Kosher Blog

Just a reminder that Trader Joe’s is a German-owned company (from the ALDI Group). For those of you who are sensitive about buying Mercedes, Bayer, Krups, etc (are there still people like this around, or are my mother and I the only ones?), you might want to avoid TJ’s, despite their attractive bourgeois bohemian products.

I have a question for you… just because something is owned by a German does that make it unacceptable for you to buy?What if it is a German Jew who started the company? What if the people who run the company come from families who were active in fighting the Nazis?Obviously there are certain companies who were involved in the German war effort, but holding this against a whole country seems like a bad reaction.Also, I was just wondering if you were one of those people who engaged in the anti-France boycotts.

For what it’s worth, ALDI Group was founded after the war, with its first grocery store opening in 1948 (http://usa.aldi.com/about_a...). Clearly, this doesn’t answer the question of where its founders’ sympathies might lie, but to claim that the company was part of or supported the war effort is simply false and libelous. I assume that if you are concerned about supporting companies with past Nazi affiliations then you don’t own a Ford (or a Ford subsidiary), not that the company’s current organization has anything to do with Nazi sympathizers — but hey, neither do Mercedes, Krupp, Bayer or BMW. And while we’re making decisions based on tenuous associations, it is notable that Theo, one of ALDI’s founders, was kidnapped (and released by ransom) in 1971 by the Italian Red Brigade, a group that has been tied to the PLO — so clearly, if my enemy’s enemy is my friend, then ALDI is good in my book.

This whole idea of avoiding German products made a kind of sense when it was couched to me as less of a boycott and more of an aversion to identifiably German products (especially by those who were directly affected by the holocaust). Mercedes is such a brand, but nobody is going to describe a Chrysler as having "Teutonic engineering."

Yes, German ownership of a company delegitimates their products. And to see the inanity of the suggestion that "holding this against a whole country seems like a bad reaction", you need look no further than last week’s parsha. In fact, from there you could also learn the idea of not benefiting from the fruits of an evil enterprise, even ex post facto.I never claimed, as MeshuggeMarc writes, that Aldi aided the war effort. I claimed it was a German company. I further suggest that Aldi’s association with Germany is anything but ‘tenuous’. It must be personally comforting to Marc to live by a moral philosophy with as proud a heritage as the old ‘enemy of my enemy’ tripe. It shows either total thoughtlessness or unconscionable stupidity.

Deutschfrei, Accusing Marc of thoughtlessness or unconscionable stupidity based upon his assertion that the enemy of his enemy is his friend seems more like the pot calling the kettle black. Racism in all of its forms is thoughtlessness at best and stupidity at worst. Whether you admit it or not, you are a racist for your comments about Germany and Germans. Yes, there are people left in Germany who no doubt would have liked to finish off Hitler’s work, but there are also many Germans who are ashamed of that past and want nothing more than to separate themselves from the notion of Germany as a Nazi country.Back to you first point, if you get from this past week’s parsha that you can’t forgive the children and grandchildren of our enemies, then I am not sure which part you are reading. The only part to which you could be referring is where we are told to destroy the sites where the nations who we dispossessed worshipped their gods. In essence we are told to obliterate the name of the gods from that site. If we can learn to support new German companies without ties to the Nazi regime, we will in fact be helping to erase the names of Hitler and his regime from Germany.Your suggestions would merely help to keep Hitler’s naem and deeds alive.

Deutschfrei (note the lack of insulting name change customary in adult discussion and debate), the inanity of my comment was meant only to point out the same in yours. The fact that you couldn’t see that saddens me. I do not live by the philosophy that you fairly described as tripe, and thus hopefully you weren’t really accusing me of thoughtlessness or stupidity, unconscionable or otherwise (it’s not nice to do that to strangers). I can see some logic to avoiding products of companies that were known to have been involved with the Nazi war effort, when it existed — Krupp and Volkwagen, for example — for some psychological reasons. I agree more, however, with one of the other comments that to hold a grudge against the German people ad infinitum is the exact same ignorant racism that is driving boycotts of Israeli products throughout Europe today. I would never suggest that we forget the past or excuse the atrocities of the Nazis and their supporters and sympathizers (and have spent considerable time to make sure that this is the case), but I also see absolutely no value in supporting boycotts that lead only to further hatred and do not and cannot have any actual effect. What can you achieve through your boycott of all things German? You cannot redefeat the Nazis. You cannot take money out of Hitler’s coffers. You can, however, harm innocent and well-meaning business owners (some of them undoubtedly Jews or descendants of anti-Nazi partisans) because you can’t seem to distinguish between the present and the past.

Woo! a smackdown from Marc. Kinda gets one’s wine boiling, doesn’t it?

Back to the cheese problem: If you ever have cheese that is too mushy to grate, stick it in the freezer for an hour or two.

I find their scamorza (aged mozz) to be the better product in all respects, although we add some of the smoked mozz to the scamorza to make a killer lasagna.Now, back to the Nazi flame-fest…