The Rabbanut came under an unusually strong attack this week, with three news stories showing how bad they are, or at least trying to convince the public that this is the case.
The first came out earlier this week, initially on Haaretz now also on TOI, reporting that the Attorney General, Avihai Mandelblit, has given the Chief Rabbinate the authority to actually serve criminal indictments to food establishments claiming to be kosher without Rabbanut certification.
As is well known, in Israel the Rabbanut has a legal monopoly over the use of the word "kosher" in kashrut food certification. No other organization or person can claim food is kosher, unless they have Rabbanut certification attesting to that. All other, private, kashrut organizations use words other than kosher, mostly just saying the establishment is "approved" (and that is usually also on top of a Rabbanut hechsher saying kosher). In recent years, the pushback on the Rabbanut has increased with organizations sprouting up trying to use the word "kosher", and the Rabbanut fighting back. With their new authority, the Rabbanut won't just have to get the police involved or sue the establishment, but will be able to file the indictment themselves.
If you ask why they might be different than other bodies that have to go through normal channels to prosecute a crime, they are not so different. In Israel there are other bodies of authority as well that have similar powers, such as the Tax Authority and the Environmental Protection Authority, among others. So now the Rabbanut has been added to the list.
So now people have to not just fear possible legal action but the rabbinic police might come after you. Sounds like a step in the direction of turning Israel into a theocracy, but let's not go there.
The second issue came up the other day with a Ynet report claiming that the Rabbanut is behind the delay of many imported foods from getting into the market here and will soon be the cause of many food items being taken off the shelves.
A little while back the food market was opened up with reforms allowing alternative imports of food items and no longer limited to just the official importer. This created a little bit of a hassle with the Rabbanut that was set up to approve foods by the official importer. Suddenly having any Tom Dick and Harry able to import a shipping container of food for sale in Israel, the Rabbanut sort of lost control over it.
To be fair, most of the food being imported went through the official certification process, as most importers want people to buy the food and most of the market in Israel eats kosher. Since much of the food being imported has foreign kashrut supervision anyway, the process for the Rabbanut approving the imports was not necessarily difficult, though they did have to meet certain requirements.
The article in Ynet does not say why exactly, but it does say that the Rabbanut is stopping approval of many of these food items, as of 2020. Some still exist from 2019, but little by little the alternate imports are finishing up and not necessarily being replaced by new stock - because of the Rabbanut's refusal to certify. Some of the items being stopped are items that the Rabbanut says have issues of possible bug infestation, such as grape leaves, jellies, items with berries in them, seaweed, among others. Some thing shave no issues of bugs, such as chocolate Milka, some cheeses from Poland, some cereals and others, so it is not clear what is behind this.
As well, the same product made by the same manufacturer brought in by the official importer is approved but products form the same company brought in by alternate importers is being refused approval. Some say they are caving into lobbyists and activists paid by the official importers, usually big companies with deep pockets, but I dont know from that.
The third issue came out today in a Ynet article saying that the Rabbanut is making trouble for beer importers, causing delays and causing the price of imported beers to increase by significant amounts.
Similar claims are being made that the Rabbanut is approving some but not others, causing the price to rise. Again, the same beer imported byt he official importer is approved quickly but when imported by alternate importers it is held up by the Rabbanut who have to "check the kashrut".
The issue is specifically with Chadash. The official importer generally gets a letter form the company about the grains used, and the Rabbanut can approve it quickly. The alternate importers do not get such a letter and the Rabbanut holds up the imports to look into it and figure out where the grains come from, as if they are reinventing the wheel - even though the same beers and alcohols were approved from the same companies and fields for the official importer.
Kosharot also explains that the Rabbanut is not doing anything nefarious but has to look into the issue of Chadash before granting approval. They explain in boring detail the manufacturing process and why it is a problem that needs to be looked into.
When you put it all together, I see two conflicting things:
1. it looks like there is an orchestrated attack on the Rabbanut, picking on every policy they implement that might, or even actually does, cause delays in imports, and trying to use them to turn public opinion against the Rabbanut.
2. The Rabbanut seems to enjoying flexing its muscle and giving its opponents lots of juicy material - instead of working to ease processes. For example, when the same item is being imported anyway, it should be a relatively simple and quick check by the Rabbanut with the foreign agency to confirm that this actually came from the same factory with the same foreign supervision, yet they say they have to go through the entire process from scratch.
Some defend the Rabbanut having such powerful authority by comparing it to electricity or driving and road safety. You authorize the state to say who can drive and who can not drive, and would not accept a private organization giving out drivers licences saying Jack can drive - the Rabbanut is given that authority over kashrut and you don't want some private group saying what is kosher and what is not. Same with electricity and water and gas and many other things, so the Rabbanut is the same.
The difference though is public safety standards are one thing, and the government is responsible for the, Even though we see elsewhere that even [some of] those things also do not need to be mandated necessarily by the government but can be handled by private companies, for arguments sake let's say it is fair for the government to control this and crack down strongly on private groups trying to do it on their own.
The Rabbanut, though, is responsible for things of religious observance and things of halachic nature. I do not think the State should be getting involved in halacha and religion and enforcing what it believes to be proper religious behavior on the people. Also, some say that a secular state by definition, and its appointed functionaries, is not an authority over halacha.
Even though it looks like #1 might be true and there might be an orchestrated attack on the Rabbanut, it is difficult to say they don't really deserve it.
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