The battle to break the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s monopoly over granting kashrus to a business received a major boost at Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein.
According to the current kosher law, the Chief Rabbinate via religious councils around the country provide hashgacha for stores and institutions. Once a business has been certified kosher by a local rabbinate, then the Rabbanut permits adding a hashgacha, usually one of the many badatzim that operate in Israel.
Weinstein’s ruling however permits one to take a private hashgacha without having certification or any supervision from a local rabbinate. This legalizes the alternative kosher supervisions that are operating and viewed as illegal till Weinstein’s ruling.
The Chief Rabbinate and many others are concerned that this will open the door to inadequate and non-Orthodox kosher supervisions as well as eliminating the uniform standard that exists as a result of the Chief Rabbinate’s nationwide umbrella.
Others applaud Weinstein’s decision, adding if the Chief Rabbinate and the local religious councils around the country has been doing their job as they should the current situation would not have come about. They explain that while the Chief Rabbinate has standards for its basic and mehadrin kosher certification, those standards are not upheld uniformly nationwide.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
You alleged that there is a “… uniform standard that exists as a result of the Chief Rabbinate’s nationwide umbrella”. NO THERE ISN’T. Many if not most frum Israelis regard government kashrus as an oxymoron, considered the well known lack of piety of people running the government. Government kashrus has always been regarded as dubious, with frum people relying on traditional hecksherim from organizations and invididuals known for their piety and learning, rather than their political connections. Even with the best of intentions, someone in kashrus who is responsible to elected treff leaders and needs to make the treff leaders happy to keep his job, will not do a good job enforcing kashrus. In a world in which the big issue was whether Mr. Gafne or Mr. Deri would be forming the government it might be possible to have a reliable government hecksher – but at present barely a 10th of the Kenesset is frum, and its the other 90% that supervises state institutions.
@akuperma – you don’t live here and you have no idea what goes on here so please stop being motzi shem ra.
Rabbanut may not be great but we know it is kosher.
What is more when I see a store displaying a mehadrin cert but no rabbanut that immediatly sets of the alarm bells that this “mehadrin” may very well not be so mehadrin since the rabbanut will pull its’ teuda the moment it discovers a store is trying to fool it’s customers with a fake or not-so-mehadrin mehadrin teuda….
You mention some of the most honest upstanding fellows
Would you trust them with your money?😊😊🎂🎂
You mention some of the most honest upstanding fellows
Would you trust them with your money?
J was wondering what brilliant comment the aka pooka would make.
I must say that it is exactly what was predicted.
Thanks for the laugh and enjoy your ‘non political’ hashgochos in the halige ortzoys habris of America.