Program listings are full of terms that everyone in the industry assumes you already know. If you do, skip this. If you have ever nodded along while not being completely sure, this is what each one actually means for the food on the table.
A note before starting: this is a plain description of what these terms mean in practice, not a halachic ruling. Standards and family customs vary, and your own rav is the address for what your family should keep.
Gebrokts
Gebrokts is matzah that has touched liquid; a non-gebrokts program serves no matzah balls, matzah brei or matzah-meal baking for the whole eight days, and the term applies only to Pesach.
What it means: matzah that has come into contact with liquid.
Many Chassidic and Yeshivish families do not eat gebrokts on Pesach, out of a concern that a stray unbaked particle of flour in the matzah could become chometz when it gets wet.
What it means for the food: a non-gebrokts kitchen serves no matzah balls, no matzah meal cakes, no matzah brei and nothing breaded in matzah meal. In practice that shifts the whole menu — a lot of Pesach baking depends on matzah meal, so non-gebrokts kitchens lean on potato starch and nut flours instead.
Important: gebrokts is a Pesach concept only. It is meaningless on a cruise in July or at a hotel in December, and you will never see it on those listings here.
Kitniyot
Kitniyot are legumes, rice, corn and their relatives, which most Ashkenazi families do not eat on Pesach and most Sephardi families do — so a non-kitniyot kitchen cooks to the stricter custom for everyone.
What it means: legumes, rice, corn, and foods in that family — beans, lentils, chickpeas, peas, sesame, mustard, and in most rulings peanuts and corn derivatives.
Ashkenazi communities have a long-standing custom not to eat kitniyot on Pesach. Most Sephardi communities do eat them.
What it means for the food: a non-kitniyot program cooks without any of it, which works for Ashkenazi and Sephardi guests alike — that is why most international programs are non-kitniyot. A program that does serve kitniyot is usually one aimed at a primarily Sephardi clientele, and will say so.
This one catches people out in the ingredient list rather than the main course. Corn syrup, many oils and a great deal of processed food fall under kitniyot.
Cholov yisroel
Cholov yisroel means the milking itself was supervised by a Jew, and on a Pesach program it usually decides whether the dairy, the tea room and the children's snacks work for your family.
What it means: dairy where the milking was supervised by a Jew from start to finish.
What it means for the food: on a cholov yisroel program, every dairy item — milk, cheese, butter, chocolate, ice cream — meets that standard. Families who keep it generally keep it strictly, so it tends to be a yes-or-no filter rather than a preference.
It is a dairy standard and has nothing to do with meat, which is the most common point of confusion.
Glatt
Glatt is a stricter standard for kosher meat, based on the animal's lungs being free of adhesions, and in practice nearly every program listed here describes its meat as glatt.
What it means: literally "smooth". A stricter standard for kosher meat, based on the lungs of the animal being free of adhesions.
"Glatt mehadrin" or "glatt kosher le'mehadrin" indicates a higher standard again, though the exact meaning varies by supervising authority — which is why the name of the rav hamachshir matters more than the adjective.
It is a meat standard. A glatt program is not automatically cholov yisroel.
Pas yisroel
Pas yisroel means a Jew took part in the baking, usually by lighting or tending the oven — a year-round distinction that matters less on Pesach, when there is no bread anyway.
What it means: bread and baked goods where a Jew participated in the baking, typically by lighting or tending the oven.
Outside Pesach this covers bread, rolls and cake. It appears on year-round hotel and cruise listings rather than Pesach ones, for the obvious reason.
The rav hamachshir
The rav hamachshir is the person who decides what every term on this page actually means at that program, which is why his name is the single most useful thing to ask for and why we publish it on every listing.
Above all of these sits the question of who is supervising. Every term on this page is interpreted by a supervising authority, and the standards behind the same word genuinely differ between them.
This is why every listing on this site names the rav hamachshir or agency rather than simply saying "kosher", and why we do not list a program whose operator will not confirm supervision in writing.
Filtering by what matters to you
You can narrow the whole catalogue directly by the standard you keep rather than reading each listing — non-gebrokts, non-kitniyot, glatt mehadrin and cholov yisroel are all filters.
You can narrow the whole catalogue by these directly: non-gebrokts programs, non-kitniyot programs, or the Glatt Mehadrin and Cholov Yisroel filters on any listing page. The quiz asks about your standard directly and only shows programs that meet it.
