{"id":4815,"date":"2013-01-14T18:15:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T00:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=4815"},"modified":"2013-01-14T18:15:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T00:15:28","slug":"ou-worlds-largest-kosher-certifier-in-disarray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/ou-worlds-largest-kosher-certifier-in-disarray\/","title":{"rendered":"OU, world&#8217;s largest kosher certifier, in disarray"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (JTA) &#8212; The leadership of the world&#8217;s largest provider of kosher certification, the Orthodox Union (OU), is in disarray. Sources on Monday confirmed massive infighting among the OU leadership and a slew of managerial changes as members of the board of directors vie for control.<\/p>\n<p>The situation at the OU was first reported last week in The New York Jewish Week.<\/p>\n<p>Harvey Blitz, the chairman of the OU&#8217;s <em>kashrut<\/em> commission, reportedly is challenging Simcha Katz for the presidency of the group. Meanwhile, the group&#8217;s executive vice president, Rabbi Steven Weil, has retained his title and an office at headquarters despite being stripped of any executive responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi Steven Burg, the former head of the OU&#8217;s youth group, NCSY, had been made temporary caretaker of the group last year but recently departed.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Cohen, the former New York state political director hired less than a year ago, also has left abruptly.<\/p>\n<p>With its logo appearing on more than 500,000 consumer products, the OU is the largest kosher supervision agency in the world. The total revenue from the operation &#8212; a closely guarded institutional secret &#8212; is used to fund an array of religious services and communal operations, including a public affairs office in Washington, a publishing house and a congregational umbrella group for synagogues.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are a few insiders controlling (the OU) because they know if they let someone else know what was happening the party would be over,&#8221; said a source familiar with the details.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"OU%2C%20world%27s%20largest%20kosher%20certifier%2C%20in%20disarray\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[8790,8795,1748,810,8788,364],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4816,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions\/4816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}