April 4, 2013

(JTA) — Local businessman Shlomo Rechnitz has bought a scandal-plagued kosher supermarket in Los Angeles from its former owner, who is suspected of mislabeling its meat.

The Rabbinical Council of California, a kashrut certifier, on Wednesday announced the troubled Doheny Market will undergo a serious makeover after Rechnitz purchased the store from Mike Engleman at its behest.

“The store will reopen in the coming days under RCC supervision, after undergoing a thorough restocking and will feature mehadrin kashrus standards,” the RCC said in a statement. “The previous owner has no financial or operational interest in the store.” Mehadrin is an especially stringent kosher ceritification,

Scandal erupted on March 24, the day before the first night of Passover, when evidence gathered by a detective showed Engleman smuggling meat from an unknown source into Dohney Market while the rabbinic supervisor was away.

The Rabbinical Council of California immediately revoked the kosher certification of the popular meat store but worry spread over the Jewish legal status of products sold to unsuspecting customers, casting a pall over the Passover plans of hundreds of families in the area.

Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, a well-respected religious arbiter, ruled all meat sold prior to March 24 was considered kosher, even if a minority of it was not.

The Rabbinical Council of California said it asked Rechnitz, who is Belsky’s son-in-law, to buy the store to ensure the observant community in central Los Angeles had a reliable source of kosher food.

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