Restaurants Can Claim ‘Kosher’ Without Rabbinate Certification
Eatery Anger: Restaurateurs are fuming at the Israeli state rabbinate?s monopoly on kosher certification. Image by courtesy of jerusalem movement
Israeli restaurants can present themselves as kosher even if they are under a private kashrut supervision not licensed by the Chief Rabbinate, Israel’s attorney general ruled.
Yehuda Weinstein announced his ruling on the food establishments on Wednesday after issuing it to the Supreme Court on Sunday. According to the ruling, the restaurants may not call themselves kosher but can say they have private certification. They also must make their method of certification clear, so as not to confuse the consumer.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Israel Religious Action Center of the Reform movement on behalf of two Jerusalem restaurants that stopped using the Chief Rabbinate’s certification service but said they continued to observe the laws of kashrut. The restaurants advertised themselves as kosher, according to Israeli media reports.
Fines against the restaurants under a kosher fraud law were overturned.
The Masorti, or Conservative, movement in Israel, has offered its own kosher certification on wine in recent years, and Jerusalem’s Yerushalmim party offers a private kosher certification.
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 this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
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 this Passover 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.
