Why a Kosher Species May Not Be Certified

A species can be genuinely kosher for one community and not certified for anyone. That sounds contradictory until you see what a certification is claiming.

Certification means everyone may eat it

A kosher certification asserts that the item may be eaten by anyone according to halacha. That is a higher bar than "permitted to some."

So where some communities hold a clear tradition permitting a creature and others avoided it, certification is withheld — not because one community's tradition counts and another's does not, but because the symbol would be making a claim it cannot support.

Grasshoppers are the standard example. Teimanim and Moroccan Jews hold traditions about which species are permitted and may rely on them. Certification is nonetheless inappropriate, because it would tell everyone the item is fine for them.

Silence is not always evidence

A distinction that does a great deal of work, and is easy to get backwards.

Where a community knew a creature and did not eat it, that silence is itself a tradition — a tradition not to eat it. It is clear from Rashi that many grasshopper species existed in Europe and were known, and Ashkenazi communities ate none of them. That counts as a position.

But where a creature simply did not exist in a community, the absence of a tradition says nothing at all. If a bird was found only in Iraq and not in Germany, German silence is not evidence against it — and testimony from an authority in Iraq that the bird was slaughtered and eaten there would suffice.

Knowing which kind of silence you are looking at is the whole question.

What makes testimony valid

The requirements are strict, and each one exists for a reason:

• From an expert. An expert shochet and recognised authority — not simply a member of the community who remembers the bird being eaten.
• About a specific creature that was physically shown to him. Not described; shown.
• Never by name. Testimony that a bird called "X" was permitted is worthless, because in hundreds of cases a creature is called one thing in one community and something else elsewhere. Only the species actually shown to the expert acquires the tradition.

That third requirement is the one people find surprising, and it is the most important. A name is not an identification.

Where the lines fall in practice

The consequences are unexpectedly fine-grained:

• Quail. Several species share the name. A well-accepted European tradition covers two of them; others are not certified without a tradition for that specific species.
• Partridge. One European species is covered by expert testimony; a desert species unknown in Europe is covered by testimony from Yemen and Iraq. Other partridge species are not.
• Pigeon, dove, sparrow. Again several species per name, with the tradition attaching to specific ones.
• Mallard duck. A responsum distinguishes ducks by beak colour — a wild duck with a wholly black beak was not eaten, one without was permitted. Most poskim were more lenient, but the practice is to certify only ducks whose beaks are primarily yellow or white.
• Guinea fowl and peacock. No expert testimony obtained, so not certified.
• Muscovy duck. Many authoritative poskim permitted it and others did not — which is precisely the case where certification is withheld.

What your community eats is a question for your rav, and the answer may legitimately differ from what carries a symbol.