High Court sets Tuesday deadline in Tzohar kashrut-license dispute

High Court sets Tuesday deadline in Tzohar kashrut license dispute

The High Court of Justice has given the state until the end of Tuesday to respond to the dispute over Tzohar Kashrut’s newly issued license as an official kashrut-certifying body, according to a report by Sarah Ben-Nun in The Jerusalem Post. Justice Gila Canfy-Steinitz also ordered Tzohar to submit a short reply by Thursday. As of press time, the state had not yet filed its response.

The case centers on a license granted on July 1 by Chief Rabbinate director-general Yehuda Cohen, which allowed Tzohar Food Supervision to operate as a body granting kashrut certification. The approval came after years of legal proceedings and marked a significant step in implementing Israel’s 2021 kashrut reform, which aimed to open the official certification market to licensed private bodies.

However, the license was immediately challenged by senior officials within the Chief Rabbinate and the Religious Services Ministry. Chief Rabbinate legal adviser Yaakov Ofer wrote to Tzohar that “significant questions” had arisen over the administrative process leading to the license, warning that reliance on it “may raise a difficulty” at this stage. The letter did not revoke or suspend the license.

Religious Services Ministry director-general Yehuda Avidan went further, demanding that the authorization be revoked, stating that it had not gone through the proper legal process. “The approval was granted unlawfully and did not go through the Chief Rabbinate Council as required,” Avidan said, as reported by Kan News and cited in The Jerusalem Post.

The Chief Rabbinate Council also said it would not approve the authorization at this stage. Its secretary, Rafael Frank, said the council had not been informed in advance, had not received Cohen’s reasoned decision or the underlying material, and therefore was not approving the license.

Tzohar rejected these claims, arguing that the license was lawfully granted and that the council was aware of the request, having even responded to the High Court as a respondent in earlier petitions. In a statement, Tzohar quoted Cohen’s letter from July 7, which said that every submission prepared by the Rabbinate’s legal department had been drafted “in close cooperation” with the president of the Chief Rabbinate Council. The organization also argued that the Religious Services Ministry director has “no authority over issuing kashrut certificates,” and that only the Director General of the Rabbinate can issue such licenses.

In its response to the court, Tzohar asked the High Court to reject the state’s attempt to invalidate its license, arguing that the state’s central claim is contradicted by both the facts and the court’s own previous rulings. The organization asserted that the petition cannot become a proceeding about the validity of a license that has already been lawfully granted.

The state, for its part, told the court that Tzohar’s license cannot currently be relied on due to flaws in the granting process, but also said the Chief Rabbinate remains obligated to examine Tzohar’s request without delay. The state submitted its position on behalf of the Chief Rabbinate and the Chief Rabbinate Council, following a legal review that found a material flaw in the process. The state said there was no practical possibility for Tzohar to act on the license at this stage.

A hearing in the case has been scheduled for November 2. For Tzohar, the dispute is not only about one license but about whether the 2021 kashrut reform will be implemented before the current government succeeds in rolling it back. “The people of Israel deserve kashrut that they can trust and that is accessible and professional,” Tzohar said this week. “They should not have to contend with judicial and bureaucratic stall tactics.”