The Rabbanut, led by Chief Rabbis Rav Yosef and Rav Lau, has called upon the praying public to pray for rain, each community according to its nusach and style.

There has been a lot of criticism of Minister Ben Gvir's ascent to Har Habayit this morning, most of it expected and standard, run of the mill boilerplate criticism - from the religious end to political to diplomatic, etc.

The Rabbanut of Bet Shemesh issued a kashrut alert regarding several local restaurants stating that the hechsher has been removed.
No reason was given for the Rabbanut of Bet Shemesh removing the hechsher form these restaurants, but reasons are rarely given tot he public.

Rav Shlomo Aviner posted the following series of questions online (this is my translation):

14 questions to the competing kashrut agency

1. Who is the great posek and expert in kashrut that is guiding you?

2. who runs your kashrut department, who is recognized in Israel and globally as an expert in kashrut?

3. How many years of experience do you have in the field of kashrut?

4. How many places that had their kashrut certification removed by the Rabbanut due to serious infractions - transferred to you to get kashrut in its place?

5. Do you allow products that the Chief Rabbinate does not allow?

6. Do you regularly scoff at the Rabbanut claiming its kashrut is flawed according to halacha?

7. Did you write a halachic opinion in opposition to that of the Rabbanut? Halachic articles with positions not acceptable to the majority of poskim?

8. Did places under your supervision have any of the following issues: bringing in treif food, using regular cauliflower, unsupervised winery, kashrut for a bakery inside a treif restaurant, cooking on Shabbos, importing artichokes infested with bugs?

9. Is a mashgiach who receives a salary from the institution owning the factory paying him - is he free to pasken as he wishes even to remove the kashrut?

10. will competition of two institutions not cause people to find more and more leniencies with the institutions providing minimal kashrut supervision?

11. Is it true that a mashgiach working for the Rabbanut receives 37nis per hour of supervision and by you he receives 73nis per hour - meaning, double? Will this not cause the prices to go up?

12. Is it correct that a business pays the Rabbanut fee of between 527nis and 1383nis for the year and they pay you between 18000 and 30000nis per year - and maybe that causes prices to rise (meaning, 120 million for all the businesses together rather than 10 million)?

13. is it correct that your entire apparatus is supported by donations reaching the millions, ten times the revenue brought in, and in your opinion is that proper?

14. in your opinion is the ideal being one kashrut that everyone can eat from or a multitude of kashrut organizations?

[signed off] One Nation, One State, One Kashrut!

Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman today called upon the public to avoid the Rabbanut (and he insisted the reforms will go through as planned) and restaurant owners should not get kashrut certificates form them but should hang signs on their restaurants that say we are kosher with no certificate.

For 70 years they have been telling us that the Rabbanut of Israel is treif and can't be relied on, that it compromises on anything connected to the Jewish character of the State, and suddenly now they are fighting for the Rabbanut. Who knows - maybe specifically because of this reform of the kashrut system Jews who until now did not eat kosher food, now specifically because of the Rabbanut reforms, will merit to eating kosher!

  -- Admot of Kretchnif, in a surprising statement of support for the kashrut reforms of Minister Matan Kahane

Many have asked this question, and the thought is generally because of the Haredi jobs that might be lost because of these reforms. I wouldn't go as far as the Admor saying that people who relied on the Rabbanut have eaten treif until now, but the point is the same - and at least according to the Haredi opinion and policy that Rabbanut kashrut cannot be relied upon this is what comes of it...

the Chief Rabbinate along with associated rabbis and religious councils, led by Chief Rabbis Rav Dovid Lau and Rav Yitzchak Yosef, gathered today for a conference to discuss the proposed reforms in the kashrut and conversion systems.

The Haredi "Badatzes" will profit from your reforms. That rav in Shoham will not profit from it, the Haredi kashrut organization will profit from it but we are not looking out for our own interests but for the two million masorati people who consume kosher food. Where is your ahavat yisrael, your love for Jews, for Masouda in Sderot and for Shimon from Dimona who because of you wont have kosher food?

Minister of Religious Affairs Matan Kahane announced a short while ago that he will be introducing reforms to the kashrut industry. Essentially he will be turning the Rabbanut into a regulator while kashrut is privatized. Basically anyone can give kashrut certification and the Rabbanut will set a variety of standards, and monitor and ensure that the various kashrut organizations live up to the standards it chose to certify with.

I have seen this question raised numerous times, yet I have never seen a conclusive or definitive decision by the kashrut agencies. I have also never seen a clear answer, but there has been some interesting debate on the matter.

I recently saw a teudat kashrut on a restaurant that was from Rabbanut Mehadrin (Bet Shemesh) but it also detailed exactly what products the restaurant uses - it said the restaurant uses meats under the hechsher of Rav Rubin, vegetables "Gush Katif", etc... 

One of the frustrating aspects of a kashrut organization removing its kashrut certification form a product or company  or restaurant (or being removed by the company/restaurant) is the announcement of the kashrut removal. 

Maariv is reporting (and Srugim as well) that the Rabbanut has decided to approve as kosher some drinks made by Coca Cola (Coca Cola, Coke Zero, Fanta, and Sprite) imported by alternate importers. Until now they have refused to approve these as kosher, thus creating a sort of monopoly by the local manufacturer of the drink under the Landau hechsher which keeps the prices elevated. Allowing alternate imports and certifying them as kosher is expected to bring the prices of Coca Cola down, at least on the imported versions.

Sadly we have seen cases in the news of restaurants giving up kashrut certification because of how badly their businesses were hit by the Corona situation over the past several months.

This is somewhat complicated and confusing. I am not sure I understand it, but here is the info.

Israel used to be one of the leading countries in the farming of geese and foi gras. In 2003 the Supreme Court banned it due to the cruelty involved in the process, and in 2006 instructed the Agriculture Ministry to enforce the law after a number of failed appeals.

Until recently, mehadrin goose livers and foi gras could be found in some places - some countries certified it as mehadrin kosher, while other countries would only certify it as kosher but not mehadrin. It commonly has not been found in Israel with a mehadrin hechsher for a long time, if ever, but searching online one can find old reviews of mehadrin restaurants with mention of foi gras on the menu. It definitely has been available in Israel with a Rabbanut, not mehadrin, hechsher, at least years ago.

Kikar is reporting that The Chief Rabbinate has now approved the import of foi gras with a mehadrin hechsher. Kikar calls it an historic decision, as goose liver in Israel has never been certified as mehadrin, but only regular kosher.

According to the article, one of the members of the Chief Rabbinate rabbinic council went to Hungary with a team of experts to inspect the process of the stuffing of the geese. They then returned to put together a plan for importing the mehadrin goose liver, and the Rabbanut has now approved the plan.

According to the Rabbanut, for this to work the importers will have to adhere to some strict guidelines, such as: all aspects of the farming and stuffing of the geese must take place in one location. The type of feed stuffed into the geese must be a feed that is determined to minimize any risk of ripping the esophagus of the geese (such as by cooking the corn feed to soften and dull any sharp edges and not mixing any complete seed into the feed mix). The stuffing of the geese must be performed using a silicone tube with no sharp edges. And obviously mashgichim must be available to supervise the process.

The Rabbanut's guidelines for the pace of the slaughtering is every shochet can slaughter a maximum of 4-5 geese per minute, no more, and the mashgiach must check the point of slaughter after.

This is a major change in policy.

Bon Apetit

Just over a week ago the courts decided that women should be allowed to sit similar exams to the Rabbanut semicha exams, testing their knowledge in halacha but not giving them semicha. It was worked out that these exams for women would not be given by the Rabbanut but through some body in the Education Ministry. Successfully sitting these exams would give the women similar financial and career opportunities to the men who pass the Rabbanut semicha exams.

The Chief Rabbi, Rav Yitzchak Yosef, already said he doesn't like this and will put all the Rabbanut testing on hold if he is forced to let women sit the exams.

I am still not sure how that protest works, because the women won't be tested through the Rabbanut, but that's the line they continue to push in opposition to the testing.

After a meeting about this with Rav Yosef, Minister of Housing Yaakov Litzman has now threatened, or warned, PM Netanyahu that if women will be allowed to take the Rabbanut exams for semicha he will leave the coalition government.

The only thing I can suggest is that they are worried that the idea of doing it through the Ministry of Education, or of Higher Education, will not be accepted and pushed through and int he end it will be forced on the Rabbanut, so they are gearing up now to pressure against that happening.

I am not sure what Netanyahu can do. This was not a political or executive decision, but a legal one.

Either way, with all the chaos and fighting, there have been plenty of issues already in the air that someone might think would cause the collapse of the government. I don't think women testing for semicha was the one anyone thought would be it, but it might just come to that...

Gotta love the Rabbanut

They have been the subject of a trend of restaurants giving up their hechsher due to it being too expensive and the Rabbanut not willing to work for free.Just last week there was a restaurant that didn't even have a hechsher from the Rabbanut but announced it was giving it up, seemingly to ride the coattails of the trend and bring in masses of anti-Rabbanut supporters as customers.

The Rabbanut, of course, posts all its updates, including such news of restaurants no longer being certified by the Rabbanut, on its Facebook page, among in its newsletter and in other relevant media.

According to Srugim, in the comments on the post about this latest restaurant giving up the hechsher it never even had, some people wrote some harsh comments about the Rabbanut, as often happens on such posts (or on posts elsewhere on these topics).

The Rabbanut fought back and trolled the commenters on its page. The Chief Rabbinate FB account responded to harsh comments with even harsher responses. The account responded to someone with a doctorate degree saying that obviously a doctorate gives no indication of being smart. Another person was told that if she has no idea what she is talking about, in the future it would be better for her to just disconnect her keyboard. Another person who called the Rabbanut primitive was told that his parents were primitive for raising him to be rude. And more.

When the Rabbanut was called out on this, they apologized and blamed it on one of their employees who went rogue and responded to comments using the Rabbanut account though he thought he was writing from his own personal account. They have since disciplined him and taken away his access to the Rabbanut account, and deleted the offensive comments (though some are screenshot and included in the Srugim article).

Haha! so they normally troll their commenters by using personal accounts, not in  he formal name of the Rabbanut. This guy forgot, so he got in trouble...

As much as a I like a good troll and good on them for fighting back, the Rabbanut is there to serve the public and is an official governmental body. I am not sure criticizing people in a very personal way is the right way to go about their business. The lack of care or concern about what the public thinks of them is precisely a large part of what people don't like about the Rabbanut bureaucracy.

It seems that people running restaurants realize that losing, or giving up, a Rabbanut teuda due to Corona problems (ie hechsher/teuda too expensive in the days of Corona) can be very profitable, at least in the short term. It becomes splashy news, and the masses come out to support the restaurant against the oppressive and insensitive Rabbanut. It might not work as a long term boost to business, but at least int eh short term it can give the restaurant a nice jolt.

A restaurant in Kiryat Ono, Hamaadaniya Shel Erez, put out an announcement that it has decided to give up its connection with the Rabbanut due to financial difficulties due to CoronaVirus, and that from now the public should know that it is operating without a teudat kashrut.

The only problem is that shortly after the announcement one of the rabbis from the kashrut division of the local Rabbanut, along with the Chief Rabbi Rav Ratzon Arussi, responded exposing the announcement as fraudulent as this restaurant has never had a teuda from the Rabbanut, so it isn't giving up anything. They have operated until now without a teudat kashrut and are continuing to do so.

To explain further the rabbis said that the restaurant owners did recently request a teudat kashrut. They responded positively to some of the Rabbanut's requests, but they refused other aspects of the Rabbanut's concerns, such as food sold on Fridays being supervised.

The Rabbanut stressed that this restaurant never had a teuda, and had only started communicating with the Rabbanut about the possibility but it had not ended with any certification. They were granted a temporary authorization, without a teuda, for 2 days, based on a promise about kashrut on products sold out of the city. Immediately after that they announced that they are giving up on the Rabbanut and will be operating from now without a teuda.

The restaurant owners responded saying that they really planned on getting a teuda from the Rabbanut since the restaurant is really kosher anyway, just without a teuda, but when they saw the massive investment they would need to make based on the requirements of the Rabbanut, they decided they could not do it. They said there was a mashgiach from the Rabbanut each day with a temporary kashrut teuda and this was coordinated via the Rabbanut. Because they had announced they were kosher with the Rabbanut (ie on a temporary basis with intent to become permanent), when the communication with the Rabbanut was ended, integrity demanded of them that they announce that they will no longer have the Rabbanut teuda.
source: Kikar

As King Solomon said, only God knows what is in the hearts of man. We don't really know if this was a scam or an honest attempt that just didn't work out. but it looks really bad (from the little we know). Sure, the Rabbanut has a lot to work on and we all know how difficult the Rabbanut can be - that does not mean every claim against the Rabbanut is fair and justified and even true. This is nothing like any of the other recent cases. if a non-kosher restaurant, even if they claim they were technically kosher before, wants to become kosher, they are going to have to make changes and meet the requirements, and that takes investment.