Chief Rabbi Dovid Lau went last night after midnight to the market in Tzrifin, where the wholesale market of the fruits and vegetables is. That is a major spot for the separating of Truma and Maaser, before the merchandise then gets transferred to other parts of the country for sale.

Rav Lau went to go see how the issues of Truma and Maaser are handled, as well as speaking to the mashgichim and the merchants to hear from them about any problems they have that need to be resolved.

When Rav Lau arrived with his entourage, the manager of operations of the market told him that the entire shuk is under the authority of the Chief Rabbi, he is welcome to inspect any and every aspect of it,  and whatever he says, any problems that need to be fixed , will be dealt with.

Rav Lau was there until after 2 AM, and when ready to leave, the merchants lined up to get blessings from the Rav.

Good job, Rabbi Lau. You don't need my blessings, but good job.

Anybody who heard [Erdogan's] words, full of hate and incitement, understands without a shadow of a doubt that we are talking about the continuation of Gobbels, and his attacks are in the style of Dreyfus amd the Elders of Zion

 -- MK Avigdor Lieberman (Likud Beyteynu), in response to Erdogan's claim that Israel is responsible for the upheavel in Egypt.

Last year then-Minister-of-Education Gideon Saar announced that he was looking into the possibility of considering parts of the Szold exams, taken in Haredi seminaries, to be equivalent to Bagrut exams. There was opposition to the plan, but Saar himself was in favor of it.

It turns out that the new Minister of Education, Shai Piron, might even go a step, or five, further. Piron is looking into an idea of completely doing away with the Bagrut examinations.

Piron is of the opinion that the Bagrut exams do not encourage learning. He said that everyone knows students buy prep papers right before the exams, and they do not really learn in preparation. Piron also believes that even without the bagruyot exams students will continue to learn - they are not learning because of the exams..
(source: Israel Hayom)

no bagruyot? they will have solved, in one swoop, a large part of the problem holding back haredim from higher education and from many jobs and other opportunities. Getting rid of the bagruyot might not help many haredim, as they are still lacking the education and would need to fill those educational gaps, or some of them at least, to get those opportunities, but some are smart, talented and some do get various levels of education and are only lacking the exams... without requiring the exams, these people would have an easier time integrating into the system..

in case you are curious, the competition was won by a local team from Olathe called Smoke to Perfection

Yitzchak Pundak was a warrior in Israel's wars. He was promised a promotion to General by Moshe Dayan in 1954, but the promise was not kept. Chief of Staff Benny Gantz rectified that situation after nearly 60 years...

this is Latma's final clip... (for now?)

The Ministry of Health has been on a campaign to inoculate children born after January 1, 2004 for the polio virus with a weakened-virus oral inoculation.

They say it is very important to get the relevant children inoculated.

Visiting Bnei Braq today, Minister of Health Yael German mentioned that the percentages are low in the haredi community of inoculations, and she said people are less aware of the need and in a city with so many children and so many children who are not given vaccinations it is so important that they get this polio vaccination.

And here is what I wanted to point out - Rav Shteinman was asked what he thinks about the necessity of getting inoculated. According to Kikar, Rav Shteinman's responses was that people should get their kids inoculated, and the ability to heal was given to the doctors, so it is very important to heed the instructions of the doctors - if they say to inoculate, you should do so. While it is brought down that people with great faith do not need to get involved in medicine, that only applies to someone with a level of faith that is practically not present today among anybody, so we are all obligated by the passuk of "ורפא ירפא".

The Rabbanut of Jerusalem just added a new level of kashrut supervision to its options. Weirdly enough it is very difficult to find information and details about the matter. Both the Rabbanut and the Rabbanut Jerusalem websites are useless in such matters, and the news sites do not give enough details.

If you thought it was tough to know in which restaurants you could eat, which certificates were ok and which were fake, which level is appropriate for you, this new one is probably going to make it even more confusing, as the differences are not really clear.

Here are the details I have seen so far:

from JKN

The Rabbanut of Jerusalem has added a level of certification and supervision called "Kashrut Mehuderet", and it is situated in between the "regular kosher" level and the "kashrut mehadrin min hamehadrin" level.

The idea of Mehuderet seems to be a level of kashrut somewhat better (i.e. more stringent) than regular kashrut, but not as stringent as mehadrin. According to Ladaat, the reason for this new level is that with Jerusalem being such a toursty city, many people come to Jerusalem and do not require the top level of kashrut but do not want to rely on the regular level. It seems that many mashgichim were bringing back requests from customers that wanted improved kashrut levels but don't need things to be similar to the Eida - such as, they want the food to be cooked by a Jew (regular Rabbanut only requires a Jew to light the fire, even though for Sefardim it is technically not enough).

This new level is only being offered to meat restaurants. Dairy, for now, is being perceived as less of an issue because people are generally not as strict regarding their requirements for dairy restaurants.

It seems that the change is really largely expressing things that are already facts on the ground into a clearer certificate of kashrut. Meaning, many "regular kosher" restaurants have a non-Jew cooking with a Jew lighting the fire. Plenty, however, are stricter (for whatever reason) and only have a Jew doing the cooking. Yet the certificate just says "regular kosher", so the consumer does not know. With the new level, a restaurant that has a Jew cooking, will get the kashrut mehuderet instead of "regular kosher".

Another difference seems to be what products they use. Rabbanut Mehadrin only uses meat from Rabbanut Yerushalayim Mehadrin, or from a small list of other approved organizations (e.g. She'airis and Kehillos), while "Mehuderet" will not limit the sources of meat in that way. Also, Mehadrin restaurants can only use products, not just meat, approved by a limited set of Badatz organizations, while Mehuderet will not be limited in that way.

We'll go for both ends if a statement today - Livni's statement and Bennet's response..


There will be a lot more support in the government for the peace process if the Labor party replaces Habayit Hayehudi.. Habayit Hayehudi opposes the idea of a 2-State solution, and this is a big problem for negotiations...

  -- Minister of Justice Tzippi Livni

and Naftali Bennet's response was fast in coming...

Get over it..

  -- Minister of economics and Trade Naftali Bennet

Today the new rules about the Kitzvat Yeladim - the child allotments - go into effect.

The new policy will directly hurt a lot of people. While I surely have benefitted from receiving child allotments, and don't complain when the government wants to give me free money, I never really understood why it had to be given (or why some people acted as if it has to be). but that is beside the point.

I find it ironic that when some people were defending the child allotments, in previous years and when rationalizing to the public that it has nothing to do with being haredi, the claim was always that it is not a Haredi benefit, or it is not an Arab benefit, even though they tend to benefit from it the most, but is a benefit available to anybody and is given to everybody who has kids, yet when the allotments are cut suddenly the attacks go out that it is anti-haredi...

All those years when it was given freely and the money was flowing, it had nothing to do with haredim. Now that it is being stopped it is being cut for anti-haredi motives..

It either is or it isnt...

On another note, I do think that if the cut had to happen, and it seems like it did, they should have at least waited until after the holidays rather than cutting it right before...

A story that was big news in the religious media yesterday was that of a restaurant named 'Vista' in Ashqelon, under the kashrut supervision of the Rabbanut, in which the owner was caught, by the mashgiach kashrut, trying to sell non-kosher meat as kosher. When the mashgiach caught him, he immediately revoked the kashrut certificate.

The restaurant owner tried to hide from the mashgiach the arrival of a batch of non-kosher meat, and he unpacked the meat while trying to pass of a certificate of kashrut to the mashgiach as if it was connected to that batch of meat. The Rabbanut received information about the situation, and the mashgiach confronted the owner caught in his lie, and the mashgiach took him immediately to a disciplinary hearing during which the kashrut certificate was revoked. The fraud division of the Rabbanut is also starting legal action against the restaurant owner.

The restaurant still advertises itself, both on its website and in its print advertising, as being kosher. The Rabbanut wants to warn the public that this restaurant is not kosher.

Why do I care? I probably don't have too many readers out in Ashqelon...

Here's the point I want to make. I do not consider this a story. The guy was caught before he sold any non-kosher meat. The mashgiach did his job just fine. No scandal. Commentators taking the opportunity to bash the Rabbanut about this incident were out of place, as the Rabbanut did a perfectly fine job. Even if they use lenient standards and one does not want to rely on their kashrut, this icident is not one that can be used to show the Rabbanut as a failure, as one whose kashrut supervisors cannot be relied upon. The mashgiach here did a perfectly fine job.

To me, this story is really just a PSA to not eat at that restaurant. A kashrut scandal is when a kosher establishment is only caught after 5 years (or however long) of selling non-kosher meat, not when the establishment is caught in real-time when just getting started in the attempted scam. That is exactly why we have kashrut supervision and supervisors - because we do not completely trust proprietors of businesses trying to make profit off the business of kosher food.

(supposedly this clip cost $70,000 to produce)