MK (Bayit Yehudi) Betzalel Smotrich is working to advance a bill that would create a uniform standard of state kashrus around the nation. The bill would remove authority from local religious councils and compel them to adhere to the standard of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for regular and mehadrin hashgachos.

While this is supposed to be the case today, in many cities, sorrowfully, the regulations from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel are not adhered to while in other cities, religious councils have insisted on additional stringencies that are not contained in the Chief Rabbinate regulations.

Smotrich feels that there must be a nationwide standard to permit kosher consumers to expect the same in any and every city that they visit in all stores displaying a local rabbinate hashgacha.

Such a bill has been presented in the past as a government-sponsored bill and it was knocked down. Chief Rabbi of Israel Dovid Lau Shlita praises Smotrich’s initiative as does Rishon L’Tzion Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Shlita.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)