's definitely not availability on a large scale and they're very few choices uh when it comes to when it comes to cushion on the level of uh you know prepared food mosha is asking where do they get their kosher meat from uh the kosher beef has been imported uh my understanding is is that underneath that there's maybe uh one organized import of kosher beef i think it's coming from poland and europe um and the vast majority of things that these programs did they packed them up in suitcases and brought them uh i wouldn't say illegally but certainly not the way that this country it's a very organized country a very rule-following country i think they made a lot of exceptions to let people bring in a product in order to have a kosher in order to have all these kosher events so if i'm going there on a visit i should i'd say for a vacation let me tell you let me tell you what i did in fact i think i sent you pictures of it um we've had people in and out of the in and out of dubai for many years but specifically since owl since august we've had people there almost every week and uh they've been staying at the we were invited by the government and they put us up in a government-owned hotel a very fancy hotel actually and uh they um one of the things that they arranged for us is that the the the first the rabbis that we sent out there bought a bunch of very inexpensive barbecue grills they totaled them in the ocean and they sealed them sealed them up and at night um we would go to uh like this outdoor area where they would send the chef and we would light the fires and we brought our own meat and chicken and they would bring vegetables and a dedicated a knife and uh dedicated yeah there you go a dedicated knife and a cutting board and some plates and you know a bottle of you know kosher olive oil and a bottle you know a container of salt and a container pepper and they they made us dinner and there were a few condiments that were available that were custard they came from overseas and that's what we ate and it was very nice breakfast they cut for us um you know vegetables and fruit and you know we drank coffee and paper cups and uh enough disposable dishes and it was uh you know it was yeah it took care of us like i said the arab hospitality is really incredible and it was it was a it was a very nice trip but you know you need to work you need to take care of yourself it's not it's not i i i don't uh think that you want to go to such a place without you know uh the idea i'm getting from you is that uh that when when i when the person visits they should come prepared with the food they shouldn't assume they're gonna go to the supermarket and pick up you know uh so but i always understood that in in in the arab countries they had products that have shared anyway because just because that's what you know they stock it is that not true well so first of all when you travel in the world there's only one country there's only one country in the world uh that you that wherever you go there's an abundance of kosher on the shelves with kosher with kosher with kosher uh symbols and that's the united states other than israel uh culture is every place in the united states everywhere else in canada maybe as well everywhere else you travel uh it's not it's not as abundant uh in a country like dubai where there's no demand for kosher even kosher products don't have a hacksaw i'll give you an example so virtually all pringles pringles brand uh crisps that are that are potato crisps that are made in the united states and packed in the united states and they're certified cultured by the ou some are ou some are oud um and in many countries the world where it goes out with hasher on it they have an ou symbol on it uh the pringles that are sold in the emirates with special emirates labels you know arabic and whatnot that they have on them uh do not have a kosher symbol on them i don't know if it's because there wasn't normalization and they specifically didn't ask for order because they didn't ask for it actively uh but they're certainly made in the united states i'm confident that there's kosher the same way there's no they don't have a coaching symbol and i think that's you know fairly common that you know any item that was specifically packed there there's no demand for kosher there are no significant amount of kosher uh residents there's no significant amount of kosher observant tourists until recently and they were not being packed with taxarion but as you can see from i i apologize if i descri if i pronounce her name wrong and gina uh uh asked me about they have dried fruits and nuts that are certified that's rk certified but their sunflower oil is not starchy certified so i i i'll take care of her we're gonna take care of her no problem we have a lot of resources we're going to make sure that her sunflower oil gets starkey certified as well but the bottom line is is that there's growth now and there's a demand for kosher so there's going to be more kosher certified things on the shelves of the supermarkets and i imagine there's going to be uh you know more uh opportunities uh you know items that people caterers need in the food service industry restaurants uh to some extent how much i i couldn't tell you you see richard's question that there's a a new hotel uh or a new certified hotel abu dhabi and uh in bahrain do you know about these hotels or i know to my knowledge in some of those places there are kosher meals available i think they're i don't think they have a kosher kitchen yet but i believe they will oh you read about it in the news in dubai they're two public they're not open all day they're open every day but they're two public restaurants one under the chabad and one under the ou uh in town um they uh are one is in the hilton hotel one is in the armani hotel and uh you go there they're mashikim there and so on and so forth they don't necessarily have the largest uh selection but they're you know obviously uh at the forefront of provided kosher to tourists uh in the area i i would anybody who goes out to one of these places to bring plenty of their own food just in case what was the rule with that they came out originally that every hotel in dubai has to has to have a kosher kitchen or something like that what was that i believe that's that's indicative of the that's indicative of the um ignorance uh well-meaning ignorance of the government of what it means i'll give an example what it means to have a special kitchen they have a model over there for reverse kosher i think we all know that um we all know that uh one of the foods that are not halal but it's not permitted for muslims is pork so in the emirates if you want to serve pork you're not allowed to serve pork out of a regular kitchen you have to have a special pork license if the government owns the they would never do that um and uh you have to pay for the pork license you have to have special people to handle the pork you have the special equipment to handle the pork but once they set up a protocol to handle the pork it's it's acceptable meaning it's it's it's approved to do so as long as it doesn't compromise the rest of the hotel so they probably figured that they'll make a kosher kitchen and you know you'll pay a licensing fee and have special plates and that's fine they didn't know that you know we require you know visually soil for jews to be involved in the cooking and checking vegetables and rules of shabbos and and there's a lot of there's a lot of education i hear okay um let me see i want to open up we have uh now we can uh if anybody wants to ask a question live like on screen to rabbit holland uh you're welcome you're welcome to do that just chat over here and we'll put up you put you up with your uh video and audio if you have any questions specifically for uh forever holland all right anybody that has a question about coach certification i put my email address in the chat um you know we'll take good care of you uh to help you with coach certification in the area uh just just reach out to me by email afterwards and you know within within the next day or so we'll be in touch uh we'll take care of you i'm just going through by holland some of the other pictures you sent to us here's this this says on a rice mill is this what this is yup yup that is actually a highly modern rice mill i've you know the star k has uh one of the largest portfolios of rice certification in the world and uh i was very impressed that this rice i've been in some of the largest rice most that we have in the year in the united states and i was very impressed dave i think i sent you a picture of the inside a completely automated rice mill brand spanking new gorgeous gorgeous uh gorgeous facility okay let's see if we have anything else that you uh you had sent me uh what what is this here so that's a very interesting that's those are two rabbis from our israel office rabbi aaron khaskal and uh hoffman um we uh were approached by a free zone called the jabal ali free zone uh which is run by a company called dp world uh to provide them to be their exclusive kosher education partner uh to work together with their with their companies um to work together with the manufacturing facilities in the free zone uh to get kosher certification and and help them enter the kosher market efficiently and effectively so this looks like some sort of uh show this uh this meeting yeah this was a the signing of a memorandum of understanding between uh between the two organizations maybe it made a lot of um made a lot of publicity in the in the gulf states actually there's only an israeli flag there's no uh and then there are other pictures with emirates foreign is there anything else that you had said that would be uh interesting this is also this is what this is the bakery i think you went to right bakery it's a large bakery they export to the whole gcc in australia pretty extensive uh bakery operation will try to help them uh enter the kosher market okay helen's asking about fish what about kosher fish and dubai are the same like fish in the rest of the world if they have scales they're kosher okay all right okay um sharon's asking other than the issue with the camel's milk are there any other specific issues in the uae with kosher certification or facilities yeah i mean uh again you know any product that you any processed food product has a very you know extensive set of ingredients if you're if there are 10 ingredients on your ingredient list a lot of times there'll be a lot of sub components there that you don't even see and the supply chain is not a supply chain that is very mature when it comes to coastal certification so when you uh you know when you uh have this uh when you have this uh you know it's been there's been an outpouring we didn't you know we didn't go knock on any doors in the uae they you know we got hundreds and hundreds of phone calls like all the captions agencies i'm sure it did i've heard from my some of my colleagues in the other agencies they have the same experience uh and uh you know we have to help them you know so if you have a company that has uh you know let's say 50 ingredients uh you know if if they're not imported so all 50 you're not going to be kosher so you need to go back anything that needs actually you need to go back and certify so it's a it's a labor intensive effort it's a labor-intensive effort sheila's asking our fruits and vegetables have a problem of telomere of insects in dubai probably like anywhere else same like everywhere else just part of the world just because it wasn't on uh the average jewish bucket list before the abraham accords doesn't mean that it's uh you know they're any different the bugs the bugs go there too are we going to bahrain we go wherever wherever our mission is okay starkey's mission is we're a single mission uh nonprofit we don't do anything but kosher uh but our mission is to serve the kosher consumer with as much kosher at the best prices and acts as possible so we'll go wherever we're needed is emirates the only other what's the other airlines if i wanted to uh to get there what would be is that you you can you can go to ll hello ella's flying i think they're 15 flights a day between television and dubai now from america are there any other direct flights just emirates to dubai to dubai itself i think just emirates etihad is the airline of the emirate of abu dhabi and i believe that if direct flights to abu dhabi i think etihad we sort of i i see people asking where we serve our companies you know if you want to know where we certify companies uh you go to our website www.starcade.org look at our company list and uh you could browse over there a little bit and see uh we certify things all over the world um we have a number how many countries are we in ruby hebrew put together uh i don't know it's like a hundred or something lots of countries lots and lots of countries okay all right let's see if there are any more questions we'll take them otherwise we will uh think we came to the the unless you have something else you want to share with us over helen any other ideas i mean i i think it's i think it's i think it's important for everybody to realize that um as uh as beautiful as as the vacation spot of the is from a culture perspective uh you know you have to really do your due diligence before you go out there a lot of tens of thousands of coach observant israelis went there and many of them were very hungry um they they were not prepared for the lack of kosher food uh so i think it's something that everybody has to remember uh if you're concerned with the level of cautious if you're going to a kosher certified place or program there uh it's something that you should consult with them beforehand to see make sure that you're gonna be satisfied things are still a little bit rudimentary out there i i i wouldn't discourage anybody from uh doing business there or traveling there uh just because not that i think anybody needs to go there but i think that uh you know the the the spectacle or the incredible the incredible concept of this type of a piece uh is messianic in nature it's just it's amazing that one day uh you know all of a sudden things the whole the whole world as we know it changed uh even within this uh even within this uh you know pandemic that we have so um one more one more question that we did today we would touch on was i think you you did answer it i think but is it safe you could do would you consider it safe you know from a uh physical perspective to go there yeah there's no crime there even it's unbelievable no i don't i don't see any problem again i see that we have some some some listeners today that are represented that actually are from look like they're from the area they're from the gcc or maybe specifically the emirates and maybe specifically uh dubai where i visited although i did visit abu dhabi and al ain also and i would encourage you i put my email address on the chat rabbi holland at star-k.org you have some questions about kosher certification and we're happy to we're happy to help you again i'd like to say you know hi to all of uh my good friends i see too many to call anybody out but from really from all over the world see france argentina uh and it's uh it's nice to see you guys and uh uh israel the return the uh the planes will open again and we'll uh and we'll get to we'll get to we'll get to visit you in person all right thank you really want to thank everybody for joining us and uh if you have any follow-up questions you can uh direct them to robert holland or the general cautious questions to info at stardashk.org our phone number is 410-484-4110 you can uh ask our dedicated staff there as well and uh again the these these this uh webinar and all the webinars are archived at stardashk.org videos you can find it there and we really want to thank you for joining and i hope you enjoyed it rabbi gave us a good tour of the uh of what's going on there kosher wise and uh look forward to seeing you next month thanks very much