The law repeals the central component of a reform advanced in 2021 by then-religious services minister Matan Kahana, which sought to transform the Chief Rabbinate from the dominant provider of kashrut services into the regulator of a broader certification market.<\/p>\n
Under that reform, licensed private kashrut corporations would have been permitted to issue official certificates, subject to regulatory oversight and approved standards. The stated goal was to introduce competition, give businesses alternatives to their local rabbinate, and separate the body regulating kashrut from those selling certification services.<\/p>\n
![\"REPRESENTATIVES](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/715339.jpeg\"\/)
REPRESENTATIVES OF the Chief Rabbinate of Israel cross Jaffa Street in Jerusalem as they deliver a kosher certificate to a local restaurant. (credit: HADAS PARUSH\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n
That market never fully materialized.<\/p>\n
Although the reform became law, its central provisions were repeatedly delayed after the current government took office. Private national certification bodies were not broadly licensed, leaving local rabbinates in practical control of official certification.<\/p>\n
The new law therefore does not close a widely operating private certification market so much as prevent the competitive system legislated in 2021 from fully taking effect.<\/p>\n
In practice, businesses seeking basic kashrut certification have generally been required to obtain it from the local rabbinate in the city or area where they operate. Even businesses seeking an additional, stricter certification, such as Badatz, must generally first receive an official certificate from the local rabbinate.<\/p>\n
The Competition Authority previously described the arrangement as giving each local rabbinate a geographic monopoly over basic certification in its area, warning that the absence of competition creates inefficiency and burdens businesses, particularly chains operating across several municipalities and dealing with different local rabbinates and standards.<\/p>\n
Kashrut must not be subject to commercial considerations, supporters say<\/strong><\/p>\n Supporters of the repeal argue that kashrut is an inherently public and religious responsibility that should not be influenced by commercial considerations.<\/p>\n Shas chairman Arye Deri called the vote \u201ca day of good news for all those who observe tradition in the State of Israel,\u201d saying his party had fulfilled its commitment to reverse what he called the \u201cdestructive reform\u201d of the Bennett-Lapid government.<\/p>\n \u201cKashrut is not a business. Kashrut is a state responsibility,\u201d Deri said. \u201cOne reliable and supervised system.\u201d<\/p>\n Deri said the law returned responsibility for kashrut \u201cto its natural place\u201d under the authority of the Chief Rabbinate, ensuring that certificates would be reliable, authorized and supervised.<\/p>\n Chief Rabbis David Yosef and Kalman Meir Ber, together with the Chief Rabbinate Council, also welcomed the law, saying it would reinforce the authority of the Chief Rabbinate<\/a> and ensure the reliability and uniformity of Israel\u2019s kashrut system.<\/p>\n They said the law would strengthen the authority of municipal rabbis within their cities, reinforce the role of religious councils, and regularize the status of kashrut supervisors.<\/p>\n The employment of those supervisors is intended to address a separate, long-standing problem within the existing system: the financial relationship between the mashgiach, or kashrut supervisor, and the mushgach, the business being supervised.<\/p>\n Supervisors have often been paid directly by the restaurant, factory, or other business whose compliance they are responsible for inspecting. The arrangement creates an inherent conflict of interest, as a supervisor\u2019s livelihood may depend on the owner whose conduct the supervisor is meant to oversee.<\/p>\n The 2021 reform sought to break that relationship by having licensed certification corporations employ the supervisors.<\/p>\n The new law retains the goal of severing the connection but adopts a different model, under which supervisors are intended to be employed through religious councils, or local authorities where no religious council operates, rather than directly by the businesses they inspect.<\/p>\n Kashrut law will financially burden Israelis, critics say<\/strong><\/p>\n That solution has itself drawn economic criticism.<\/p>\n Tani Frank, director of the Judaism and State Policy Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute, has warned that moving thousands of supervisors into employment through religious councils could transfer substantial costs and employment liabilities to the public sector.<\/p>\n Critics also argue that competition in certification and import supervision could have reduced costs for businesses, improved service and lowered some kashrut-related costs incorporated into food prices.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no legitimacy for a law that determines that kashrut belongs solely to the Chief Rabbinate,\u201d Frank said following the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe law will hurt the pockets of Israeli citizens, deepen the Rabbinate\u2019s monopoly while eliminating every trace of competition, and force the religious councils to employ thousands of supervisors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The law\u2019s supporters reject the argument that it creates jobs for political purposes, saying public employment is necessary to remove the financial dependence between supervisors and businesses.<\/p>\n Religious Zionist Party MK Ohad Tal, who chairs the Knesset Public Projects Committee that prepared the law for its final votes, said it would establish a uniform and transparent national standard and resolve conflicts of interest within the system.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a law of the Rabbinate. This is not a law of Shas,\u201d Tal said. \u201cThis is a law for the Israeli consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/483850.jpeg\"\/)
A WOMAN walks past a Jerusalem eatery with a Tzohar kashrut certificate. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM\/THE JERUSALEM POST)Unofficial kashrut org. Tzohar undeterred by law<\/strong><\/p>\n