Indian wigs, no AZ please

www.failedmessiah.com carried this article:

REAKING! INDIAN WIG BAN NOT ENOUGH!
Rabbis: Hindu Hair Derivatives Used To Make Medicines May Make Medicines Forbidden – Buffalo Milk Can Be Dried, Added To Food – Would Make Food Treife – The Dark Ages Have Begun

Major kashrut "authorities" are convening in Jerusalem to tackle new kashrut 'issues':

L-cysteine, derived from, among other things, human hair, is used as a dough conditioner. It is also used to produce a variety of chicken and beef flavors that may be kosher and parve.

The pharmaceuticals industry uses it to make the mucus-thinning substance acetylcysteine which can be found in Siran, Mical or Myculite, drugs that are sold in Israel.

[Rabbi] Sharshevsky refrained from a definitive prohibition of the substance, saying the matter was still being checked. He said that if hair from the Tirupati temple was used to make L-cysteine, no benefit could be derived from anything containing the L-cysteine.

Of course, Rabbi Sharshevsky did not mention that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein saw nothing wrong with using Indian hair for wigs and L-cysteine. He also fails to mention that Rabbi Elyashiv's ruling on Indian hair has been widely disregarded and that Rabbi Elyashiv has been inundated with complaints from scholars and from ba'alei teshuva who had been practicing Hindus. They claim – based on overwhelming evidence – that Rabbi Elyashiv and his 'investigator' Rabbi Dunner misrepresented Hindu theology and practice. They believe the hair should be permitted just as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled.

Rabbis Elyashiv and Dunner's methodology and motivation are highly suspect.

Of course, if Hindu hair derivatives might be present in food and medicine, and if Indian hair is in fact forbidden, this would create quite a financial windfall for the very rabbis and kashrut agencies involved.

Then we have this unsubstantiated piece of wisdom:

Rabbi Dov Landau, head of the Hatam Sofer kashrut supervision in Bnei Brak, revealed that it is possible for camel and buffalo milk to be made into a powdered form.

This finding is surprising since it contradicts the working assumptions held for decades by halachic authorities. Rabbis assumed that only cow milk could be dried, thus eliminating the concern that milk from a non-kosher animal had been mixed in.

Many observant Jews relied on this assumption to differentiate between regular unsupervised milk (Halav Nochri) and powdered milk.

Buffalo milk is kosher. Camel milk is not. As long as your powdered milk originates from a country that requires truth in labeling and has no camels, there is nothing to worry about. Further, powdered camel's milk would spoil most products that have milk as an ingredient.

However, we remain convinced that, as in the past, Rabbi Elyashiv and company will not be deterred by the facts.

My comments on the matter:

Indian hair is a huge issue, of course. Yoga, acupuncture, feng shui, Ayurveda, Reiki and any other magic with a Asian sounding name you can get on the main strip of any Jewish community in the world, b'heter gamur. (Note articles in B'Or HaTorah from a "doctor" of Ayurveda in issue 14E.)

This story is a good example of why one was required to know world religions and practices in order to sit as a judge.

Nuf said.