Ynet reports that an Indian restaurant in the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem is reportedly the latest in a long line of food businesses which have dropped kosher supervision after facing what they say are "impossible demands" made by the haredi-controlled state Rabbinate’s kosher supervisors.
Ichikidana dropped its kosher certification after Shmuel Zamelman, Machane Yehuda’s new kashrut supervisor, reportedly began forcing restaurants in the market to buy their vegetables from specific stores.
Lehava Silman Herman, who owns Ichikidana, told Ynet that having a kashrut certificate just wasn’t worth the trouble.
“We are a vegan restaurant,” Silman Herman said, “so the kashrut is irrelevant, but we decided to cooperate with the Rabbinate because of religious Jews. After [Zamelman] arrived and decided that we must only buy in certain stores, I decided that I would not cooperate any longer.”
But the Rabbinate claims the change in the market’s long standing practice is actually no change at all.
"Every restaurant which receives a kosher certification must take leaves and vegetables [i.e., leafy vegetables and non-leafy vegetables] from a supervised place only. This has been a Rabbinate order for the past 30 years. The Rabbinate does not profit from this arrangement."
There can be several kashrut issues with vegetables, primarily related to bug infestation and tithes.