Leviathan Sahar, a company that markets kosher meat in Israel, filed a lawsuit in the Jerusalem District Court for 5.7 million shekels against the Chief Rabbinate - due to the cancellation of kosher certificates for meat imported from Argentina.
According to a report today (Tuesday) by Nurit Kadosh and Tomer Ganon in 'Calcalist', In 2022, the company purchased approximately 630 tons of meat from Nahum Meat Import and Marketing, with the aim of marketing it ahead of the Tishrei holidays.
The purchase was made based on the kashrut certificates granted by the Chief Rabbinate.
However, in July of that year, the Rabbinate's Kashrut Fraud Department published a "Special Kashrut Update," in which several of the kosher certificates were revoked. The update stated that "the use of products imported from this factory is prohibited.".
According to the report in Calcalist, the update affected approximately 275 tons of meat purchased by Leviathan. 77 tons have already been sold, leaving it with 198 tons of meat for which the kashrut certificates issued were canceled.
According to the company, the head of the importer's slaughter team, who was approved by the Chief Rabbinate, left the factory in February and was replaced by someone who served as an "external inspector" and was not acceptable to the Rabbinate.
The company claims that "the Rabbinate did not see a halakhic kashrut defect in the slaughter, but rather an administrative irregularity and violation of its procedures, in that one of the members of the slaughtering team was a person who was unacceptable to it.".
'Leviathan Sachar requested permission to market the meat at a lower level of kosher and even attached letters from rabbis who were present at the slaughter and who, it claimed, attested to its proper quality.
The request was denied, and the company's petition to the High Court was continued on the court's recommendation due to the halachic authority of the Rabbinate, in which the court would not interfere.
Following the cancellation of the certificates, the company was forced, it claims, to sell the meat at a price lower than its purchase price to customers in the Palestinian Authority and others who did not require a kosher certificate.
In the lawsuit, Leviathan Sachar claims that the Rabbinate itself was negligent, since the head of the slaughter team reported to it in real time about his departure. According to the company, cross-referencing the report with the slaughter dates would have revealed that the meat was slaughtered without a team approved by the Rabbinate, and therefore there was no reason to issue kosher certificates for it in the first place.
