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Kosher cooking school opens

By · July 7, 2008

The only professional kosher cooking school in North America opened this week.

The Center for Kosher Culinary Arts, a six-week intensive course, held its first class Monday in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Flatbush in Brooklyn, N.Y.  Thirteen students, men and women, are registered. The course, which costs $4,500, is in cooperation with Kingsborough Community College.

Founder Elka Pinson says the school was created to give observant Jews the opportunity to eat what they prepare while they are learning to cook, as well as to provide a trained cadre of chefs for the country’s kosher restaurants.

The only other known professional kosher cooking school is the Jerusalem Culinary Institute in Israel.

Given the number of Jews who keep kosher and the growing popularity of upscale kosher restaurants, some in the kosher food industry expressed surprise that there aren’t more such schools.

It’s a tough business, says Rabbi Chaim Fogelman, a rabbinic coordinator at the OK kosher certification agency in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

“I’ve seen many people try to get a kosher cooking school going,” he said, “but this is the only one that’s gotten off the starting plate.”

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