Tel-Chai Nation

The Jewish Press tells of an agreement the Tzohar foundation made with the Israeli rabbinate on kashrut supervision separate from the rabbinate, something the rabbinate doesn't want to admit they agreed upon:

Over the past few months, representatives of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel and representatives of the kashrut services of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization have met to dialog how to comply with the various rulings and directives of the Attorney General’s office regarding kashrut services in Israel.

On Monday, the Chief Rabbinate published a document titled, quite sternly, “Criminal Enforcement Policy of the National Unit for the Enforcement of the Prohibition of Fraud in Kashrut Act.”

Despite the aggressive title, the document represents great liberation from the yoke of the Chief Rabbinate’s system, in favor of more modern and efficient services – all of which are thoroughly halachic. It states for the first time in the history of the State of Israel that a food business owner is allowed to post a statement saying his business is supervised by an agency other than the Chief Rabbinate, and that the same agency makes sure that the raw materials and manner of handling the food are controlled and that the kitchen is either dairy, parve, or meat.

The rabbinate simultaneously claims nothing was agreed upon, which the paper says is the sign of sore losers. Whatever, it's good if the kashrut services in Israel can now have companies operating independently from the rabbinate and its now decidedly atrocious conduct under Haredi sources who don't respect the values the US Constitution emphasizes, for example. Tzohar deserves some congratulations for their efforts to improve the situation in the country.

Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, Judaism