The American baseball season is underway, and at least one player is making a major comeback: The kosher hot dog.
Though it went through a slump in recent years with the Mets, leading its team to a $1 million lawsuit, it has now signed an agreement with the Minnesota Twins.
At Target Field in Minneapolis, where the Twins have played home games since the beginning of last season, an agreement has been signed paving the way for the provision of Hebrew National kosher hot dogs for Twins games. The franks will be under the kosher supervision of Rabbi Avi Olitzky of the United Synagogue movement’s Beth El Synagogue. The kosher standards to be applied are spelled out at <www.mspkosher.org/about/standards>.
Under the terms of the arrangement, the hot dog stand will be open at Target Field even on Friday night and Saturday games, but they will not have the spot-check rabbinical supervision that is available at other times.
It is precisely this issue that led to trouble with the Mets, which forbade the kosher hot dog vendor to sell its wares, with or without supervision, during Sabbath games. The vendor – Kosher Sports Inc., the exclusive Glatt Kosher provider at Shea Stadium since 2006 – says it does not cater only to religious Jews, and demands the right to sell even on the Sabbath – and presumably even on Yom Kippur, if the Mets make it to the World Series…
The Mets claim that selling and buying kosher food on the Jewish Sabbath is a contradiction in terms. Brooklyn Judge Jack Weinstein said he can’t get involved in disputes over rabbinical law, and has ordered the sides to come to an agreement. Meanwhile, those seeking kosher hot dogs during Sabbath Mets games will strike out; the kosher dog stand at Shea remains closed on the holy day.