After a bill presented to the Ministerial Law Committee was pushed aside, Shas begrudgingly accepted a compromise in the hope of pushing the bill forward. Shas’ original bill would compel an eatery to have local rabbinate hashgacha in order to advertise as kosher, seeking to eliminate the new and growing trend of stores that are challenging the state system, claiming to be kosher without a local rabbinate or a recognized accepted badatz hashgacha.

Before recent changes, the law compelled an eatery to have a local rabbinate hashgacha to advertise as “kosher”. One it had a local rabbinate hashgacha, the latter did not mind adding an accepted badatz hechsher for those seeking to attract a more mehadrin customer base. A recent opinion submitted to the Supreme Court by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein changed the status quo, as Weinstein explained he does not see a problem with a store advertising as “kosher” without local rabbinate hashgacha. One should bear in mind the attorney general’s position is in contradiction to the nation’s kosher laws while more in line with his own secular hashkafa.

The compromise permits a store to advertise itself as “kosher” without local rabbinate supervision, but the store must also publicize “Under our own supervision without a hashgacha”. Shas was fighting such a compromise but it has realized without the Kulanu party and its 10 seats on board, the bill hasn’t a chance to pass. MK (Kulanu) Rachel Azaria opposed the bill and enlisted party colleagues to join her opposition. Prior to entering Knesset she was a Jerusalem councilwoman and worked to assist the effort to permit restaurants to have unrecognized hashgachos and advertise as kosher without the Chief Rabbinate system. She worked with Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz of the Nachlaot neighborhood of Yerushalayim, who launched his “Hashgacha Pratit” organization to circumvent the Jerusalem Rabbinate. As the website shows, the list of restaurants joining and leaving the local rabbinate is growing.

In response to the reported compromise, senior Chief Rabbinate of Israel officials call the bill as disaster, pointing out some Jews unfamiliar with the decision will see a sign and a picture or two of a rabbi in a store and think a restaurant has hashgacha when in fact it does not. Kikar Shabbos News quotes one unidentified Chief Rabbinate official saying “This will bring a catastrophe to kashrus”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)