An American-born, self-styled “kosher sheriff” who patrols Israel’s food industry for infractions has a warning for consumers at the height of the Passover shopping season: Shop at your own risk.

“I believe many residents and visitors are close to clueless regarding Passover and the laws pertaining to kosher food in Israel,” says Yechiel Spira, author of the renegade “Jerusalem Kosher News” blog.

Open gallery view Yechiel Spira visiting Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market this week. Credit: Emil Salman

The bearded Spira, a 55-year-old native of New York City, is a straight-shooter whose pistol is his pen. When he isn’t churning out news copy as a veteran breaking-news editor, this stocky, 6-foot-5 lone ranger takes no prisoners in the fiercely competitive and seemingly lawless battleground one might call the Kosher Corral.

“I cannot stress enough that you, the visitor, must abandon this incorrect notion that ‘everything is kosher’ and stop stuffing your face from the moment you get off the plane until your departure,” Spira cautioned in a recent blog post. “You may be including non-kosher foods in your binge.”

A 15-year veteran of the catering and meat industries who immigrated to Israel in 1984, Spira appears to have developed a following. He says his five-year-old blog which he considers a “mission” is e-mailed to 3,000 subscribers in Israel and abroad, while his web site earns between 380,000 to 450,000 hits a month. His rallying calls to consumers, and the ensuing public pressures, have yielded modest gains, with some of Israel’s food producers and kashrut agencies agreeing to modify their practices and policies.

“He believes the consumer must be educated in demanding transparency among kashrut organizations and he’s ready to oppose those who are out to make a quick buck,” says New York City native Rabbi Chaim Zev Malinowitz, a Ramat Beit Shemesh spiritual leader who read Spira’s blog for years before hiring him to help produce a kashrut guide that rates eating establishments in Ramat Beit Shemesh. “No one has any idea what the kashrut agencies are really doing, as there is such a wide range of standards,” says Malinowitz. “That’s why Yechiel keeps screaming. He’s appealing to the consumer, who has the ultimate power.” Spira’s web site doesn’t have the cutting-edge feel of some of the new kosher apps now available for smartphones the Orthodox Union released “OU Kosher” this month but boasts a potpourri of more than 1,000 postings, reader talkbacks and admin responses that amounts to a kosher canon.

A recent Spira post informed “matzah-sensitive” eaters of the arrival in Israel of a rabbi who was tooversee the production of the traditional, unleavened bread made from three different grains: gluten-free oat flour, baking spelt and whole wheat.

Another entry offered a translation of an urgent consumer advisory from the Chief Rabbinate cautioning against the purchase of specific products with “bogus” certification labels. It cited by name a bakery claiming to produce kosher-for-Passover cookies with vessels and ovens not “kashered,” or rendered usable as required by halakha, or Jewish law.

Spira’s trained eye can spot expired kashrut certificates which some store owners hope unsuspecting customers will mistake for a fresh stamp of rabbinic approval. In other instances, Spira has noticed stores bearing special 30-day certificates authenticating the store’s requisite, Passover-eve sale of chametz, or leaven in November.

A frequent patroller of Jerusalem’s famed Mahaneh Yehuda shuk, or market, where he often conducts tours, Spira spent years checking eateries’ refuse.

“During the day, they told me what they sold,” Spira says. “At night I went to the store and checked their garbage. That’s how you learn.”

Spira notes that he is not a rabbi and doesn’t claim to be one. “But I know what is going in the field and how the system operates,” he says.