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Kosher Geek Jonah Ottensoser

November 3, 2004 | In general | Jonah Ottensoser is part of a trend among tech companies, who are acknowledging cultural and religious values to enter emerging markets overseas and become more competitive in niche markets at home.

A retired helicopter engineer who is himself Orthodox, Ottensoser teaches Sabbath law to technical teams at companies like General Electric, Electrolux, and Viking. His job: to guide them in building electronic brains and mechanical guts that are Sabbath-compliant.

Ottensoser works for Star-K, a nonprofit that certifies food products as kosher. Of several hundred kosher agencies in the world, Star-K is the only one that certifies technology, and Ottensoser is the firm’s only appliance consultant. That makes him the world’s lone kosher geek, the man tasked with certifying that the movement of every electron in an appliance is sanctioned by G-d.

Meet the hacker who makes your home appliances right with G-d.

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