Addressing a hoteliers’ association event, Tzohar Rabbonim head Rabbi David Stav announced his organization will leader kashrus reform in the state as it did for marriage, citing how Tzohar has been working since 1996 and assists thousands of couples who wed annually. He promises to work to reform the current state kashrus run by the Chief Rabbinate towards uniformity, that the same level will be found in all cities, which is not the case today.
Rav Stav remains confident that “Breaking the monopoly” will reduce the cost of kashrus for all. He adds his mashgichim will rely on the kashrus they give, unlike so many mashgichim working for the local religious councils nationwide. He feels that today’s situation in which mashgichim will not even eat in the places they supervise is absurd and a nationwide reform is essential.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
It would be absurd if the reason why they don’t rely on the food they supervise is because they’re concerned it may not be kosher. However, if the food meets the required standard of the machshir but the mashgiach maintains higher standards (very common) then it’s not absurd in the least.
A national minimal standard for regular rabbanut and rabbanut mehadrin certainly makes sense.
To clarify, the mashgiach maintains higher standards for what he himself eats.
“He feels that today’s situation in which mashgichim will not even eat in the places they supervise is absurd and a nationwide reform is essential”
Does that mean he is going to improve the standard of the kashrut or reduce the standard of the mashgichim?
The Hareidim broke the state monopoly years ago. Indeed, there really never was a state monopoly as from the outset of the medinah there were hareidim sucessfully in competition with the government’s “hecksherim.”
The state of the Kashrut industry worldwide is already a mess! There are no agreed upon standards and with so many different organizations it’s almost impossible to travel to another city and know whether you can really rely upon a local kashrut certification. The industry needs to organize a worldwide conference, discuss and write up minimum industry standards to be followed by all Kashrut organizations. They could establish two level, Kosher and Kosher L’mehadrin. An organization should be created that is given authority to do unannounced spot checks to make sure that the establishments are indeed following the agreed upon standards. As of now, even “L’mehadrin” in Israel is not necessarily reliable.
Such a system was done in the Sofrus industry and that resolve/reduce a lot of problems that were very problematic prior to the establishment of Sofer STAM.
The last thing we need now is more industrial divisiveness! They would not be the first, nor the last Rabbinate to claim that they will “reform” the Kashrut industry with the establishment of their “superior” supervision. Unfortunately, that rarely happens.
Concerning Tzohar, they have already earned themselves a reputation for being very lenient in other areas. How do they think they’re going to pull it off to get people that are concerned for a higher level of Kashrut to rely on them? Maybe before trying to influence other Rabbinate to improve their standards maybe they should first look internally and fixed their own questionable standards!
couldnt agree more. if a mashgiach wont eat his own supervision its a hoax
To No. 6
The market should be allowed to determine the “winners” and “losers” when it comes to hashgacha. Given the choice, most yidden who are shomrei torah umitzvos and are machmir on matters of hasgacha will always choose an establishment with a good Chassideshe hashgacha 99 percent of the time. A chaassideshe mashgiach will always eat from his own supervised products, whereas this is sadly not the case for many Litvish mashgichim. With one or two minor exceptions, there has never been a scandal involving Chassideshe hashgachos. Let the market decide and you will see what happens.