Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a matched gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Life

Big Brother: Kashrut Edition

Israel is a spiritual place — a place where many say they can always feel God watching over them. Thanks to two newly proposed virtual monitoring initiatives — a virtual kosher supervisor and cemetery guard — God may not be the only one watching.

The Chief Rabbi of Beersheva, Yehuda Deri (brother of former Shas leader Aryeh Deri), recently proposed the installation of kosher surveillance cameras in restaurants and bars in the city that are open late, Ha’aretz reported. The cameras would replace expensive late-night kashrut supervisors by sending a video feed to a central kashrut-supervising agency, which would monitor the kitchen’s activity.

While some look forward to the savings, others claim that the effort would violate their privacy.

In the same week, the Religious Services Ministry began to push for surveillance cameras to prevent vandalism of gravesites on the Mount of Olives, just outside of the Old City, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The mountain is home to 70,000 graves that date back as far as biblical times, such as those of Zecheria and Absalom. Among its more modern resting members are Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate, and former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Israel, look out, Big Brother is watching.

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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 comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag 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.