Jews and Vino: Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

מגן ומסתור ומחסה והתנצלות A Shield, Protection, Refuge, and Apology

If the concern for the prohibition was the prevent intermarriages, what was wrong with drinking non-Jewish wine at home with one's wife?

If the concern was that drinking non-Jewish wine would lead to intermarriage, why were Jews allowed to drink non-Jewish hard liquor?

And if the concern with drinking non-Jewish wine was contact with pagan ritual, why didn't Jews abstain from drinking water?

Ever since I have been able to distinguish between my left hand and my right, I have known that from time immemorial our forefathers in Italy habitually drank ordinary wine [stam yeynam].

There are some, who observing an Ancient Tradition of the Rabbis, hold it unlawful for a Jew, to Drink any Wine that is made, or ordered by any, but a Jew: and this is still observed, amongst the Dutch, and Eastern Jews. But in Italy, they observe no such thing; alleging for themselves, that happily this might have been an Ordinance made by some of those Rabbis, who lived among Idolatrous Nations; that by this means they might avoid all Commerce with Them: but it cannot have respect unto the People, amongst whom They live; whom Themselves confesse, to be no such Men. [i.e. not idol worshipers.]

“Ten measures of apostasy were given to all of creation. Nine went to the Jews of Italy and one to the rest of the Diaspora.”

When Rabbi Elio Toaff arrived in Rome in 1951, he asked to have wine for his household. The shamash went to the local “osteria” bought wine and brought it to Rabbi Toaff. Surprised, Toaff asked whether there was a kosher winery in town. He was told that everybody bought from the “osteria,” even for kiddush at “Tempio” (as Roman Jews call the synagogue).

In light of the questions raised about uncertified wine, however, it certainly should be a standard for our movement that only certified wines be used for sacramental purposes - kiddush, the seder, etc. - at home as well as in the synagogue. One should fulfill a mitzvah as elegantly as possible, and there is no reason to use wine about which there is some question.

Manischewitz was founded by Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz in1888 in Cincinnati, OH

The company was family-owned until it went public in 1923 and then was bought out by a private equity firm in 1991.

In 2014 it was purchased by Bain Capital

In 2019 it was acquired by KayCo, which also produces Kedem Grape Juice! This ended the great Kosher Grape Juice wars as documented by the New York Times in 2017.

Unless your Manischewitz specifically notes that it's Kosher for Passover, it's not! They use corn-syrup to sweeten the year-round stuff.

The Sammy Davis Jr. commercial was so popular that Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan quoted it in space! He was recorded during his spacewalk saying “Manischewitz, look at that go! Did you see that?”

It was also reported that during the Apollo mission Cernan regularly used “Manischewitz” as a substitute for swearing.

There is one case in the sources in which a similar action is permitted. Specifically, one may intentionally cook a non-Jew's butter in order to eliminate the particles of milk in it (since a non-Jew's milk is forbidden), and if a little milk remains, it is null and void because the person's intention is not to nullify the little that remains but rather to remove the particles of milk. In this case one is intentionally doing something which will leave the milk in the butter (albeit it in a different state), and yet one may eat the butter. The strength of this line of argumentation goes even further. In what clearly became a landmark decision, Ezekiel ben Judah Landau (the Noda B'Yehudah, 1713-1793) ruled permissively in the very case before us. The way he phrases the question indicates that fining wine with an unkosher fish had been done by the Jews of Poland for twenty years and had become common practice among the Jews of Germany too by the time he wrote his responsum.:

(The question revolves around) Krok, which some call Heusen Bleusen, which is the bladder of the fish called Heusen, which is an unkosher fish. People dry the bladder of that fish and insert it into the drink which is called med in Poland, or honey juice. Its nature is to precipitate the lees and to clarify the drink. In Germany they are already used to acting like this, i.e., to put it into barrels of wine for this reason, and it is now about twenty years that they began doing this also in Poland in the drink of honey juice called med. And the great scholars of the generation were aroused by this to forbid it on the grounds that it remains in the drink, and "that which is preserved is treated legally as if it were cooked" (i.e., it is as if the juice and the unkosher fish were cooked together). And if one argues that it (the unkosher fish) is nullified by being less than one part in sixty, we do not nullify a forbidden substance ab initio. And there are those who want to permit the practice on the grounds that it is dried out, and it is therefore like wood which has no taste whatsoever, and they see it as being analogous to the inner lining of a stomach. And there are those who want to permit the practice on the grounds that we only restrict prior nullification when it is one's intention to nullify, but here the intention is only to clarify the wine and not to give it a taste. My honored cousin, the rabbi, the great luminary, Rabbi Joseph, the head of the court and the academy of the city Hadesh in the region Cracow, ruled to forbid the practice.

But since the custom has already spread to permit the practice in the regions of Germany and Poland, I have decided to write according to my humble opinion.

After a long responsum, he ultimately says this: For all the reasons mentioned above, it seems that it is permitted to put Heusen Bleusen into the wine or the drink which they call med in Poland because the intention is not to nullify but only to clarify the drink and to precipitate the lees. And "it is good for Israel, for if they are not prophets, they are children of prophets." (Pesachim 66a) According to my humble opinion it is completely permissible. And what seemed right to me I have written