Passover: Is kitniyot on wane, does it presage a unified Jewish custom?

• Author: JEREMY SHARON
• Date: 30 March 2021
• Published date: 30 March 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

But alongside this prohibition is another restriction which although strictly speaking is more of a custom than a law, further restricts what food can be consumed over the holiday: kitniyot.

Kitniyot, broadly speaking, are legumes as well as corn and rice which the Medieval rabbis in Ashkenazi Jewish communities prohibited owing to their similarity – when ground – to wheat flour.

Modern food production means that many processed foods include varying amounts of kitniyot or their derivatives, such as oils from such products.

Since most Sephardi Jews never adopted the custom of refraining from kitniyot on Passover, and because a slight majority of Jews in Israel are Sephardi, it has become increasingly difficult to obtain products which are not made with kitniyot.

Numerous products have become difficult to find without kitniyot, which in recent years has led to a backlash against the custom, including rabbinic rulings and social media campaigns such as "Kitniyot Liberation Front."

Finally, in 2007, three rabbis from Machon Shilo, an institution dedicated to the study of Jewish law and custom as practiced in Israel, issued a ruling permitting Ashkenazi Jews to eat kitniyot.

Rabbis David Bar-Hayim, Yehoshua Buch, and Chaim Wasserman of the Machon Shilo organization argued that citizens of Israel are neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardi but have become "Jews of the Land of Israel," and therefore should abide by the customs and practices of the country and not by previous customs.

Despite this ruling, many Israeli Ashkenazi Jews continue to observe kitniyot restrictions, first and foremost the ultra-Orthodox community whose rabbinic leadership has steadfastly insisted that the custom of avoiding kitniyot must be observed.

And similarly many rabbis in the religious-Zionist community also insist that the custom remain in place.

But some prominent religious-Zionist rabbis have ruled that derivatives of kitniyot, especially oils, should not be included in the prohibition.

Rabbi Dov Lior, for example, one of the most authoritative arbiters of Jewish law in the religious-Zionist sector, ruled that only kitniyot which were customarily prohibited should be included in the ban, meaning that many food products labeled as kitniyot could be consumed over Passover.

Perhaps because of the pushback against the custom, observance of it has actually waned significantly.

According to research published by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) in 2019, only 53% of Ashkenazi Jews in...