Rockville-based Potomac 18 Caterers is now certified kosher under the supervision of the Orthodox Union.
Potomac 18 CEO Yisroel Bacharach made the announcement Sunday in a message to a Jewish listserv in Silver Spring, three weeks after the Rabbinical Council of Greater Washington, otherwise known as the Vaad, pulled its certification.
Rabbi Moshe Elefant, chief operating officer of the OU’s Kashruth division, said negotiations between his organization and Potomac 18 were finalized last weekend after two months of discussions, which included the Vaad.
“We were all speaking to each other,” he said. “Everything the OU does in consultation with its local Vaad.”
Bacharach had said he was seeking OU certification because he planned to expand his business nationally. He said he was caught off guard when the Vaad placed an ad in the Nov. 23 issue of Washington Jewish Week stating that the business was no longer certified kosher, with the exception of catered events taking place before Dec. 18.
Vaad president Rabbi Yosef Singer told Kol Habirah that his agency determined that “systemic noncompliance with the Vaad’s regulations” led to the decertification.
Bacharach said all future events catered by Potomac 18 are certified kosher under the OU.
—Dan Schere
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