Hebrew National
We answer to a higher authority.
Hebrew National is a brand of kosher hot dogs and sausages made by ConAgra Foods. In 1982, the company opened a non-kosher division under the name National Deli; it was sold off in 2001, and is now based in Florida.
Quick Facts
- Current owner
- ConAgra Foods, Inc.
- Introduced
- 1905
- Tagline
- We answer to a higher authority
Facts from the source article.
History
The Hebrew National Kosher Sausage Factory got its start in 1905 on East Broadway in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Its founder, Theodore Krainin, had arrived from what is now Belarus in the 1880s. By 1921, the U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry had registered the factory as government inspected establishment #552, with Krainin listed as proprietor. That same year, journalist Alfred W. McCann praised the company in the Globe and Commercial Advertiser for maintaining standards higher than the law required.
He noted that the business served Jewish immigrant communities from Eastern Europe and Germany and quickly earned a strong reputation among New York City’s Jewish residents. After a bankruptcy in 1934, the company’s incorporation papers named Solomon Levinson, Sylvia Marans, and Miriam Spector as directors and shareholders. Jacob Pinkowitz became an officer in 1937. The company then passed to Isadore Pines, a Jewish Romanian immigrant butcher, and his son Leonard took over in 1935.
In 1965, Hebrew National introduced its enduring slogan, “We answer to a higher authority,” referencing Jewish dietary laws and appealing to both Jewish and non-Jewish customers. The Pines family sold the business to Riviana Foods in 1968, which Colgate-Palmolive acquired in 1976. Isadore “Skip” Pines, Isadore’s grandson, bought the company back from Colgate-Palmolive in 1980 at a much lower price than it had originally sold for. During the 1980s health food movement, the company stuck with a recipe free of artificial colors and flavors, resisting other modern changes.
This approach paid off, and as revenue grew, Hebrew National aimed to become a large conglomerate by buying other brands to compete with industry giants.
Kosher supervision
The majority of Hebrew National beef products are consumed by non-Jews. Despite being described as the largest, most recognized kosher brand in the United States as of the middle of the twentieth century, the company's level of being kosher did not seem to impress yeshiva-educated elements of the Orthodox Jewish community. For many years, Hebrew National relied on an internal body to certify its products kosher, and many Orthodox Jews did not feel its standards matched those of groups such as the Orthodox Union or Kof-K, and therefore did not consume its beef-based products; standards and opinions differed for its poultry.
The Conservative movement also did not regard Hebrew National as kosher. Rabbi Paul Plotkin, chair of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards' Kashrut Committee, wrote that until recently Hebrew National was not kosher enough and its supervision was unacceptable to many Jews who keep kosher, including the Conservative movement. In the early 2000s, Hebrew National switched to an external certification group, Triangle K, under Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag, which was widely seen as an upgrade.
In 2004, the Conservative movement found the upgrade sufficient to be acceptable. Rabbis Ralbag and Plotkin conferred and developed a strategy for consistent monitoring. By reducing production to one location, expenses were reduced, and the process was streamlined so that a viewing station monitored each individual sausage. Rabbis Plotkin and Ralbag share monitoring duties among a group of rabbis, allowing a reliable dedication to kosher hot dogs.
Conservative rabbi and kosher certification entrepreneur Jason Miller noted that in several U.S. baseball stadiums, Hebrew National hot dogs are publicized as kosher when in fact they are cooked on the same grill as non-kosher hot dogs and served on dairy buns.
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