Last Friday, in a cemetery north of Philadelphia, off Route 1, across from a Radisson, around the corner from a Texaco station and behind a Dunkin?��Ǩ�Ѣ Donuts?��Ǩ���we buried my best friend from the Miami Beach days. He was 43 years old. Breast cancer.
As I stood there looking at the quiet casket (traffic from Route 1 irreverently loud in the background), I thought about all that George Zifferblatt and I had done together as teenagers: the boating, the spearfishing, the lobsterpoaching, the wild boar hunting (I know, a wild boar hunter doesn?��Ǩ�Ѣt quite fit my nerdy image). And now for all these things (and so much more) to climax, to converge, and to end at a single point, a hole in the ground behind a Dunkin?��Ǩ�Ѣ Donuts? It makes no sense.
Yet because so much of the world does make sense, irrevocably so, in that it?��Ǩ�Ѣs logical, rational, purposeful (the sun gives us light and heat, plants make air, gravity holds us to the earth, the heart pumps blood), it?��Ǩ�Ѣs the height of absurdity for human life (the beneficiary of all these sensible, logical, and purposeful natural phenomena) to end in such meaninglessness. How can so many of the individual and finite things of nature?��Ǩ���in and of themselves replete with points and opulent with purpose?��Ǩ���so beautifully, precisely, and artfully climax into nothing more than a hole behind Dunkin?��Ǩ�Ѣ Donuts?
Word that the new Royal Oak Township Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts-Baskin Robbins would remain kosher ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù despite concerns to the contrary ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù traveled fast among kashrut-observant patrons last Thursday night.
Danny Jabbori, Rabbi Joseph Krupnik and Ted Jabbori at the drive-through menu board behind the new kosher Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts-Baskin Robbins restaurant.
?¢‚Ǩ?ìWe were extremely busy,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù co-owner Ted Jabbori said of the post-Tisha b?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢Av fast-day crowd. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìOne man even bought $80 worth of bagels, doughnuts and portable coffee pots.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù
Less than a week earlier, on Aug. 1, when the store opened as a kosher eatery, Jabbori and his brotAdd Storyher Danny, both of Novi, had already been notified by Allied Domecq Quick Service Restaurants in Randolph, Mass. ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù who franchise and market the stores ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù that they may not be able to remain kosher.
While Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts bagels, cream cheese, cookies, muffins, doughnuts and coffee products have kosher certification ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù as do enough Baskin-Robbins flavors to meet the company?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s ice cream choice quota ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù other standard menu items do not.
The company informed the Jabboris of their expectation that all their restaurants sell the same food items, including bacon, ham, sausage and non-kosher cheeses. With the chance of the non-kosher items mixing with the kosher ones, the Vaad Harabonim, the Council of Orthodox Rabbis of Greater Detroit in Southfield, could not continue to certify the restaurant as kosher if the policy was changed.
For Rabbi Reuven Spolter of Young Israel of Oak Park, the threat of the kashrut status being removed from one of only seven kosher restaurants in metro Detroit spearheaded a community phone call and e-mail barrage asking for support. Customer care representatives at Allied Domecq were contacted with requests to reconsider the policy and to keep the restaurant kosher.
?¢‚Ǩ?ìThere is no way we would have been able to stay kosher without the support of this close-knit community,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Jabbori said.
?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe outpour of community support showed that there was a demonstrated community need for a kosher shop,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù said Michelle L. King, assistant manager, Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts Public Relations, Allied Domecq Quick Service Restaurants.