The Israeli Chief Rabbinate Council issued an official decision on Thursday stating that, at this stage, it does not approve the license granted by the Chief Rabbinate’s director-general to Tzohar to operate as a kosher certification body.
According to the decision, signed by members of the council, they learned that the director-general had notified Tzohar that it had received a license to issue kosher certificates under the kashrut standard established by the Chief Rabbinate Council itself.
The council noted that under Section 2(17)(a)(6) of Israel’s Kashrut Fraud Prevention Law, one of the conditions for granting a license to an organization seeking to operate under the council’s kashrut standard is that the Chief Rabbinate Council must not object to the license.
However, the council stated that the director-general did not inform it of his intention to grant the license, and that the matter was never brought either to the council or its kashrut committee for discussion, which it said was contrary to the law, administrative logic, and principles of proper governance.
In light of these circumstances, the council declared unequivocally that it “does not, at this stage, approve the granting of a license to the Tzohar organization."
The decision comes amid criticism in recent weeks of actions taken by the outgoing director-general of the Chief Rabbinate. According to critics within the rabbinate, he advanced the licensing process for Tzohar independently, without authority and without the approval of the Chief Rabbinate Council, in what some officials described as a “fait accompli" or procedural end-run.