Last week’s kashrus scandal has sown confusion and distrust among kosher consumers everywhere. What went wrong, and what can we do better?

The video was shocking. The non-Jewish owner of a kosher restaurant in Manalapan, New Jersey — a half hour from Lakewood — was seen taking delivery of boxes bearing the logo of non-kosher meat in the back of his store. Within the hour, the OK yanked its kashrus certification from the diner, the Chinese Kosher Express.

Two days later, the OK released a statement revealing that while the cases of meat caught on video were never brought into the store, the owner confessed off camera that he regularly mixed in “small amounts” of nonkosher meat into his diner “over an extended period of time.”

The restaurant was shut permanently, and OK rabbanim ruled that anyone who purchased products from there must kasher all utensils. In the days since, rabbanim have issued calls for consumers to be extra vigilant when dining in or buying from stores or restaurants not owned by Jews.

Rabbi Sholem Fishbane of the Chicago cRc, who also heads the Association of Kashrus Organizations, an umbrella group of virtually every kashrus agency in the US, says this is a critical moment for kashrus. “After Manalapan, kashrus changed,” he put it. “There is no going back to the old way of doing things.”