Prominent Israeli chefs Yisrael Aharoni, Yonatan Roshfeld, Chaim Cohen, Avi Conforti, Daniel Zach and Aviv Moshe have signed a petition submitted to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, calling upon him to cancel the government directive that prohibits taking official state guests to treif restaurants. They feel that many of the state visitors are non-Jews, and as such, they are being deprived of the best culinary experiences the country has to offer, pointing out such place are treif, not kosher.

Unfortunately, this is a byproduct of state-run television, which receives its operating budget from a compulsory television tax, airs cooking shows which routinely show local chefs like Aharoni cooking meat and milk together, as well as dishes involving seafood and other prohibited fish, sea creatures and assorted non-kosher recipes.

The chefs refer to the government directive permitting hosting guests in kosher restaurants as a “serious hurdle” that must be addressed. They point out that most restaurants in Israel are not kosher and limiting guests, most of whom being non-Jews, to kosher restaurants only, deprives them of the true culinary experience.

According to Chiam Cohen, quoted by Yediot Achronot, if the foreign minister is permitted to eat in non-kosher restaurants, there is no reason his guests should be deprived of the same pleasure.

Editor-in-Chief of Al HaShulchan, the Israeli culinary magazine Janna Gur is behind the impetus, calling on the Foreign Ministry to consider changing the ruling.

According to the report, the Foreign Ministry responded by explaining the regulation is a long-standing one, adding that the foreign minister himself only visits kosher restaurants in any and all official functions.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)