people who are in business and say their food is kosher are not trustworthy since they know that the food costs the owner money and not kosher food is cheaper. When the owner has a hecksher so some rabbi who makes no profit from the sale attests that it is kosher and we can trust him. But when the owner decides that the hechsher costs too much money he is saying he needs to save money by not having a hechsher. When he then says so trust me, it means since he won't pay for a rabbi to certify his store, we can reasonably assume he is using cheaper foods, and perhaps with non kosher ingredients, since he is not a rabbi nor a knowledgeable person rather trying to save money. therefore, those who eat kosher will stay away and those who care not for kosher will eat there.

If that is all the kosher supervisors are paid, aren't the authorities afraid that they will take bribes? Who can live on that kind of salary in Israel?

Not saying they won't take bribes, but $10.50/hour (about NIS 38) comes out to NIS ~7000/month for full time. This is not a great salary, but it's quite alright, especially considering the type of work they do. Policemen and teachers often make less, they're the ones we should be more concerned about.

You are right. Policemen and teachers should make more.

I'm glad for another standard because the kosher certification sure seems like a mafia shakedown. To the other posters, $10.50 an hour for a now show job is a lot. How many restaurants do they charge for the same hour , one restauranteur said the visit was minutes. And for heavens sake why no turkey & Swiss, a match made in heaven. Poultry is not meat, I never saw a chicken nurse it's young.

up to (according to the seriousness of the offense) lifetime ban on working in the food industry. The Khareidim have repeatedly demonstrated that they are both corrupt and capricious. To me that means undependable. I don't trust them. With a strong fraud law in place against defrauding the public regarding kashrut, a dati kind of Kolboteq, or the American model with choose-your-own-standard, could do a better job than what's happening now -- without Ultra-Orthodox taking over the world and putting everyone under their rule and, eventually, making everyone return to the religious Dark Ages and wear their costume.

Tourists rely on the Kashrus Certificate posted in the window to know whether a place is reliably kosher. Tourists can't investigate every owner to see if he cvan be trusted. In most cases it is to the owner's advantage to have a kashrus certificate.

In the rest of the Jewish world Kashrut certificates are ONLY issued to religious Jewish owners that themselves keep Kosher and keep the Sabbath what trust is there in owners who think so little of the Sabbath and totally desecrate it by personal lifestyle , how can they truly be trusted ...ask yourself If it is meaningless in their lives wouldn't it be meaningless in yours for them ?!

Telling Us that you are a Jew is defrauding everyone .

What a person eats does not shape his or her mind, but it may leave an impression sometime. I know Israel could write a definition of the "True Jew" in the Knesset and it would leave an impression on some people in the country, but probably not outside. However, the Knesset doesn't even think about writing it, they have been afraid to do it since the state's establishment. Eating out in Kosher restaurants does not compensate for the inaction. There is an intellectual vacuum here. Feel free to start to filling the vacuum.

Kosher certification is perhaps a nice idea, but maybe not as realistic as it was hoped to be.

But , where did the article talk about Organic food ?

and not of the Creator. You must organic food. It will save your health and makes you happy and strong. Kosher is a fake and goes o destruction.

I enjoyed this article by Rabbi Brackman. I preferred it, though, when I wrote about the same thing in a more extensive piece six months ago on Jewlicious.com in whic I also interviewed Rabbi Liebowitz and Shai Ginhi. Here is the link to that article: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4474552,00.html

Kashrut in Spain ,where it was eradicated since the inquisition and reintroduced not long ago?

Tell me , if you can , what is FAKE in Kosher food ? For religious Jews , kosher food is a commandement by G-D !

I worked for a commercial food production company that paid a mashgiach to work full time, on-site, so that they could have the kosher certificate. Once a year, if they did not make a "voluntary" contribution to some fund or yeshiva, the certificate would be revoked.

On the web there are lists of Kosher restaurants in most towns . Not all are listed . We use Kashrut with T not S !

if someone says u that something is kosher than 100% it is.. even the most atheist guy would say it.. nobody lies on a fact like that.. in fact in the halacha it is written that when u go to buy something u have to ask the seller if it is kosher and if he answers u yes and it isnt than its his fault because we must believe to each other..

For a job, where the guy litterally does nothing but watch, 10:50 is a lot of money.