The first step of the coalition forming in the new Knesset is the cancellation of the kashrut reform.
MK Ofir Sofer from Religious Zionism submitted yesterday, at the opening of the Knesset, a bill that seeks to amend the kosher reform of the former Minister of Religion Matan Kahana. This is a bill that was submitted close to the date of the dissolution of the government and not before, and whose existence was also published in Israel Hayom. Now with the new composition of the Knesset, his promotion may be fast.
MK Ofir Sofer. "The State of Israel takes responsibility for kashrut", photo: Oren Ben Hakon
As part of the proposal, which has the support of all factions of the forming coalition and received the blessing of the members of the Chief Rabbinate Council, "many deficiencies have been corrected," as MK Sofer defined it. The rabbinate will approve it, and the option given to three rabbis to establish a kosher standard competing with the chief rabbinate will be cancelled, two significant parts of Kahana's kosher reform.
It was further determined that a Kosher Standard Committee would be established under the Chief Rabbinate Council, and the person in charge of Kosher would be subordinate to the Chief Rabbinate Council.
As published last week in "Israel Hayom", according to the bill, the Minister of Religious Affairs will submit to the government a decision to establish a government company for kashrut, which will employ all of the overseers, this in order to prevent a situation of "the overseer being caught".
The bill also states that kosher fraud will be considered according to Torah law, as it was before the amendment of the law, and that private kosher entities can only act as an addition to the local rabbinate and in compliance with the kosher standard, as is happening today.
Former minister Matan Kahana (archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"The current kashrut reform was designed by the Lapid-Lieberman coalition and there is no need to say too much in relation to the preservation of the country's Jewish character and identity," said MK Ofir Sofer, who submitted the bill.
"In the current bill, the State of Israel takes responsibility for kosher. From the level of the supervisor, who will have a full employment solution and social conditions, to the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which agrees to establish a kosher standard committee at several kosher levels. All of this is accompanied by transparent procedures and technological tools for monitoring and control."
MK Matan Kahana, the former signatory of the reform that will be canceled, reacted with sadness: "Since the passage of the Kashrut law, I have received dozens of inquiries from business owners congratulating that their Kashrut supervisors have begun to come to work and also perform their duties. The opening of the Kashrut market to competition was done under the framework of the Chief Rabbinate , according to halachic criteria established by the state rabbinate. The new law will prevent competition and the level of kashrut will now decrease. I regret that the tariffs as an opposition are now taken seriously without an organized work. We will all pay the bill."
The organization "Hizmoot", which accompanies the bill and submitted an outline on the subject published last week in "Israel Hayom", stated that "it is good that the kosher reform is being removed from the chapter. This reform was full of failures and was passed hastily in the Knesset. It should be studied as an important chapter in the history of how the idea of introducing competition in kosher It only caused a decrease in the level of kashrut and led to an increase in prices."
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