Rav Yaakov Ariel, Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan, has an interesting approach to the various problems in the kashrut industry in Israel.
Basically he blames all the problems on the various "Badatzim".
How goes?
Rav Ariel explains - 90 years ago Rav Kook established the Rabbanut so that there would be one address for people to turn to, to rely on. The various Badatzim, for ideological reason, said they don't want to cooperate with the Rabbanut but each one decided to make its own kashrut organization.
But that has boomeranged. Now there are people who want to destroy the Rabbanut kashrut entirely and say that if the Badatzim could go off on their own and create a private kashrut organization, why can't we as well, and even do it relying on just the restaurant owners for supervision?
Rav Ariel then went on to criticize another aspect of the private Badatz kashrut organizations. He said that they have created a situation in which people think the Rabbanut is no good, which is not true. The Rabbanut is a fine hechsher. People can choose to be machmir on issues and be "mehader" - try to do things better - but the Rabbanut itself also gives such options, with two levels - regular kosher and mehadrin. Even if the Badatz wants to add more mehadrin on top of it, that is fine - but not to say that the Rabbanut is no good or not kosher and disparage them.
There are more differences between a national hechsher and a private hechsher, for example with kitniyos. The Rabbanut gives its hechsher for everyone to use so they also give a hechsher for kitniyos products, clearly labeling that the product contains kitniyos so someone who does not eat kitniyos will know not to eat it. However the Badatzim simply don't give a hechsher to any factory that also produces kitniyos. They make it seem as if they are being mehader, doing something more, but they are not.
The criticism of the Rabbanut, he said, for their mistakes is also exaggerated. Yes, there is corruption, and sometimes in the Rabbanut as well. they found a mashgiach that was corrupt so they fired him and sent him to jail. In the Badatzim there is no corruption? Of course there are problems, but the Badatzim also have similar problems. In a private house are there never any problems - it does not happen that someone might put a dairy spoon into a fleishige pot? in a normal house things happen, and questions arise. In factories as well. Every now and then there is a problem, so we work to resolve it. But because of that to disparage them?
source: Srugim
right on the money. and he does not even mention the problems that former employees of the various Badatzim, including and especially the Eida, sometimes point to within those organizations...
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