Pornographer Oren Cohen has manged to use Kof-K Kosher Supervision to publicize his new Hebrew porno DVD with an all-Israeli cast, called Assraelis.No question: Cohen has stepped over another line - the boundary between religion and smut - using a religious symbol, a religious concept, as a feature of his disgraceful product.
The Teaneck-based Kof-K Rabbi-Administrator responded to all of this with minimal firepower. He apparently was satisfied to protect his trademark asking Cohen to remove it from the DVD.
But the rabbi had a good chance to make a rabbinic point. Namely he could have asked that Cohen make no reference to the idea of kosher at all in his pornographic products. Or that the creep stop making porn. Apparently the rabbi did not have the courage to do this. Or he thought, that just is not part of his administrative job.
So we have a pornographer who has exploited the religious notion of kashrut for cheap publicity and a rabbi who says, "Case closed" as long as the DVD just says Kosher and not Kof-K Kosher.
Well I say, "Case not closed" until all reference to religious certification is removed from this smut. We may not be able to stop people from producing this crap. But we sure as heck ought to fight to keep the sacred protected from the profane.
Other sites on this topic: Jewtastic; Boing Boing; NYTimes
Finally, the Bergen Record reported in early on this story on Friday:
Kosher symbol on porn DVD hits nerve in TeaneckAnd one more thing, Oren. As I proud Zionist I have to demand that you take that Israeli flag off the DVD cover!
Friday, January 26, 2007
By JOHN CHADWICK
STAFF WRITER
A Teaneck rabbi has persuaded a Los Angeles-based pornographer to remove a trademark kosher symbol from the cover of a sexually explicit DVD about Israeli women.
The cover, which shows a woman striking a seductive pose, boasts that the explicit video was filmed in Israel. It also had a Hebrew letter with a "K" inside it -- the same stamp of approval that the rabbi's company slaps on thousands of kosher food products.
"It was shocking," said Rabbi Yehuda Rosenbaum, who is the administrative director of KOF-K Kosher Supervision, according to the company's Web site.
The Teaneck company is an organization of Orthodox rabbis dedicated for 40 years to "maintaining the integrity of the kosher status of foods in accordance to the highest standards of Kosher Law."
The company sent a warning letter to Tight Fit Productions -- the company that made the film -- which then agreed to remove the symbol.
Oren Cohen, head of Tight Fit, said he made a mistake.
"I just assumed that letters of the alphabet ... weren't trademarked symbols," Cohen said Thursday. "I was wrong."
Cohen said he initially used the symbol to make a statement that would be "tongue in cheek" and also a guarantee to viewers that the movie was the first adult feature filmed entirely in Israel with an Israeli cast.
"That was our reasoning," Cohen said, adding that he is fluent in Hebrew and has many relatives in Israel.
Rosenbaum said he appreciated how quickly the filmmaker responded.
"They cooperated without any hesitation," the rabbi said. "I consider the matter closed."
2 comments:
"Apparently the rabbi did not have the courage to do this. Or he thought, that just is not part of his administrative job."
There are other options, too, and I suspected you'd leave them out.
"But the rabbi had a good chance to make a rabbinic point. Namely he could have asked that Cohen make no reference to the idea of kosher at all in his pornographic products."
I'm not a halachic expert, but I think the law is something like this: if they will listen to you, then you need to correct them. If
they won't listen to you, but will to someone else, have the someone
else tell them.
Well R' Zahavy, it looks like that job might just devolve to you.
100% correct. Rabbi shoulda fought to take off all kosher refs.
You're wrong though on your last point; this kind of porn was one of Zionism's main goals: to be able to be "Jews" without having to resort to even the slightest Judaism, and to be identical to the nations of the world.
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