Ousted from power, Israel's ultra-Orthodox lose the final word on what's kosher

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

RAANANA, Israel — In a small gourmet food store one recent morning, kosher inspector Sara Meckler walked the aisles checking labels.

She looked for kosher marks from around the world, checked ingredients, consulted a database on her phone — “I better call the rabbi about this one,” she said of a packet of breadsticks — just as hundreds of inspectors do in a country where a kashrut certificate is as vital as a business license for most grocery stores, hotels and restaurants.

But for some religious Israelis, Meckler’s careful pondering of a can of Italian artichokes is to be denounced as an existential threat. Neither she nor her bosses at Tzohar, a pluralistic Jewish organization, belong to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that has held a monopoly on the official system of kosher certification for decades.

Israel’s new governing coalition — one of the few not to include ultra-Orthodox parties in the past 45 years — has moved to loosen the ultra-Orthodox grip on food certification and a raft of other religious and social policies, ranging from bans on Sabbath transit to exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men from military service.

Few of the changes that have been discussed will touch more Israelis on a daily basis than revamping food inspections. Under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government, the kosher certificates granted by alternative inspectors such as Meckler will soon carry the same authority as the country’s Chief Rabbinate, an office long dominated by the ultra-Orthodox.

[madaboutharry]

1. This is good news.

[Celerity]

2. One rabbi said allowing women like Meckler to be inspectors amounted to "sexual immorality."

Typical fundie fucking assholes.

The ultra orthodox are so much like the American RW, grifting supremacists and racists...., misogynistic rotters full of hate, power lust, and repression.

grift city:

Retailers pay more than $100 million a year to religious councils whose inspectors spend almost 6.5 million hours making sure the food, pans, pantries and ovens are all in compliance, according to an IDI study. Most of those payments go to the ultra-Orthodox

Don't even get me started about the illegal settlements that so many of the Haredim champion, ofttimes along with near genocidal aspirations in regards to the Palestinians.