“Only Northern California will remain kosher,” said Rabbi Nissim Davidi, kashrut administrator for the Rabbinical Council of California. The Los Angeles-based organization oversees kosher supervision for all Noah’s production plants and stores on the West Coast.
Sydney Drell Reiner, vice president of marketing at Noah’s corporate office in Alameda, would not elaborate on the impending shift. “We have not finalized our plans,” she said.
But Davidi and others say the winds of change are blowing through the popular kosher franchise started in 1989 by Berkeley resident Noah Alper. Last year, he sold his chain to another leader in the bagel business, Einstein Bagel Corp. He left his position as vice chairman of the board in February and is now on a year’s sabbatical in Israel.
Noah’s, the rabbi said, “did their utmost to try to keep it kosher. This is merely a corporate decision. They have to look at the bottom line.”
For kosher consumers, the bottom line is this: If Noah’s adds deli meats to its menu, as it already has done at one Portland store, most kosher supervisors won’t affix their certification. Whether the meats themselves are kosher or not, “to have a restaurant setting that provides both meat and milk is not usually done,” Davidi said.
Northern California stores will remain kosher, he surmised, because the chain is thriving here.
But in Portland, home to seven Noah’s outlets, a call to the branch on N.W. 23rd Avenue confirmed that the shop recently started selling corned beef and turkey-style pastrami, as well as cheeses, sprouts, lettuce, potato salad and coleslaw.
In the increasingly competitive bagel business, “our customers are asking for a lot of different items…Meat is just one of them,” said Darryl Rudolph, Noah’s regional manager for the Pacific Northwest. Other requests, he added, include a broader range of sweets.
A year ago, long before deli meats appeared on the N.W. 23rd Avenue’s branch’s menu, Portland Rabbi Leonard Oppenheimer got word of the proposed changes and encouraged people to contact Noah’s with their concerns. Other than Noah’s, the city houses few kosher eateries.
“I basically started telling people that the only way we are going to be able to support a kosher place is if the company realizes the community really wants it,” said the rabbi of Orthodox Congregation Kesser Israel.
He addressed the issue from the bimah and in his synagogue bulletin. “I think a lot of people did call,” he said. “Even the community relations council of the Jewish federation wrote a letter in which they expressed on behalf of the community their concern.”
Oppenheimer said he then got a call from someone at Noah’s corporate headquarters saying, “`Why are you spreading rumors? Why don’t you wait and see?’ To that, I said, `I want you to get these calls and letters before you make the decisions, to let you know there are many of us out here who care very deeply,'” he recalled.
“To be honest, I think it’s somewhat shortsighted of them to do it,” the rabbi said. “The whole Noah’s is built around this very Jewish theme.”
Offering a different perspective is David Grashin, executive director of the Va’ad HaRabanim of Greater Seattle. Composed of seven Orthodox congregational rabbis in the Seattle area, the organization that works with the Rabbinical Council of California to oversee the kosher certification of Noah’s outlets in both Seattle and Portland.
“Noah’s is a business and we always understand that they have to make what’s in their mind the best business decision,” Grashin said. “They bent over backward for the kosher consumer whenever they could and it was always appreciated.”
Grashin said the Va’ad may still continue to supervise the certification of kosher products — bagels, challah and shmears, for example — at the store on N.W. 23rd Avenue.
“A lot of organizations will not supervise restaurants that are not 100 percent kosher,” he said. “We have in the past, and we would consider doing it again if the proper safeguards can be set up.”
While Noah’s kosher future still evokes conflicting reports, the notion of a change in the bagelry’s kosher status clearly touches a panicked nerve in some.
Consider this e-mail sent to the Jewish Bulletin by an indignant Jewish Portland resident. “The first product they want to bring in is HAM, what an insult and a slap in the face to the community,” it reads.
Drell Reiner, however, said that is a bunch of baloney. “I can’t believe somebody would tell you that,” she said. “There is a rumor mill.”
Former Boston businessman Alper opened the first Noah’s New York Bagels eight years ago with an outlet on Berkeley’s College Avenue. The popular business grew faster than yeast rises, adding dozens of stores throughout the West. Some 50 shops now operate in Northern California alone, making Noah’s the Bay Area’s bagel biggie.
The Einstein-Noah Bagel Corp. chain now franchises more than 500 stores in 28 states under the two names Noah’s New York Bagels and Einstein Bros. Bagels. Restaurateur Boston Chicken owns about 54 percent of Einstein/Noah and provides it with infrastructure services.
Since last year’s merger, Noah’s distinctly Jewish character has remained unchanged. The decor echoes New York’s Lower East Side, with tile floors and walls covered with pictures that could hang in any Jewish home. The store provides written explanations of kashrut, handy Yiddish expressions and holiday guides for all major Jewish festivals.
Reached in Jerusalem, where he is currently on sabbatical with his family, Alper stressed that though the company bears his name, he is no longer involved.
“I enjoyed my years at Noah’s; that’s a chapter that’s now ended for me,” he said. “I am in Jerusalem for a year learning. Life goes on and things change. It’s a new company and a new world.”