There’s a podcast by Tamir Dorטל that tries to extract substantive arguments from Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, and asks him some good questions…

Dvir, can you post a link to the podcast in question?

With God’s help, 6 Kislev 5782

At this stage, the reform does not harm the ability of local rabbinates to grant kosher certification. On the contrary, it allows any local rabbi to grant certification even outside his own city, so that the rabbi of Metula will be able to grant certification even in Mitzpe Ramon, to which the inspectors of the Metula rabbinate will arrive on a direct flight 🙂

The problem will only be next year, when the Minister of Religious Services, our master Rabbi M. Kahana, may he live long, will decide which city and town rabbis will be authorized to grant kosher certifications and which local rabbis will not be able to do so. In other words: a city rabbi will have to receive ‘authorization’ from a politician in order to rule in his own city who is kosher and who is not? The politician will become the ‘rabbi of rabbis’ 🙂

Next year the way will also be opened for ‘kashrut corporations’ to grant kosher certifications. Something that already exists de facto today, since the rabbis of Tzohar are already permitted by the High Court to issue certificates saying ‘supervised by the rabbis of Tzohar.’ Now they will be allowed to write explicitly ‘kosher under the supervision of …,’ in the hope that the public, which hasn’t exactly been running after their supervision, will start flocking to it 🙂

A regulator has been appointed for the ‘kashrut corporations’ to oversee their fidelity to the standards of tithing and kashrut. This ‘appointee’ will sit in the offices of the Chief Rabbinate, but will not be subordinate at all to the Chief Rabbis; rather, he will be subordinate to the Director General of the Rabbinate, who is subordinate to the Director General of the Ministry of Religious Services. In other words: the Minister of Religious Services, our master Rabbi M. Kahana, may he live long (or someone worse than him), will be the regulator of the kashrut corporations. A politician is the kashrut regulator!

Even so, the law leaves in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate the setting of standards for ‘basic kashrut’ and for ‘mehadrin kashrut,’ but neutralizes that in the same breath, since any three people qualified to serve as a city rabbi, one of whom actually holds office, will be able to keep lowering the ‘kashrut bar.’ This one will certify restaurants open on the Sabbath, that one will certify vegetables infested with insects, another will certify new grain, and another will certify gentile milk, etc., etc.—as in the current situation abroad, where ‘each man does what is right in his own eyes.’ The chaos that currently exists in food imported from abroad will now also exist in domestic produce.

The solution that currently exists for the kosher consumer—to check on every certification from abroad that it is ‘approved by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’—will from now on also be needed for certifications within Israel, except that an even wider opening for deception will be created, since the ‘corporations’ will be able to write ‘approved by the appointee for kashrut in the Rabbinate,’ and then try to figure out that this means ‘an appointee on behalf of the Minister of Religious Services sitting in the Rabbinate,’ who, as stated above, is not subordinate to any rabbinic authority.

In short: the reform will increase the ability of dubious corporations to deceive the public!

With blessings, S. Tz. Levinger

The big winners will apparently be business owners, factories, and restaurants that are not interested in supervision that asks questions and makes demands. They will be able to ignore kashrut requirements and find someone who will give them ‘certification without demands.’

There will always be people who won’t bother them about Sabbath desecration, worm inspections, tithes, food cooked by gentiles, gentile milk, and who will also offer them a cheaper price. A lenient ‘kashrut corporation’ that depends economically on the business, and fears that the business will leave it in order to get certification from someone even more lenient.

But the profit for those business owners will only be apparent, because the religious public and the traditional Sephardi public will continue to insist on Chief Rabbinate certification. So just as Tzohar certifications aren’t taking off and business owners aren’t flocking to them even though they write ‘supervised,’ so too they understand that people won’t run after them even if they write ‘kosher.’ The public is a bit ‘supervised’ itself 🙂

The costs of kashrut will not go down, because no Haredi badatz will agree to become a ‘kashrut corporation’ under regulation by the Director General of the Ministry of Religious Services, and they will prefer to continue giving supplementary kashrut certification on top of the Rabbinate’s certification, so the problem of ‘double certifications’ will not be solved.

Moreover, even if a Haredi kashrut organization agrees to give certification without certification from the Rabbinate, the cost of such certification will be higher, because the badatz will not only have to provide the ‘second story’ but supervise ‘from the foundation to the top.’

And as I mentioned above, the kashrut reform will make it easier for dubious corporations to present a false appearance as though they are ‘approved by the Rabbinate,’ but the public will not flock to them in droves.

With blessings, S. Tz. L.

And as the chairwoman of the committee for religion-related initiatives, the punctilious Rabbanit Yulia Malinovsky, may she live long, clearly explained, the ‘big money’ in the reform lies in removing the oversight of the national kashrut department of the Chief Rabbinate over meat imports from abroad.

Until now, an importer of meat from abroad needed approval from the national kashrut department of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. From now on, every importer will be able to rely on the certification of any random person approved by the ‘appointee on behalf of the Director General of the Ministry of Religious Services.’

For example, the adviser to the Minister of Religious Services, Rabbi Avinoam Kutcher, who is a partner in a slaughterhouse in Poland, will profit from this, because from now on he will be able to bring to Israel the produce of his slaughterhouse and make do with the approval of the ‘appointee on behalf of the Ministry of Religious Services,’ who is his ‘puppet.’

Rabbi A. Kutcher signed a ‘conflict-of-interest arrangement’ saying that he would not deal with matters concerning meat imports to Israel, but apparently the main point of the ‘reform’ is intended to remove from him and others like him the oversight of the Rabbinate. The adviser to the Minister of Religious Services will be supervised on kashrut matters by the appointee on behalf of the ministry’s Director General. ‘Proper administration’ at its finest 🙂

With blessings, S. Tz. L.

Rabbi Avinoam Kutcher signed as guarantor for half a million shekels for Gideon Sa’ar’s party, the partner of Bennett and Kahana.

On the conflict of interest of the adviser to the Minister of Religious Services—see Amir Ettinger’s article, ‘The Conflict of Interest of Minister Kahana’s Adviser Revealed,’ on the Srugim website.

On his guarantee for New Hope—see Haggai Amit’s article, ‘What Can Be Learned About Gideon Sa’ar from the Man Who Put Up a Half-Million-Shekel Guarantee for Him,’ on TheMarker.

With blessings, S. Tz. L.

One of the problems pointed out by the State Comptroller is the dependence of the kashrut supervisor on the business owner from whom he receives his salary. In my humble opinion, this problem is not critical, since the employer cannot fire the supervisor as he pleases, because if he does so the local rabbi (who is a state employee and is not financially dependent on the supervised business) may remove the business’s kosher certification. Therefore, the supervisor’s independence vis-à-vis the business owner is assured.

In any case, once the High Court adopted the State Comptroller’s position, a solution was found (implemented, for example, in Petah Tikva) in which the supervisor is employed by a ‘supervision corporation’ subordinate to the local rabbinate, so that neither the supervisor nor the rabbi granting the certification is financially dependent on the business being supervised. This model could have been implemented gradually, as appropriate, in the other cities as well.

By contrast, when the local rabbi does not grant the certification but rather a ‘corporation’ does, then the entire ‘corporation,’ from the rabbi granting the certification down to the last supervisor, is financially dependent on the business they supervise. So instead of the business owner being afraid that the Rabbinate will remove his certification if he violates the rules, the rabbi of the corporation granting the certification is afraid lest the business owner leave him and move to a less stringent ‘corporation.’ The reliability of such certification is far lower.

I suggested to the Chief Rabbis a proposal to improve and streamline the state kashrut system by establishing ‘regional religious courts’ specializing in kashrut matters. They would guide the local rabbinates on complicated kashrut questions requiring expertise and continual updating about all the new issues that arise, and would also serve as an appellate and supervisory body over the decisions of the local rabbinates, in order to raise the standard of kashrut and increase public trust in the state kashrut system.

My proposal was passed on by Rabbi D. Lau for the consideration of the Minister of Religious Services, but apparently the minister has no interest in improving the state system; rather, he wants to lower the kashrut bar, not raise it.

With blessings, S. Tz.

The wonders of the ‘corporation’ so desired by the Minister of Religious Services are nicely described in the articles under the heading ‘Tzohar Kashrut’ on the Kosharot website, including: immediate certification for businesses from which Rabbinate supervision was removed due to violation of kashrut procedures; certification for a bakery operating inside a non-kosher restaurant in such a way that one could mistakenly think the certification was given to the entire restaurant; retroactive certification for a winery after seven years without supervision!; and certification for vegetables with a high level of worm infestation.

These and other failures were detailed in a letter from the import department of the Chief Rabbinate explaining the Rabbinate’s refusal to recognize ‘Tzohar Food Supervision Ltd.’ as a ‘recognized body for the purpose of food import’ (this too appears on the Kosharot website).

But no problem. When they don’t meet the kashrut requirements of the rabbis of Israel, there are always the brilliant rabbis Matan Kahana and Yulia Malinovsky, may they live long, who will certify it. Happy is the ‘corporation’ that has such things 🙂

With blessings, S. Tz.