Chief Rabbis, Religious Services Ministry Want Knesset To Give Rabbis Police Powers To Enforce Kosher Food Law

The rabbis want to launch an actual kosher food police force that would crack down on restaurants and other food businesses that do not pay for the Rabbinate’s kosher supervision but who nonetheless advertise that all ingredients used in their menus are kosher.

 

Deputy Religious Services Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan

Chief Rabbis, Religious Services Ministry Want Knesset To Give Rabbis Police Powers To Enforce Kosher Food Law
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Israel’s haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate wants to deputize rabbis and give them police powers in order to enforce kosher food laws, Ha’aretz reported today.

The rabbis want to launch an actual kosher food police force that would crack down on restaurants and other food businesses that do not pay for the Rabbinate’s kosher supervision but who nonetheless advertise that all ingredients used in their menus are kosher.

The chief rabbis’ bid to drastically expand their power was backed by an memorandum of law distributed in the Knesset yesterday by Deputy Religious Services Minister Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan of the Zionist Orthodox HaBayit HaYehudi Party. It proposes that the Rabbinate’s mashgichim (kosher food inspectors) be allowed to enter restaurants and businesses even if the proprietors do not want them to, take food samples, force any citizens they choose to identify themselves, and have the legal power to force those citizens to come into the Rabbinate for questioning. These kosher food police would also wear identification badges and police-style uniforms.

The businesses targeted by the rabbis opted out of the Rabbinate’s kosher supervision program after they allegedly suffered a series of abuses from the Rabbinate’s kosher food inspectors. However, they still maintained kosher kitchens and served, they say, only kosher food.

The Rabbinate fined these restaurants and threatened to go to court against them.

Under Israeli law, businesses cannot the word “kosher” in any advertising or materials unless they have kosher supervision from the Rabbinate.

But the law is not enforced in haredi neighborhoods, where private kosher supervisors reign and it is likely that any court proceeding against the restaurant owners in question today would fail because the Rabbinate refuses to enforce the law when the businesses in question are haredi-owned.

Ben Dahan says the rabbis of the Chief Rabbinate’s Kosher Food Fraud Division do not have enough tools at their disposal to properly enforce the law, and that is his reason for proposing what many see as a expansion of the Chief Rabbinate’s powers.

“They go to a place, but they cannot take anything from it or take photographs, and the business owner often throws the inspector out. We want to give them the power of inspectors from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, who, if they see a problem, have the right to take the findings with them and engage in preliminary questioning,” Ben Dahan told Ha’aretz.

According to Ben Dahan’s memorandum of law, a uniformed kosher food inspector would have the power to “require any person to give his name and address and show an identification card or other official identifying document; to require any person involved in a case to provide any information or document that ensured he was abiding by the law... to take samples of products and materials and send them for examination... to enter a business or production facility, including places of storage and refrigeration on the premises or under the control of the one being inspected, including entering stationary vehicles, as long as he did not enter a place of residence except by court order.” If the inspector’s suspicions were aroused, he would be permitted to “question any person connected with the aforesaid violation, or who might have knowledge of the violation,” and also to “seize any object connected with the violation.”

Previously, Ben Dahan reportedly added a clause to the so-called Tzohar Law that mandated actual prison terms for Jews who marry in private ceremonies without registering with the Rabbinate or using state-recognized rabbis to officiate. Any rabbis officiating at such weddings would also be jailed.

“As you know, I support the state of Israel as a Jewish state, and we need to work toward greater enforcement of the state’s laws. In many spheres there is no law enforcement, and there are many examples of this, such as construction violations that nobody does anything about. But I, at least, in the small sphere that I deal with, will make sure to enforce the law by which the state is the one to issue kashrut certificates and register marriages, and those who do not obey should be punished,” Ben Dahan reportedly told Ha’aretz.

Last week, Ben Dahan told Ma'ariv that gay Jews have "higher souls" than all non-Jews, gay or straight.

Comments

[dh]

I think I see a new sitcom here.

[Nickidewbear]

On a "Times of Israel" article, I saw comments such as that "the clergy does NOT control the state." Then articles like this come out. The haredi crowd is only making themselves look foolish.

[(The other) Eli]

Good job haredim. Thanks for making the salafists look less extreme!

[BeenThereDoneThat]

If this is passed, then it is the beginning of the end for Israel.

[Norman Pressman]

The Sitcom would be aptly named:

"The Kosher Nostra

Where we make you an offer you can't understand!"

[Allan]

I picture this more as a police drama “ Kosher Kops !” What’s next on their agenda? Mezuzah police checking the doorposts of Israel for violations? Synagogue police enforcing attendance? Why don’t they just come out an admit they want a theocracy?

[Steven W]

Will the Kvetching Kosher Kops be issued brown shirts and truncheons?

[David]

The Charedim will never understand it until it is too late but all they are doing is driving people further and further away from Yiddishkeit.

As Allan said, they want a theocracy. For them, the more like the Talibam, the better. In fact, I think they want to be even more extreme than the Muslims.

[Alter Kocker]

As I've said before, these fools are cruising for one of their own to be found in a freezer hung from a meat hook.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

Cue up Shlock Rock's "The Kosher Police."

[ah-pee-chorus]

Wait till they want the bris police to be able to force anyone to drop their pants.

[Flatbush Gal]

The Sitcom would be aptly named:

"The Kosher Nostra

Where we make you an offer you can't understand!"

Posted by: Norman Pressman | December 30, 2013 at 02:02 PM

LOL!!!

[Boychikel]

This is not the half of it. I went to Ben Dahan's Wikipedia page, and according to Wikipedia, he wants to pass a law extraditing anyone who refuses to give his wife a "Get." Presumably, this would include Americans living here in the USA.

While I believe such a refusal is extortion, since when does Israeli law apply here? Under this theory of "law," someone in the USA who insults the prophet Mohammad should be extradicted to Saudi Arabia and hanged.

This idiot rabbi should be hung by the beitzim from a meat hook.

[Account Deleted]

Yes...since when you eat Kosher your crap smells palatable, and is not impure crap, because the food you ate is pure, so if the source of your food is pure, then the end product, your crap will be pure.Makes sense.(END OF SARCASM) Take that Rambam!!! ;)

[JekylJ]

Why the uproar?
Don't want to eat kosher? Help yourself, bevakasha.
Advertising an establishment as kosher without rabbinical certification, is and should be against the law. No one is asking anyone to shut there doors, just don't advertise as a kosher establishment. I'm sure you serve delicious food and are a good person too but what's that got to do with 'kosher'?

[JekylJ]

Oops: I meant 'their' doors.

[WoolSilkCotton; I must be seen to be believed]

++ JekylJ | December 31, 2013 at 09:16 AM++

Jekyl, it is up to the consumer to decide if a restaurant is 'kosher enough' for them. Similar issue with the kosher laws in NJ and NY. When you claim your food is kosher, customers have the right to inquire about which rabbi or kashrus organization, or if you are 'self-declared' as kosher. If I saw a restaurant advertising itself as kosher, but no sign with a certification from a recognized kosher supervision authority, I need to be concerned. Ultimately, it is my decision as the customer if it's kosher enough for my standards.
If it's a neighborhood restaurant, and I personally know the owner, and he is a reliable trustworthy person who tells me the restaurant is kosher, that is good enough, just as if I was invited to eat in his home.
Not unlike the use of terms like 'organic', 'natural', etc., you have no way of telling if a food labeled 'kosher' is as advertised. You have to rely on the trustworthiness of whoever makes the claim.