Religious Services Ministry Want Knesset To Give Rabbis Police Powers To Enforce Kosher Food Law

Chief Rabbis, Religious Services Ministry Want Knesset To Give Rabbis Police Powers To Enforce Kosher Food Law

Israel’s haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate wants to deputize rabbis and give them police powers in order to enforce kosher food laws, Ha’aretz reported today.

The rabbis want to launch an actual kosher food police force that would crack down on restaurants and other food businesses that do not pay for the Rabbinate’s kosher supervision but who nonetheless advertise that all ingredients used in their menus are kosher.

The chief rabbis’ bid to drastically expand their power was backed by an memorandum of law distributed in the Knesset yesterday by Deputy Religious Services Minister Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan of the Zionist Orthodox HaBayit HaYehudi Party. It proposes that the Rabbinate’s mashgichim (kosher food inspectors) be allowed to enter restaurants and businesses even if the proprietors do not want them to, take food samples, force any citizens they choose to identify themselves, and have the legal power to force those citizens to come into the Rabbinate for questioning. These kosher food police would also wear identification badges and police-style uniforms.

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2013/12/chief-rabbis-religious-services-ministry-want-knesset-to-give-rabbis-police-powers-to-enforce-kosher-234.html


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* Interesting given that Israel wants recognition as a Jewish state from the
Palestinians.