WINNIPEG — Last September, Winnipeg’s Vaad Ha’ir’s sold its roughly 100 kosher licensees – mostly manufacturers of packaged foods – to Rabbi Dovid Jenkins and his New Jersey-based Global Kosher organization and essentially ended its kashrut supervisory activities.

Fivie, left, and Bernie Gunn [Myron Love photo]

Although the changeover went smoothly for the most part, one very important Jewish community institution, Gunn’s Bakery – the only source of locally made kosher pastry – was left in a form of kashrut limbo.

It was still considered kosher, but not under the supervision of the new Winnipeg supervisory body and its WK hechsher – short for Western Kosher (formerly Winnipeg Kosher). Sources tell The CJN that the new WK didn’t want to supervise the few remaining non-factory institutions and food outlets that only serve the local Jewish community.

As of June 1, Gunn’s kashrut situation has been resolved with the creation of a new kashrut authority specifically for the bakery, the Vaad Hakashrut of Winnipeg. Its supervising rabbi is Rabbi Ari Ellis, who is in his first year as spiritual leader of the Herzlia Adas-Yeshurun Synagogue, the city’s largest Orthodox congregation.

Rabbi Ellis said that WK staff will also serve as mashgichim for the new Vaad Hakashrut of Winnipeg and that Gunn’s products will remain acceptable in institutions that are under WK supervision.

“OU policy is not to get involved in supervising local services. They prefer to leave that to local rabbis,” said Rick Stokoloff, office manager for Western Kosher, which is affiliated with the Orthodox Union’s OU hechsher.

Gunn’s, located in north Winnipeg, has been supplying Winnipeggers with kosher bread, baked goods and pastries for 72 years. As the only bakery in the city that makes kosher pastries, it supplies individual customers as well as shuls and hotels that cater Jewish simchahs. (City Bread, Winnipeg’s only other kosher bakery, is considered a factory. It ships its products across Canada and doesn’t make pastries.)

It was reported at the time of the changeover that the new Western Kosher  would not directly certify Gunn’s because the bakery, with its mix of pareve and dairy products, didn’t conform to the higher standards of the new hechsher.

On the other hand, the bakery’s products were still to be considered kosher, and Rabbi Gabe Brojges, WK’s Winnipeg-based rabbinic administrator, would continue to inspect the bakery. Gunn’s products would also continue to be acceptable for catering purposes.

Unofficially, Rabbi Ellis assumed responsibility for Gunn’s kashrut right after Pesach.

“There were two factors at work here,” Rabbi Ellis said. “Originally, Rabbi Jenkins [who is affiliated with the OU hechsher] would just be acquiring WK’s national factory accounts and not become involved with the local kashrut providers. It didn’t work out that way.”

The other factor, Rabbi Ellis refers to, is the problem of striving for one kashrut standard for North America.

“In Israel,” said the rabbi, who had been studying in Israel for 10 years before coming to Winnipeg last summer, “there are three levels of kashrut. Some communities are stricter than others. While I’m not critical of the stricter standard in North America, it leaves no room for some leeway where it might be appropriate.”

Rabbi Ellis said that Gunn’s is redoing its packaging to include a new Vaad Hakashrut of Winnipeg logo. Everything will be clearly marked either “dairy” or “pareve,” he said.

“We are trying to increase the separation between dairy and pareve production and products,” he says. “It has never been an issue of Gunn’s ingredients and products not being kosher. The issue was making sure there was no mixing of dairy and pareve products.”

Rabbi Ellis doesn’t see a problem with Gunn’s being open on Shabbat.

“We can deal with that the same way that we deal with chametz before Pesach,” he said, referring to the practice on that holiday of Jews not owning non-Pesachdik food and dishes by selling them to non-Jews for the duration of the chag, adding that there could be some form of profit-sharing with non-Jewish employees.

Bernie and Fivie Gunn, Gunn’s co-owners, are happy with the new arrangement.

“It was important to us to have a rabbi in Winnipeg we could call on whenever we have questions about kashrut,” Fivie Gunn says. “We’ve had to change a few things but we are prepared to do what we are asked to do.

“As far as we’re concerned, it’s business as usual.”