Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Israel To Get Three Star Kosher System

Plans to overhaul kosher certification services offered by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate include having different levels of certification and outside companies employ the supervisors.

Naftali Bennett, who serves as minister of religious services, and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau announced the reforms on Monday at a news conference.

Under the new system, the restaurants and other kosher establishments will not pay the kosher supervisor directly, which could lead to graft. The supervisors will be paid by an outside company, which will be paid by the owner of the kosher establishment.

Also under the new system, establishments can choose one of three levels of kosher certification, or kashrut: regular, mehuderet (stringent) and mehadrin min hamehadrin (very stringent).

Establishments seeking very stringent certification previously had turned to outside agencies.

The new system reportedly will cost the restaurants less and could lead other proprietors to become kosher.

“The ultimate goal is to bring back the public’s trust in kashrut by regularizing work relations, removing foreign interests, and upgrading the kashrut array with new and transparent technology,” Deputy Minister of Religious Services Eli Ben-Dahan told the news conference.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.